FSO: Places to hear music in my town

The idea of the My Town Shoot Out is to post photos of your community every Friday, and hopefully improve your photography skills. If you would like to see examples of this week's theme from other parts of the world, go here.

Photos shot in Corvallis, western Oregon

Music can be heard regularly in our house, and as I write this I am listening to my husband John, who is a jazz musician, practicing classical piano.

John plays guitar with a couple of different groups, and I am often tasked with the job of taking band pics.

I really enjoy this. It gives me a chance to observe them when they are practicing.

And I may find myself at a gig before there is any audience at all.

Gigs are hard to photograph, but usually there are one or two shots that I like.  This one captures the crazy improvisational energy that an 8-piece jazz ensemble can create. Taken with my little pocket Canon, I'm not even sure how this picture happened.

John also plays in a trio, and they have had a couple of gigs at a resort in the Cascades, about an hour and a half from Corvallis. This is a laid-back venue.

Still, I can't take my eyes off of the drum set.

It's a cool place to play, with surprisingly good acoustics. And twice now, a Yeti has appeared...can you spot him? Yep, the Yeti exists here in Oregon, and loves cool jazz. He always asks some beautiful young girl to dance with him. 

Another common venue for the trio to play is on the OSU campus, for various functions. I think it's a little hard to be cool in this setting, but the bass player's wide stance is helpful.

The trio has played multiple times at Cloud 9, a restaurant/music venue downtown, and this is what that looks like. Pretty cool. They get a free dinner when they play there; the Korean ribs are great.

Music, yeah. I really like this topic.