Last Thursday, I subbed for my roommate Betsy playing solo piano at Hector’s on Henderson, a fancy restaurant in Dallas. She usually plays and sings, but I just played piano. I did a mix of standards and well known pop tunes. I got a few requests for Elton John and Billy Joel, which is fine, because I knew both the tunes (”Tiny Dancer” and “New York State of Mind.”)

This coming year, I’m going to try to focus in on practicing for these kinds of gigs, as they are pretty good. Solo piano offers you a lot of freedom to do what you want. It’s a little lonely playing without other folks, but the independence allows me to take such gigs on short notice, without having to organize a group of people. Also, it’s easier to get weekday gigs on solo piano rather than a larger group.

I played most of the gig from memory, only needing a list of tunes and their keys. I read some of the standards out of the real book. Ideally, I’d like to be able to do a whole show with just a list, and possibly add singing to it. That will take some work, but will probably be worth it. I don’t know where I’m going to move to once I graduate, but I want to be able to hit the ground running and go out and hustle some gigs, both on trumpet and piano.

This website redesign is awesome. Big props to Q, an old friend from high school who did this. This new look may be the catalyst that restarts me working on my web presence/blogging.