Return to the Killer Building

 

Weekdays are quieter for me, so sometimes I have nothing to say at all, like yesterday. However, today was an eventful day for me because my boss decreed that I had to go to the Killer Building. I'm not sure why, and when another coworker asked about going, she said, "No, you don't need to go." I also had band practice this evening, so it did kind of work out, because Travalon dropped me off at the Killer Building, and then he picked me up from band practice. The killer building was like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie, completely deserted and with tape and construction stuff around it and inside of it. I had read that it was open to the public as of this Monday, but a sign on the door said: "Authorized personnel only." I wasn't sure if my boss saying I had to go counted as being "authorized," and the door was locked, but I was able to open it with my ID card. I didn't see a single soul the whole time I was there, so I got a lot of work done, but still, it was creepy and eerie, and it would have been so much more pleasant to be working on my porch. I suspect my boss wants me to do the stuff my coworker did who had to come to the building once a week throughout the pandemic, but he is on paternity leave now, and I must be next lowest on the totem pole.

Once I got done with work, I lugged my big work bag and my mandolin the mile to my bandmate's house. It is actually 1.1 miles per Google, but about a block away Hardingfele drove by and stopped for me, so I got a ride for that last 0.1 mile. At band practice we played songs we have done for years and songs we were just learning, and it's funny how I play differently on a song depending on when I learned it. The ones from when I was just starting with the band I tend to play harmonies because I didn't know how to do chords yet, and I wasn't fleet enough to keep up with the fiddles on melody for the most part. The more recent songs I just play the chords, and for reasons I can't explain, there are songs that I feel compelled to play the melody on with the fiddles, like "Pig Ankle Rag" and "Garry Owen." We didn't practice "Ashoken Farewell" today, but on that one I play the chords except for the second time through, when I play the melody with tremolo while the fiddles play a quiet harmony underneath me. People LOVE that, but then they just love that song. The funny thing is that my bandmates don't seem to care whether I'm playing chords, or harmonies, or the melody. They just accept whatever I choose to do. I suppose since the mandolin is more of an ornament than either the melody instruments or the rhythm instruments, it doesn't matter. I can ornament our songs however I choose.

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