(I started this entry about 2 weeks ago now, so just add 2 weeks to all time references in the first 2 paragraphs)
I joined a gym a week and a half ago when I came back from Sofia. There was a promotional special for Interlang staff, and I had been looking for one to join for the past month or so. It all worked out perfectly.
On Tuesday I was chatting with a couple of the trainers (the gym, like all Turkish businesses, is very service-oriented. You don't have to think about anything, the instructors are all there for you constantly. I don't even have to get off the treadmill when I run out of water, just press the button and the instructor comes over to you, you ask for water, instructor calls down to the cafe on the intercom, cafe guy shows up 10 seconds later, at your treadmill, with your bottle of cold water! It's great. But I digress.) So I'm chatting with the trainers, and somehow it comes up that I play the violin and guitar. One of them suggested that I bring one of them sometime and play for them. It just so happened that the next day was a Baha'i Holy Day and I would have my guitar because I was going to the gym before the Holy Day celebration, so the next day I had it there. I wasn't going to say anything, thinking that the trainers were just making the suggestion for the sake of conversation, but when I was leaving, one of them saw me with the guitar and called me back to play something. I went into the office and played a song. Some of you may know that generally when I'm playing the guitar and singing, I close my eyes. This is not out of shyness or anything, it's just that I still have trouble focusing when playing and singing at the same time and with my eyes closed I can concentrate. So I'm almost at the end of the song, and I open my eyes, and there at the door of the office, are 4 trainers, a couple of cleaning staff, and about 6 of the other member who had been working out. When I started the song there were just the 2 instructors there! Anyway, I was quite embarassed, but they all loved it and asked for more. I played one more then packed up. It turned out that one of the other members who was there working out was a professional guitarist and singer. He works in a cafe just around the corner from the gym. His name is Ozgur. He suggested we jam together sometime, and the other members, and the instructors all were trying to be sure it was a time when they could all make it, as you can imagine, it was pandemonium, and all in Turkish! Anyway, we decided to get together at the gym cafe on the following Friday night at 10. Hence the title of this entry :Gym Jam.
On Tuesday I was chatting with a couple of the trainers (the gym, like all Turkish businesses, is very service-oriented. You don't have to think about anything, the instructors are all there for you constantly. I don't even have to get off the treadmill when I run out of water, just press the button and the instructor comes over to you, you ask for water, instructor calls down to the cafe on the intercom, cafe guy shows up 10 seconds later, at your treadmill, with your bottle of cold water! It's great. But I digress.) So I'm chatting with the trainers, and somehow it comes up that I play the violin and guitar. One of them suggested that I bring one of them sometime and play for them. It just so happened that the next day was a Baha'i Holy Day and I would have my guitar because I was going to the gym before the Holy Day celebration, so the next day I had it there. I wasn't going to say anything, thinking that the trainers were just making the suggestion for the sake of conversation, but when I was leaving, one of them saw me with the guitar and called me back to play something. I went into the office and played a song. Some of you may know that generally when I'm playing the guitar and singing, I close my eyes. This is not out of shyness or anything, it's just that I still have trouble focusing when playing and singing at the same time and with my eyes closed I can concentrate. So I'm almost at the end of the song, and I open my eyes, and there at the door of the office, are 4 trainers, a couple of cleaning staff, and about 6 of the other member who had been working out. When I started the song there were just the 2 instructors there! Anyway, I was quite embarassed, but they all loved it and asked for more. I played one more then packed up. It turned out that one of the other members who was there working out was a professional guitarist and singer. He works in a cafe just around the corner from the gym. His name is Ozgur. He suggested we jam together sometime, and the other members, and the instructors all were trying to be sure it was a time when they could all make it, as you can imagine, it was pandemonium, and all in Turkish! Anyway, we decided to get together at the gym cafe on the following Friday night at 10. Hence the title of this entry :Gym Jam.
On the Friday morning I went to the gym, and one of the trainers told em that there was another guitarist coming. I was really looking forward to it.
Friday after class I headed over to the gym with my flatmate and another English teacher. We went down to the cafe, and there were about 30 people there! I was shocked. There were 3 chairs set up for the "performers" and there it was. We all took turns playing songs, singing, improvising backup, improvising gitar parts, and I occasionally drummed out a rhythm on the body of my guitar when the chords got too far out of my league. We had a great time jamming, and the audience (which I defintely wasn't expecting) loved it! What I was really surprised about was that I really wasn't nervous. That was nice. Anyway, it's encouraged me to play the guitar more and sing more. Ozgur and I are talking about setting up another time to actually work on some stuff together. I'm really looking forward to it. I really miss sitting down with musicians and just playing music together. It'll be interesting being a part of that as a violinist, guitarist and singer now... it's so weird. People at the gym now refer to me as "the singer" (in Turkish of course)....
That was the Gym Jam!
1 comment:
I'm so glad you're doing music--and this sounds like it was awesome!
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