Nashville Day #4

This week is flying by. I'm feeling pretty settled in at this point. I don't have all that much to do during the daylight hours here so yesterday I decided to check out the Musicians Hall of Fame Museum. I'm not usually into all the touristy stuff, but I was so glad to check out the museum and see how much history is here. So many great musicians had there start here and it was encouraging (and yet intimidating) to know that I'm here at this moment trying to fulfill my dreams, just as they all have done in the past. Even more interesting than that was reading about all the studio musicians that made it possible for people like Elvis, Garth Brooks, Johnny Cash, etc. to get their music out there. I'm finding more and more that this city has shifted it's focus and has mainly become a place for songwriters, studio musicians, and studio engineers to make connections and work behind the scenes of all the celebrities, making what they do possible. I feel challenged to go home and re-focus on my songwriting.

I was honestly pretty lazy the rest of the day until I went out with my roommate in the evening. It's crazy how quickly you make friends here. We met one of her friends for dinner at the Tavern; It's this cool little restaurant in midtown. I had a beer and chatted with them for a bit but I didn't stay long because I wanted to get to the open mic at the Commodore Grille early to make sure I got a spot to play. As soon as I got there I ran into Tommy, an older gentlemen I keep running into at the open mics. I was glad he was there and as we were watching the songwriters play their set, he was giving me all sorts of advice about getting into the music scene here and just overall guiding me in the right direction. He reassured me of the places I should try to get into and gave me pointers on the things that I was unsure of. The best part of all of this is that this kind of hospitality doesn't appear to be an usual thing. It's not nearly as cut-throat as I was expecting it to be. Everyone is so willing to give each other a helping hand.

Luckily, I got there early enough to be one of 8 people to play the open mic after the show. I was the only keyboard player, but I think it went over well. Tommy offered to take some pictures of me, so if you're reading this Tommy, thanks again! They turned out great! The host seemed pretty pressed for time, but she went out of her way to tell me she thought I had a great voice so I was grateful for some feedback. I've been meeting so many people and I'm not sure who all is able to help me out and who are the "right" people to know but I think a lot of it is probably luck, hoping that somebody from somewhere is at an open mic listening. Either way, there's plenty I'm learning and plenty to take away from this experience so far.

After the open mic, I wasn't very tired so I sat in the lobby on my floor at the hostel and chatted with some of the guys staying there. One of them in particular was a very vibrant character. He's a 22 year old college student, originally from China, but he's taking classes at a school in Missouri and he loves to travel (as do most people in the hostel). He was telling us all about his recent trip to Vegas with an ex-girlfriend of his. He pretty much just left school, didn't tell anybody where he was going or what he was doing, and went to Vegas for two weeks. Nobody knew where he was and they almost reported him as a missing person. I suddenly felt like my trip to Nashville wasn't so daring. Also, this was apparently after he'd broken up with his girlfriend, so they weren't in a relationship when they were in Vegas. This seems to be a recurring theme for him because he broke up with his most recent girlfriend and then a week later went on a road trip with her. I think he's single now though. Either way, I thought the story was entertaining. There were many more adventures he talked about and we stayed up fairly late into the night just sharing life stories until I was ready to call it a night. I made plans to hang out at the hostel tonight with my roommate before she leaves to go back to Connecticut tomorrow morning so I'm sure I'll have more stories to share tomorrow. The hostel was such a good decision.