I’m a little nervous about practice tonight. I’m excited it’s happening. We have a gig tomorrow, and it feels necessary. The drummer doesn’t really like playing 2 days in a row, but I think it will be helpful. I know our keyboard player will find it helpful. The reason I’m nervous is because last week the guitar player and I got into it a little bit. It was the first time we’ve ever really had an issue. 20 years, and only one blow-up, I think that’s good. But that doesn't make me feel any better about my behavior. We talked the next day, once we were calm, and it seemed like everything was fine, but you still never know. Plus, he decided to drive himself to practice today. I’ve been taking him to practice for years, but he’s driving today. He wants to play with his gear, so I get it, it’s easier to fit his gear in his own SUV. Usually, we practice with the gear provided by the rehearsal studio. It’s okay for working on parts, but you want to make sure your gear is dialed in for the show, so, as mentioned, I get it. I really hope this tiff doesn’t linger. I don’t think it will. I know I’m not still upset. But I can be a bit of a dick when it comes down to it, and having never seen that side of me before, it might stay a while for him. I hope not. It’s really kind of strange that it happened on that day. That was the only day that none of us smoked any weed before practice! I stopped drinking at practice a while ago, and the drummer stopped even farther back than that. But it’s never really been an issue. I noticed smoking messes with my vocal cords, so I recently stopped doing that too. The guitar player just got a new job, so he stopped too. The drummer just got over covid, so he stopped too. And the keyboard player never really smoked that much anyway.
I think the drama with my vehicle already
had me riled up. The guitar player mentioned that it had been his first week at
his new job, so he was a little on edge as well. He used to have a pretty good “work
at home” job, and for the first time since the pandemic, he has to go to an
office every day. That does not make him happy. I know he’s happy to be employed,
I know he feels this job was a godsend, but his life has been altered, and it
takes all of us a while to deal with life alteration. The thing that frustrated
me the most is that he hit on like three nerves at the same time, having no
awareness that it had happened, and we were basically upset by 2 different
things. I was trying to talk to the keyboard player about a part in a song. But
realistically, I was talking about a grander scheme of how our songs should go
in general. While I was expressing myself to another person, about something I
care deeply about, the guitar player starts playing. At full volume. He knows
we were talking. He knows we weren’t done talking. Now in the music world, this
is something that happens from time to time. For some reason, there are certain
people who don’t seem to realize that people can’t hear each other when someone
is making a lot of loud noise. I find it terribly rude, and it is a major pet peeve
of mine. I attribute it to lack of awareness, and worse, lack of care. I
basically see it as a very loud “SHUT UP!” I also find it to be a character flaw,
since most of the people who do this, aren’t very good listeners anyway.
Knowing this is a thing, I can usually handle it. But then, he started to contradict
what I was saying. I was already talking to someone who was confused, so I didn’t
see how making a lot of noise, and then contradicting me, was helpful.
People who would rather talk than listen, are
another peeve of mine. At least let me finish what I’m saying! I can’t stand
when people think they know what I’m going to say. Every time it’s happened, I ask
the other person: “Okay, fine, what was I going to say?” They never get it
right! Ever. I do my best to not say things that don’t need said. If I’m saying
it, it’s because I don’t think the other person already knows what I’m going to
say. So, he got upset because he thought I was unwilling to have him give
input. He went into this whole thing about “having written the song, so he
should have the say.” I went into this whole thing about “we’re in a band and
should communicate better with each other to make the songs better.” At the
time it seemed like it was over, and I felt like I calmly handled myself. Then when
we got in the car on the way home, he brought it back up. And not just brought it
up, he started in on me about how he’s never stood up for himself, and when he
finally did, I squashed it. And how it’s not always about “me, me, me.” That is
when I lost it. My third nerve is when people try to tell me what I’m upset
about. It’s usually the same type of people that think they can finish your sentence.
He was accusing me of being upset because he had a different opinion. But I was
upset because my opinion was never even heard! And then, while we were trying
to have a discussion about our communication, he continued to not get what I was
saying. Every time he tried to derail the conversation, I got a little more
frustrated, and a little bit louder. So, he ended up seeing my ugly side. I’m
not proud of it, but it happened. And now we are going to go and try to solve
the same problem again.
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