Jeff’s “Musical Career” Soon May No Longer Qualify for Oxymoron Status

So everyone knows that I talk a lot about my time at the YMCA trying desperately to change the body that God gave me, and that I spend 40 hours a week at a hotel in San Francisco for reasons unbeknownst to me (but I like it, don’t get me wrong), but I talk very little about me as a musician. And I don’t really know why that is. Because since I was in the second grade, music has consumed my life. The short version of my life as a musician is that in the second grade my mother noticed that I could play the piano by just listening to things on the radio, so she saw the need for me to start taking lessons. Well, as little Jeff grew up he attended a performing arts high school, and then went on to college to study trombone performance…yes, trombone. That’s really what I’ve focused on ever since I started high school. Anywho….

Since moving out to the bay area, I’ve really been looking for outlets to play and to meet people so I could get hooked into the scene around here but have been pretty unsuccessful. That is, until I started to use the power of Craigslist. So I responded to an ad for a guy looking for musicians for a pit orchestra for a local community theater in Alameda. So I responded, and I’m in! I’ll be doing the show Cabaret starting in September. It doesn’t pay much, but that’s not what’s important. It’s important to me to be playing and meeting other musicians. And also, I’ve taken the initiative to try to find brass players willing to form a brass quintet. So far I have 3 of the 5 needed and I’m just keeping my fingers crossed for the second trumpet player and horn player. It’s hard to find a good horn player.

But anyway, I find this all very exciting. I’m so thrilled to finally be using my talents again. It’s so fulfilling when I’m playing in a musical ensemble and just thinking how this is what I love and I’m earning money while I’m enjoying myself. That is the best job…when you don’t feel like you’re working. But anyway, I won’t force you to continue to read. But expect to be reading much more than the 1500M that I swam today (which I did…hooray for me). Good night. Sweet dreams.