Making Music on the Longest Day of the Year
On June 21st, Make Music plans free shows across the world.
On the first day of summer and the longest day of the year, I’m always reminded of when Eric Walpole and I played for a bunch of kids at a Park Slope community garden back in 2016. The gig was part of Make Music New York, a musical holiday which takes place across the city where anyone can sign up to perform free shows in public spaces. Eric signed us up and we were scheduled to play at the Warren Street community garden. Though we’d played all kinds of gigs, this was our first gig at a garden so we had no idea what to expect.
We arrived about an hour early and checked out our performance space - a large, well kept garden with plants, flowers, and a chicken coop. We joked that nobody would show and we’d be stuck playing to the chickens. We set up our equipment and waited.
To our surprise, around 6pm people began entering and taking their seats. The audience was entirely parents and their young children. We realized our usual setlist of our original rock tunes that we played at Manhattan bar venues wouldn’t do well in this environment. We had to change it up.
The low-key environment of the garden and welcoming energy of the community members mirrored our own childhood - when Eric and I joined our dad to play music around the campfire and at family parties.
Later, as we developed as musicians and performers we learned to read the room and play to the audience. So Eric and I jammed some blues tunes, played a few Beatles covers we thought the kids would enjoy and adapted what we knew to make the performance engaging. The kids sang and clapped along and we managed to have a lot of fun.
So today, on this first day of summer and longest day of the year, get out there and have some fun - enjoy music from local bands, artists, and singers, and celebrate this special day! It’s not everyday you can walk outside and hear some music right on your corner or in your community garden.
Until next time,
KW
What a great memory, thanks brother!