You are hereby challenged to find the joy in small things, because life is short and love is large.

— GraceInSmallThings.com

Okay, it’s been a while – not since I found joy in the small things, but certainly since I posted about it. Here are five musical bits of joy from the last week or so:

1. A paying gig!

2. A non-paying gig for a good cause.

3. My kids working hard to prepare for an upcoming piano recital.

4. A somewhat regular jam with good friends that has turned into a band.

5. A rehearsal with the aforementioned band that went shockingly well!

More about Grace In Small Things

You are hereby challenged to find the joy in small things, because life is short and love is large.

— GraceInSmallThings.com

1. Playing Christmas music with good friends at the Windreach Farm Christmas Party. (“WindReach Farm provides an inclusive, safe and welcoming environment for persons of all ages and disabilities by providing opportunities to enjoy experiences in a farm and natural environment. “)

2. Playing Christmas and other seasonal music with good friends at my kids’ school.

3. Adding 3 new instrumental fingerstyle tunes to my repertoire!

4. Getting out to 3 different open mics in one month!

5. Seeing video from one of those 3 open mics, and not being horrified.

More about Grace In Small Things

1. Students who are accepting the challenge of entering the Sunderland Music Festival.

2. Guitar Night! An all too infrequent gathering of fellow guitarists for the purposes of playing into the wee hours.

3. Pretty much nailing a tune that I’ve been working on for months at Guitar Night.

4. A season of not having to badger my kids to practice piano.

5. This conversation:

Student: [stopping] “That didn’t sound right.”

Teacher: “Even if a note sounds wrong, keep going. Sometimes you have to play the next note to make the first note sound right.”

Student: “So its like life.”

More about Grace In Small Things

You are hereby challenged to find the joy in small things, because life is short and love is large.

— GraceInSmallThings.com

Grace In Small Things is a website that encourages us to look past the noise in our lives and look for grace in the “small things” – those day to day moments of joy that we sometimes forget to acknowledge and appreciate. This strikes me as an excellent idea, so I am going to take up the challenge with a musical “Grace in Small Things” drawn from the last week or so.

Here we go:

1. The realization that one day soon I will have a Don Ross tune in my repertoire – not there yet, but barring a God-sized intervention, it will be.

2. Being sufficiently inspired to start learning another Don Ross tune.

3. Attending a guitar teacher’s workshop and learning that there is still much to learn.

4. Working on learning it.

5. Jamming until the wee hours with great friends who also happen to be great musicians.