When you are learning to play an instrument, you spend an awful lot of time playing it by yourself. And that’s a good thing–in another post I’ll talk about practice. But at some point you need to venture outside of your living room…or at least invite some friends into your living room…and play in front of someone other than your husband or your accordion-loving dog. Easier said than done.

Stage fright is a weird beast. I never thought I had it. I acted in plays all through high school. Plus I often speak in public for my job and can practically do it standing on my head. Sure, I get the occasional dry mouth or the tiniest flutter of stomach butterflies, but basically I don’t get rattled.

I get rattled when I play in front of people. Really rattled. But here’s the catch. The only way to get used to playing in front of people and to get over that feeling that you want to be killed immediately, is to actually play in front of people…over and over again. Son of a bitch!

So I started out slow. I learned Happy Birthday for my friend Andy’s 40th birthday and performed it at his party (this required a public do over). I even played in front of my colleagues at the staff meeting, which definitely required shutting the conference room door and later an apology email to HR. But no matter how much I’d nailed the song in private, I’d always choke in public, even if my public was two friends over at the house for a beer–it’s always best to wait until they’ve had more than one.

Then I came up with the idea of learning AND performing the song You Are My Sunshine at my niece’s wedding reception. Seemed like a splendid idea at the time, but the closer I got to the wedding, the more I freaked out and imagined a meltdown in front of 100 wedding guests staring awkwardly at their feet. I shared my anxieties with the splendid musicians of Happy Lucky Combo and the boys were gracious enough to let me do a dry run with them at one of their Saturday morning farmer’s market gigs. I was way excited. My first public gig! With real musicians! Plus I had mastered the song in my living room at that point, so I imagined people smiling and tapping their toes and thinking to themselves, who is this chick on the accordion? Look at her fingers fly!

Um…it didn’t quite fly that way. When I arrived that morning it was 110 degrees under the Richmond city sun and I had flop sweats worse than Nixon. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely find the keyboard and I seriously questioned whether my bagel would stay down. And that was all before the playing started. Omigod…I sucked. In the picture above I’m looking at the music in sheer panic because it suddenly made as much sense as a sacred hymn in Sanskrit. Honest to God, it was as if I had never seen a note before. But God bless my friends. They came. They watched. And they clapped. And I survived. I went on to play AND survive at my niece’s wedding and things went considerably better. You can watch this performance if you want. Thankfully there is no video footage of my farmer’s market debut.

So the moral of this story is: grab your instrument and get out there and play it in front of someone. Anyone. And then do it again. It hurts–I’m not gonna sugar coat it. But it does get better. I promise.

“Hi, My name is Karen and I’m an accordion player.”

Hi, Karen.

OK, so maybe it’s not exactly an Accordions Anonymous meeting, but people do tend to look at you askance and avert their eyes when you admit to playing (or loving) one. I don’t get it. I don’t get the jokes either.

What’s the difference between an onion and an accordion? – No one cries when you chop up an accordion.

What do you call an accordion player with a beeper? – An optimist.

I mean, what’s not to like? It’s beautiful, it’s versatile–a freakin’ one-man band! Polkas, klezmer, Tejano, Cajun, Zydeco, Jazz, classical, Balkan, French–you name it, the list of musical genres goes on and on. It ain’t just the Beer Barrel Polka on the Lawrence Welk Show–not that there’s anything wrong with that!

I loved the Lawrence Welk show and watched it religiously when I was a little girl–I suspect that’s where my love affair with the accordion began. But fast forward to September 2007.

Joe and I are at Capital Ale House in Richmond celebrating Oktoberfest with a cold beer and an Oompah Band. The Oompah boys were fabulous, accordions and all, but the Brooklyn-based, Klezmer punk band Golem was what really got my attention. The lead singer was a petite woman in a short skirt and go go boots playing kick-ass accordion. This band rocked! When I got home it hit me. I didn’t want to just admire accordions anymore–I wanted to play one. So for my 45th birthday, which was conveniently the following month, my husband bought me a used accordion online from Elderly Instruments. 

I’m starting this blog for two reasons. First, to encourage people that it’s really really fun and satisfying to learn to play an instrument in your forties. Second, to show people that the accordion gets a bad rap. Check back with me occasionally and I’ll do my best to show you why.

Accordions rule.