If I had someone else's voice

I've always thought I could be a great blues singer, if my voice weren't so terrible. Last summer I started on the seemingly more attainable goal of learning blues harmonica. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be. You have to do weird hard things with your tongue. My teacher admires my determination, if not my skills, so in that vein I made the rule that on this trip I have to play at least every other day. And, because I like to torture myself, I'm going to play outside. In public. In front of people. Yikes. Maybe it will help with my stage fright. (The one other time I played in front of people--two easy solos for some drunk supportive friends--I nearly had a meltdown.) The pressure to not suck should make me practice harder, anyway.

My Hungarian debut was not all that memorable. I thought I would sit on a bench by the river but then there were no benches so I settled for the top of the railing to some steps to the footpath of a bridge. There was a street below so I'm not sure how far the sound carried or who could really hear me. Easing into the whole audience thing, I guess. I did get honked at a few times but who knows, maybe they just liked my hair or something. The good news I guess is that even though I felt sort of awkward, it wasn't terrifying. It's a start.