Today in church, one of the songs we were playing was ended early by Kevin. I didn’t know it at the time, but he had broken a string on his guitar. I was glad I was paying close attention to what was going on because as the drummer… if you keep going accidentally - it’s kinda hard to cover up or make it seem as though you “meant to do that”. Anyhow, I’m trying harder and harder to not rely on written music as much as I have in the past. Today, I only had music for the two new songs in the set and played the other three older songs from memory. It’s nice to have the safety net of being able to look over at my music and see what I need to be doing. It’ll be a LOT nicer to know the song backwards and forwards though and not have to look at music at all. How can I do that? Practice more. On the weeks I play, I practice a couple of hours - more if we have new songs to learn. I could stand to add more time to that though. I mentioned to Kevin an idea we bounced around in the past, and that was to go to 2 band practices a week instead of the 1 practice we’ve been doing for years. If we really want to get better, we have to start doing things differently now. That’s really all it boils down to.

I was also the holdup during sound check today… not so much me, but the sound techs dialing in my mics. Things sounded “wrong” in my in-ear mix only to find out the channels I was using were still set for the other drummer… he and I use totally different microphones and also have totally different requirements for what we hear in our monitors. So… all my stuff was messed up today. In the end, everything seemed to work out but I can’t deny that it’s a little frustrating. Despite that, everyone stayed pleasant and got things worked out and that’s what really matters.

In other band stuff, Megan was up on stage today playing keys. She did a great job especially considering she only had 2 days notice. She put a lot of effort into getting ready - playing the piano at my house going over her parts for most of the day Saturday. She even had time to help me in the yard too…