Jam Report #7: 3/25/01
Mar. 25th, 2001 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperAs originally posted to the OKP. Transcribed to Livejournal 10/2/05.
Elizabeth drops by for a session; I sing for once on "Jolly Butcher" as we're missing Kathryn and Mimi. Songs: "Jolly Butcher", "General Taylor", "Cat and the Fiddle".
I have to start off this report by noting that the Saturday past, a subset of the Murkjammers (myself,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kathrynt (Kathryn), and my partner solarbird (Dara), along with spazzkat (Paul) who's still sort of a fringe Murkjammer) carried out our first pilgrimage to Lark in the Morning. Kathryn swooned over their $1500 harps, while I indulged myself swooning over their flutes (including a nice collection of crystal/glass ones, though I have a glass piccolo already) and even peeking at some of the mandolins, though they were all hanging off the ceiling and I was too chicken to actually ask to handle one. ;)
I am entertaining vague thoughts of taking up the mandolin as a second instrument, just because we have two (and possibly three if Paul officially joins us) guitar players and it'd be nice to have something else, but I'm not sure yet if I'm willing to fork out over eight hundred dollars for a mandolin yet. Gonna have to ponder this one some!
I did, however, buy myself a cute little one-scale ocarina, which I have been wearing today, and I have begun to try to pick out "Trois Navires de Ble" on it.
Annnnyway, on the following day, let there be jamming, cried we, and there was.
This session featured a new drop-in attendee: Elizabeth, a friend ofdaspatrick's (Patrick), who had heard of Great Big Sea before but was unfamiliar with the material. So we played for her consideration the six songs with which we've been fiddling: "Jolly Butcher", "Lukey", "General Taylor", "Mari-Mac", "The Chemical Worker's Song", and "Consequence Free".
With the new attendee we were still down several jammers, though, since Fred had been eaten by his RL, Kathryn was going to the symphony, and poormamishka (Mimi) had fractured her wrist and was therefore out of commission for drumming and taking it easy. So when Monica arrived, we had our two guitars, our flute players, and a majority of our singers.
First up: "Jolly Butcher". I jumped in to sing on this one, since we were down Kathryn and Mimi, since Elizabeth was new to the song, and since of the singers present I was most comfortable with that key. If our last session's major hit was "The Brute Squad Plays D", this one had to have been "Sixteen Iterations of Fish", for we spent several rounds of just practicing the bridge to try to get our instruments all talking tempo and tunage nicely to one another. I discovered that I have a few problems with ths song still:
Next up: "General Taylor". In terms of vocals this does still seem to be our strongest song, even though this time we played around with several different keys since Cyn wanted to sing the melody and we needed to find a key that could accommodate her. Monica continues to channel Alan's harmony part on this quite well, and Elizabeth's voice blended nicely into the mix. This time through I wound up singing the lower parts, and this does seem to be where I need to be on the ditty. Exercise for later: try to actually transcribe Bob's part, or Darrell's, so I can actually know what notes to hit.
Third up: we actually segued out of GBS mode, taking a stab at one of Heather Alexander's songs for a change of pace. The ditty in question was "Cat and the Fiddle", off her album Life's Flame, and this went over rather well in that the guitarists picked up the three, count 'em, three chords that she plays for the whole song. Lyrics were a bit shaky, as I had to transcribe them off the disc. A search on the web claimed that a couple of sites had the lyrics posted, but attempting to visit these sites resulted in failure.
The pie: Strawberry rhubarb, and WOW was that yummy. I'd never had that before. ;D
For next time: hopefully we'll have more Murkjammers back, but until then, the Murkworks is about to launch the resumption of Attempts to Make Bamboo Flutes. Not like I need another flute with over a dozen to my name, but well hey! If I get good enough again, maybe I can sell them.
Cheers, all,
Anna the Piper
Elizabeth drops by for a session; I sing for once on "Jolly Butcher" as we're missing Kathryn and Mimi. Songs: "Jolly Butcher", "General Taylor", "Cat and the Fiddle".
