The Covert Bassist

So. I’ve been learning to pay the bass – for about eight months. No amp. No teacher. Just reading the books and the notes and learning. She is home now. Home from six months of backpacking and back country rangering and so the dance of living in a music house begins again.

I wait until she goes off to noontime martial arts class before I practice my vocal exercises because I don’t want to scream her ears off and I am trying to break through that barrier, to give it more, to be a better, stronger vocalist than I have ever been before. I play piano in the evenings. Often with the door ajar. Piano I have under my belt so it is a good thing to share with the neighbors; not so my siren wailing. Once the door is closed, I woodshed on the guitar. Anytime of day I can play the bass because I don’t have an amp. So really, I can’t play the bass when someone else – like the off-season ranger – is playing mandolin and singing at performance pitch. Actually, who would want to practice bass anyway when you can listen to such heartfelt and talented protest folk tunes coming from the other room. 

Let’s rethink that. Who wouldn’t want to play along to such anthems? Mandolin. Voice. The only logical complement to the sound is bass. Preferably upright bass. But here I am – the mom in the other room with a horizontal bass and no amp. An aspiring bassist who can’t help but move toward the music. So, I head to the kitchen. Two walls and the thickness of a closet between us. 

When she plays, I play. When she falls silent, I fall silent. But I am cloistered around the corner in the kitchen and she doesn’t even know I am there. When she stops to ferret out the next gem of a lyric, I hold my peace. I look around the kitchen to see what is at hand to occupy my time. Sadly, what is at hand is carob chips, a cask of peanut butter, bags of corn chips, a plethora of natural snacks. I’m going to have to move to the other room and confess before I gain 20 pounds. While there’s not too much unusual or interesting about a mom hiding in the pantry and eating herself into obesity; and there may be a little something romantic about a covert bassist; it’s probably time to come out of the closet. I’ve ordered an amp. That way I can plug in the headphones and no one will ever know.