Very interesting topic.

On Friday evening, I sat in with a 4 piece band for a Birthday party for a friend of the band. We had musicians sitting in and out all night but I was the constant on the keys.

Each performer came up with their own song and style.

They called out a tune and we just played it.

So, unrehearsed, I played about 25 or more songs which I never played before without charts and in some case not even given the key of the song. It was close to an OPEN MIKE, but these guys were really, really, good. Just to give some idea of the type of stuff that was played, one of the songs we did was Minute by Minute by Michael McDonald, we also did Kid Charlemayne by Steely Dan on to Freebird back to the Shaker Song by Spyro Gyro for the Sax player. Whew!!

Talk about getting your adrenaline pumping, but man did I have a blast. This is where your training really pays off. Not that I'm a hard core keyboardist, but I have an outstanding ear and improvisational skills which allowed me to "wing it". My improv skills improving the result of finally studying with a Jazz teacher for the past year at the ripe ole' age of 48!

The moral of the story is: I couldn't agree more with UD. You have to really put yourself on the "edge" sometimes to grow as a musician no matter what your age or life station is in music.

Man I wish I could do this full-time and get handsomely paid for it!!!!

Al