***

I was playing music in the park yesterday, as has become my ritual. The park was full - not in a Dolores Park way, but such that wherever I sat someone was going to hear me play. I picked a spot at the edge of where the sporty kids' base camp was when they weren't playing ultimate tackle frisbee or football. [They were an interesting group, actually. Six guys and two girls, black and white, nerdy and jock-y]. And then on the other side of me, this other guy sat down with a truck load of baby toys and a tiny tiny girl baby in a little jean jumper.

I sat there contemplating whether the vast expanse of the park would absorb the sound coming from my picnic blanket before it got to the people around me, one of whom was sleeping.

I played Salt Creek about a hundred times and Cripple Creek and Fireball Mail and played chords and my new bit in Sylvia. I strummed through Idea, Frankenstein, Marcher, Picture Yourself, having puzzled out what a major seventh shape might look like on a banjo and which chord structure it might go with Saturday night. Determination: major sevenths - easier to play than normal sevenths.

And I think there's something about musical instruments, right? because on their own they're silent. And you can't make those sounds on your own either, but then you + instrument makes something happen that wouldn't be there otherwise. One of those whole is greater than the sum of its parts things. You know, the kind of relationship you feel you ought to have with everything - where you can just hear and feel how well its going. And it makes you better than yourself.

Anyway, this is all to say that as I was packing up to go, the man with the baby rolled over on his mat to say that I'd done some beautiful playing. I smiled and said thanks, having wondered earlier in the day at what point you move from being someone who plays an instrument to being a musician.