I have to start off this report by noting that the Saturday past, a subset of the Murkjammers (myself,
kathrynt (Kathryn), and my partner solarbird (Dara), along with spazzkat (Paul) who's still sort of a fringe Murkjammer) carried out our first pilgrimage to Lark in the Morning. Kathryn swooned over their $1500 harps, while I indulged myself swooning over their flutes (including a nice collection of crystal/glass ones, though I have a glass piccolo already) and even peeking at some of the mandolins, though they were all hanging off the ceiling and I was too chicken to actually ask to handle one. ;)I am entertaining vague thoughts of taking up the mandolin as a second instrument, just because we have two (and possibly three if Paul officially joins us) guitar players and it'd be nice to have something else, but I'm not sure yet if I'm willing to fork out over eight hundred dollars for a mandolin yet. Gonna have to ponder this one some!
I did, however, buy myself a cute little one-scale ocarina, which I have been wearing today, and I have begun to try to pick out "Trois Navires de Ble" on it.
Annnnyway, on the following day, let there be jamming, cried we, and there was.
This session featured a new drop-in attendee: Elizabeth, a friend of
daspatrick's (Patrick), who had heard of Great Big Sea before but was unfamiliar with the material. So we played for her consideration the six songs with which we've been fiddling: "Jolly Butcher", "Lukey", "General Taylor", "Mari-Mac", "The Chemical Worker's Song", and "Consequence Free".With the new attendee we were still down several jammers, though, since Fred had been eaten by his RL, Kathryn was going to the symphony, and poor
mamishka (Mimi) had fractured her wrist and was therefore out of commission for drumming and taking it easy. So when Monica arrived, we had our two guitars, our flute players, and a majority of our singers.First up: "Jolly Butcher". I jumped in to sing on this one, since we were down Kathryn and Mimi, since Elizabeth was new to the song, and since of the singers present I was most comfortable with that key. If our last session's major hit was "The Brute Squad Plays D", this one had to have been "Sixteen Iterations of Fish", for we spent several rounds of just practicing the bridge to try to get our instruments all talking tempo and tunage nicely to one another. I discovered that I have a few problems with ths song still:
- I've GOT to practice this bridge more. I can play the lower notes well enough but that high G is murder on a piccolo, and I can't take it down an octave because I can't hit the lowest B. I COULD break out a flute to play it instead, but hey, it just SOUNDS cooler on Shine. Or it would if I could play it properly. ;p :)
- For some annoying reason, I keep forgetting how the second and third verses start. Which only happens while I'm singing in jamming, but NOT while I'm singing along with the tape in the car. Go fig!
- Trying to both sing on the song AND play the bridge on the piccolo makes for an awkward transition when I have to play the last C, B, and A, and then immediately start singing on the next beat. Whee!
Next up: "General Taylor". In terms of vocals this does still seem to be our strongest song, even though this time we played around with several different keys since Cyn wanted to sing the melody and we needed to find a key that could accommodate her. Monica continues to channel Alan's harmony part on this quite well, and Elizabeth's voice blended nicely into the mix. This time through I wound up singing the lower parts, and this does seem to be where I need to be on the ditty. Exercise for later: try to actually transcribe Bob's part, or Darrell's, so I can actually know what notes to hit.
Third up: we actually segued out of GBS mode, taking a stab at one of Heather Alexander's songs for a change of pace. The ditty in question was "Cat and the Fiddle", off her album Life's Flame, and this went over rather well in that the guitarists picked up the three, count 'em, three chords that she plays for the whole song. Lyrics were a bit shaky, as I had to transcribe them off the disc. A search on the web claimed that a couple of sites had the lyrics posted, but attempting to visit these sites resulted in failure.
The pie: Strawberry rhubarb, and WOW was that yummy. I'd never had that before. ;D
For next time: hopefully we'll have more Murkjammers back, but until then, the Murkworks is about to launch the resumption of Attempts to Make Bamboo Flutes. Not like I need another flute with over a dozen to my name, but well hey! If I get good enough again, maybe I can sell them.
Cheers, all,
Anna the Piper