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[playingrisipiti]

I'm not a beginner musician, and once I get into whatever it is I'm playing, I quickly overcome my shyness in sessions and pick up the groove of things. My only issue is I have this looming fear of learning all those big tunes out there. You know, the ones that really get things cooking, all fast and snazzy and whatnot. How do I move past this?

Comments

[fiddle_dragon]

*chuckle* just plunge in. Or find a subset of musicians within session and see if you can get together and jam? I found that as the weekends progressed out at Fest, and I was regularly playing with the same couple of people (one tremendously advanced in all the bells and whistles) I found myself more comfortable trying new stuff, and stopped interpreting the looks as "what the ()#*&$(*) are you doing" to the more actual "Hey that was cool, try it again" thought.

don't worry have fun with it all

[rutemple]

all big huge tunes break down into smaller, easily handled sections.

it's like the old joke about eating an [insert huge creature here]
-- one bite at a time...

I think also that some of Erik Hoffman's ideas about growth stages of a dancer apply to session musicians as well: there's the beginner, the hot shot, and the community builder. You can probably avoid the pitfalls of the hot-shot stage by aiming directly in to that community-building place, and both have and create a whole lot more fun along the way to having those snazzy driving tunes under your fingers, which inthe end only takes practice.