Accidental Lead

So, recent round at the Lehrer acoustic jam, the group started out small: A bass player, harmonica, conga drum (with a small high-hat), cello, and me, the lone ukeranger ...

No guitars. Usually there are more guitars than everything else put together, but not so this time. One did show up after a bit, but it started out with me having to be the rhythm guy and singer. I was gonna write the chords on the white board, then realized nobody needed those except me. 

We cranked it up, played four or five songs, no hurry, and eventually the guitarist and a flutist showed up. A pretty nice blend of instruments, and the guitar player could sing, so he led a few songs.

At one point, the guitarist started off on some old rock number and I missed hearing what key it was in. My ears, such that they are, aren't adept enough to immediately figure that out, so I cheated: I looked for a note and tried to play a melody, which sometimes will point me to the right chord progression.

Wasn't happening quickly enough, so I just found a pentatonic that worked okay and riffed, but quietly.

Those of you who don't know, five-note scales, i.e., pentatonics, which usually leave out the 4th and the 7th, sound pretty good behind pretty much any blues or rock song. Won't make you sound like B.B. King or Clapton if you just stick to that, but it won't sound terrible.

So I noodled along. The cello took a solo, then the flute, then I realized they were looking at me and I was already playing it, so I just upped the volume a bit and did a verse's worth of bars, then the harp-player did a solo before we went back to the guitarist.

Bam! Just like that, unintentional, my first ever solo in public.

Here's the funny part: I can't remember what the song was ...