Gig. I’ve used that word for as long as I’ve been a musician, and it’s never sounded as odd as when I just went to type it here. Originating in the late 18th century to describe both a carriage and a boat, our usage here dates from the 1920s…but we don’t know much else about how it became part of our vocabulary. Enough fun with words, we’re here today to talk about what we pack when we’re headed to a gig, which we’re defining here as a playing engagement for a musician.