On Sunday November 19th, the Community Music Hangout gathered for the 38th edition of the Hang. After a few days of rain, we were fortunate enough to gather under sunny skies and breezy conditions. It was a fine day to make music in the park with friends new and old. Despite the rain earlier in the week, most of the piano was playable. But above around E5, Carly was all jammed up. Here’s hoping a dry period will bring her back, as it has done in the past. As Rikki and I walked up, we found Alex already playing tunes and waiting for us to show up. Excellent. So we got off to a quick start! Soon, some joggers came by and put flowers on the piano. I didn’t know what that was all about, at first, but I liked it! A few minutes later, Ryan jogged up to the piano and told us they were all doing a flower run, leaving flowers as they went. Great idea! Ryan hopped on the piano and played some tunes as the rest of the flower runners gathered round. Nice playing, dude. Then, Alex jumped back on and played John Legend’s “All of Me” and everybody was singing and putting arms around shoulders, swaying to the music. It was fantastic! Great song choice, Alex. We were really rolling along by this point. Brian biked up and Tania jumped on the piano to play “What’s Up?”. Then we had Justine and Lilliana (back again this week!) on the mic as the whole group sang “I Will Survive”. Great vibes! Check out the video. There were lots of new faces out in the park at CMH #38! Next up we pulled in Sid, Yuma, and Dheerah to sing a few numbers. Then they really had to go because they needed to get breakfast (and it was 12:30 pm by this point…). So, we pressed on! Maria was back at the hangout and sang some songs for us. Thanks! And, we met Devin, which was very exciting, because he runs a singalong of his own on Page Street. It was really great to meet a kindred spirit in the form of another community music organizer. Great singing and playing too, thanks for coming. Then, a really cool thing happened: 10-year-old Tallula sang us an Adele song solo, with no backup accompaniment. And she did great! I thought that was a really courageous thing to do, because singing without the backup of other players is really scary and difficult. Way to go, Tallula! Keep it up! Another cool thing that happened is Umut played us a sad Turkish song on his beautiful clarinet. A wonderful contribution, thank you! Such good vibes at the Hangout. Once again, it felt as if we reached new heights. Aiden was back at the hangout and jumped on the piano for a few numbers. Great playing! Thanks for coming back and for letting me get onto the sax and sing some songs without having to accompany myself. Hugh was back with his egg shakers, and he brought his friend Ed and Ed brought a guitar. Excellent stuff all around. Bringing your musical friends to the hangout is an A+ maneuver in my book! I had another engagement to get to on Sunday, so I had to actually shut it down at 2:30 and leave. It was hard to do but, somehow, we managed to pull ourselves away. CMH #38 was another fabulous day of musical connection in Golden Gate Park! I’m so happy to get to know all of the fine people that come to the Hangouts, intentionally or otherwise. Thank you to everyone who took part! We’re off next weekend, but we’ll be back on Saturday, December 2nd from 11:30 until at least 2:30!