A couple of months ago, I started playing keyboards in a blues-rock band called 'The Jones.' It feels great playing music again. The last time I played in a band was in college. We called ourselves 'Fifth Beat,' and we mostly played jazz with some blues. I also had a weekly solo gig where I played for a couple of hours each night at a bistro in town called 'Harbs.' All that was 8 years ago. Since then, I haven't really done what I call 'playing.' It's more like I just sit at my piano every once in a while and try desperately to remember the stuff I used to play.

My first couple of practices with The Jones, I spent a good deal of time simply trying to get my feel for the keyboard back. My hands used to naturally fall into certain chord combinations and I found during my first practice with The Jones, that I had to really think about where my hands were and what they were going to do. This was pretty frustrating since I was also trying to learn all of the band's original songs, figure out what part I could play, and how I might be able to solo. It's kinda like I was learning to ride a bike again, while at the same time trying to do wheelies and jumps.

The mechanics of what I used to know has come back, for the most part. My fingers are again assuming chord positions without me giving too much thought to it. But the songs I used to know have still not come back to me, mainly because I've been spending most of my time learning The Jones set list. We've been at my in-laws for Thanksgiving and they have a nice-sounding grand piano which I like to doodle on when we're all just hanging out. The depressing part is I can only play about 5 songs of my old 'repertoire.' And even those 5 I remember are shaky at best. If I'm going to do this, I've got to spend more time re-learning the standards. That way when people ask me, 'Do you know such-and-such, I can hopefully do more than shrug my shoulders at them.

So yes, I'm in a band and we're called The Jones. Over the next several weeks (maybe months) I'm going to be working on revamping our Web site. I want to give it a facelift, but also we need to get some updated content on there. Stay tuned!

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