Satisfaction

I know it's not nice and I know that deep down, it's probably downright wrong.

However, I feel a strange sense of satisfaction that the woman who came into my former company and told us all we were losing our jobs has now lost her job.

On December 1st, she brought the 18 of us into a room together, told us we were losing our jobs and told us that the company would be "better" without us.

I really hope someone had the courtesy to give her the same speech that she gave us.

Fifteen Days Old

Above: Yup, that's my hand playing that "G" note.

As a fifteen day old bass player, I...

• have practiced and played every single day during these 15 days.
  
  
• have numbness in my fingertips.
  
  
• can play the basic bass notes for Nickelback's Rockstar, The Beatles' Hey Jude, Sheryl Crow's The First Cut is the Deepest and The Police's Every Breath You Take.
  
  
• am unsure why they would give some notes two names--and my 38 year old brain is having a tough time with it.
  
  
• have a whole new respect for anyone playing a stringed instrument of any kind.
  
  
• plugged into a bass amp for the first time and LOVED being able to hear myself amplified--I can see how that can become addictive.
  
  
• am driving my seasoned, guitar-player husband crazy with constant questions.
  
  
• find myself listening to music differently.
  
  
• really want to learn how to play Foo Fighters', The Pretender, after my husband taught me that cool bass lick, but need someone to chart out the notes for me.
  
  
• think I needed this creative outlet in my life right now more than I realized.
  
  
• think this is a whole lot more fun than I ever imagined it would be--why didn't I try this earlier in life?
  

Eight Reasons to Play Bass

Above - My beautiful bass!

So, where did the decision to play bass come from? Allow me to give you the back story and my Eight Reasons I Wanted to Play Bass.

1. I've wanted to play an instrument for a long time. I've just longed to be able to play something so I can play along with my husband when he's playing around the house or along with my favorite song. Plus, I live in Nashville. It's a music town and it just feels right.

2. I used to think playing guitar would be so cool and that would be the way I should go. I thought I could be like Lita Ford or Nancy Wilson in Heart.

After several attempts to learn things on guitar, I've discovered a few things:

a) The little, skinny, guitar strings really hurt when you have to press on them. They dig right into the flesh of your fingers and until you build up some decent callouses on your fingers - ouch.

b) My nails really get in the way of me making the contact I need to make with the strings and I don't really want to give up my nails.

3. My husband is a great guitar player. He's been playing since age 6. He's really already got the whole "guitar playing thing" covered. I would just be another (not as good) guitar player in the house. However, with the bass, I feel like it's a whole new ball game. While he can also play bass (and he may always be a better bass player than me too), his primary instrument is guitar, so why not turn to something that I can play along with him. If there's a cool song I want to learn on the radio, let him handle the cool guitar parts and I can learn to sort of groove along with him in my own way.

4. The strings on the bass are much fatter than guitar strings and don't hurt my fingers nearly as much as guitar strings, (but still hurt a little).

5. I can play bass AND keep my nails! Somehow, it still works!

6. Guitar = 6 strings, Bass = 4 strings. Two less strings to be concerned with? Yeah, sounds good to me.

7. As I am learning the preliminaries of beginner bass playing, it seems like there is much more focus on "notes" than on "chords"--at least right now. It seems I can get away with learning about one note at a time instead of dealing with entire chords to learn a song.

8. Last, but not least, we got a great deal on a cheap bass AND scored some free shipping as well. How can you go wrong with that?!

So, there you go. Now you know my reasons for wanting to learn bass. It's been wonderful so far. It's fun when something finally "clicks". It's fun to get more comfortable with playing. The whole experience is kind of exhilarating.

The best part?

After 4 days of just playing scales over and over and over, my husband, (who knows I'm a huge Nickelback fan) charted out the notes for the song, "Rockstar" for me.

I can play bass on a Nickelback song. (While looking at notes and while looking at where my fingers need to go.)

But I can play bass on a Nickelback song!

I never thought I could do something that cool (in my eyes) in less than a week. It's cool to have an awesome teacher (my sweet husband) who knows how to keep me motivated and to keep me wanting to learn more.

Who knows what could be next? A Beatles tune? Def Leppard? AC/DC? Journey?

I can hardly wait to find out...

Exciting Times

1. We got our tax ID number today for our new company. We are now are real company. A real, official company!

2. Now that we have an ID number, we can invoice people for the work we've done and we've done a surprising amount--and it keeps coming in. I'm so encouraged. Soon, I should have an income again!

3. We (our company) are on the verge of moving into some office space. Small office space, but really awesome office space. Office space in a historic part of town over top of the local Starbucks. How fun is that?! Below is a picture of the Starbucks that we'll be above.



4. A package just arrived for me moments ago. My bass is finally here and it is sitting in my living room. My bass. I like the sound of that. The box is cool. See below...even my dog is impressed!



It really felt like a good day. It feels like the tides are turning and things are starting to look up again.

Maybe this whole "losing my job" thing really will end up being one of the best things to ever happen to me. I can't wait to see for myself what happens.