A 5-piece band performance of "Hello World"

Earlier this summer, for the first time in awhile I had a chance to play with a band -- albeit just for one performance. The opportunity arose when an invitation went out to a music list I'm on at work, informing us about an upcoming diversity fair that had open performance slots available for musicians. So I signed up on the list, then contacted some other musicians on the list to see if they wanted to collaborate. We met a few times to rehearse, auditioned, then met for a few more practices before performing at the event.

There was some question as to whether my song, "Hello World," qualified for a "diversity" fair. The organizers were looking for more regional or world music, I think. But since the song was based on my daughter's red egg and ginger party, the organizers thought it could work. Here's a video clip of our performance back in June:



The band consisted of Erin Bell on vocals, Pauline Samson on sax, Rushabh Gandhi on bass, Ghan Patel on doumbek, and me on guitar. It was really fun playing with such talented musicians, from practicing with them, to arranging the song, and ultimately performing together. To hear the song take on a new life was also pretty gratifying. The experience definitely made me think further about whether I should focus more on playing in a band again rather than noodling away on my own. When you play in a group, you can complement each other with your various strengths and leverage the resources and talents of the collective group.

It turns out that while the band did meet a couple of times after our performance, before we could really get going again we got derailed. One person left the company, another went on sabbatical, I got pretty busy, and we just ran out of steam. I guess that's one of the challenges of playing in a band -- just being able to stick together and making the schedules work.