Jam Report #9: 4/22/01
Apr. 22nd, 2001 03:10 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.
Mimi rejoins us on drums; Fred rejoins us with dulcimer; Paul is lead guitar. Songs: "Mari-Mac", "General Taylor".
This time, the Jam Report's delay can be blamed upon the Jam Chronicler getting smacked with a bug of some kind over the weekend. Blah!
Anyway, we're still muddling along. We've had some interesting times trying to get the full quotient of the group together since folks have been having assorted reasons to be eaten by their lives on Sundays when we've been meeting; what, I hear you cry, there are other things to do on a Sunday besides make music? Apparently. ;) This time we were down both our alpha and beta guitars (Monica and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daspatrick/Patrick), but we DID have our gamma guitar (spazzkat/Paul), mamishka (Mimi) finally rejoined us on her drums now that she's got her cast off her arm (YAY!), and Fred rejoined us with his dulcimer (YAY!).
Having Paul as the only guitar changed our playlist somewhat, since he's newer to the stuff we've been practicing than Monica and Patrick are. "Consequence Free" and "Jolly Butcher" were dismissed on the grounds that the chords we had for them were either in the wrong key (since we've been playing the first of these two ditties in a different key than what's actually on the disc) or else just generally too complicated to deal with -- and Monica and Patrick had all the right chords. So for our first ditty we wound up doing "Mari-Mac" again.
We actually do this one fairly decently, assuming that we all keep tempo with one another. ;) And I'm fond of it just because I have my very best set of piccolo twiddles to play along with it, which seemed to go over well with the group. Particularly when I hit my trill just after the fourth verse -- y'all know the part, where Bob starts sawing away on his fiddle and all heck breaks loose with the tempo and we're all going "ACK, WE HAVE TO PLAY FASTER NOW?!" F sharp to G does make a good trill there though! If I can actually remember to play it right.
Noises were made about doing Heather Alexander's "Cat in the Fiddle" again, but we wound up not since we had just the one guitar. Noises were also made about "Little Beggarman" but we never actually got around to seriously giving it a go. We did have an interlude in which Mimi started improvising on a drum and so I started hitting random twiddles along with her, which was kind of cool even if they turned into my "Mari-Mac" twiddles in a different key.
Finally we decided to do "General Taylor" since we had five people present willing to try to sing it. This was notable this time around since we actually started trying to play in-depth with the harmonies, taking turns with the harmony parts (the rest of us) singing along with the melody (Mimi), so we could all try to get a decent idea of what exactly we wanted to try to sing. We settled into Mimi channeling Sean,kathrynt (Kathryn) channeling Alan, me trying to channel Bob, and ssha (Cyn) and Fred channeling Darrell, though we didn't quite get as far with the harmony work as might have been ideal since I started fading partway through. We'd started late, but since we had a reduced group and I was starting to feel wonky anyway, we went ahead and opted for pie -- and in this case cupcakes as well, since Mimi wanted to give solarbird (Dara) and Kathryn late birthday presents. :)
The pie: strawberry creme, and THAT was yummy.
Next time: probably more with "General Taylor", as I have in fact started trying to transcribe the thing into my music writing software, all four parts. As near as I can tell, we've got the key of G and 6/8 time. Alan's singing a third up from Sean, and I think Darrell's singing an octave down from Sean, though I can't yet tell whether Darrell's actually singing the melody line that low or doing actual harmony. All I have for Bob's part is what I think is his part for "Walk him along, John, carry him along" -- but the rest of it is eluding me at the moment. One might well chalk this up to the general mystery that is Bob. ;)
Anna the Piper
Mimi rejoins us on drums; Fred rejoins us with dulcimer; Paul is lead guitar. Songs: "Mari-Mac", "General Taylor".
This time, the Jam Report's delay can be blamed upon the Jam Chronicler getting smacked with a bug of some kind over the weekend. Blah!
Anyway, we're still muddling along. We've had some interesting times trying to get the full quotient of the group together since folks have been having assorted reasons to be eaten by their lives on Sundays when we've been meeting; what, I hear you cry, there are other things to do on a Sunday besides make music? Apparently. ;) This time we were down both our alpha and beta guitars (Monica and
daspatrick/Patrick), but we DID have our gamma guitar (spazzkat/Paul), mamishka (Mimi) finally rejoined us on her drums now that she's got her cast off her arm (YAY!), and Fred rejoined us with his dulcimer (YAY!).Having Paul as the only guitar changed our playlist somewhat, since he's newer to the stuff we've been practicing than Monica and Patrick are. "Consequence Free" and "Jolly Butcher" were dismissed on the grounds that the chords we had for them were either in the wrong key (since we've been playing the first of these two ditties in a different key than what's actually on the disc) or else just generally too complicated to deal with -- and Monica and Patrick had all the right chords. So for our first ditty we wound up doing "Mari-Mac" again.
We actually do this one fairly decently, assuming that we all keep tempo with one another. ;) And I'm fond of it just because I have my very best set of piccolo twiddles to play along with it, which seemed to go over well with the group. Particularly when I hit my trill just after the fourth verse -- y'all know the part, where Bob starts sawing away on his fiddle and all heck breaks loose with the tempo and we're all going "ACK, WE HAVE TO PLAY FASTER NOW?!" F sharp to G does make a good trill there though! If I can actually remember to play it right.
Noises were made about doing Heather Alexander's "Cat in the Fiddle" again, but we wound up not since we had just the one guitar. Noises were also made about "Little Beggarman" but we never actually got around to seriously giving it a go. We did have an interlude in which Mimi started improvising on a drum and so I started hitting random twiddles along with her, which was kind of cool even if they turned into my "Mari-Mac" twiddles in a different key.
Finally we decided to do "General Taylor" since we had five people present willing to try to sing it. This was notable this time around since we actually started trying to play in-depth with the harmonies, taking turns with the harmony parts (the rest of us) singing along with the melody (Mimi), so we could all try to get a decent idea of what exactly we wanted to try to sing. We settled into Mimi channeling Sean,
kathrynt (Kathryn) channeling Alan, me trying to channel Bob, and ssha (Cyn) and Fred channeling Darrell, though we didn't quite get as far with the harmony work as might have been ideal since I started fading partway through. We'd started late, but since we had a reduced group and I was starting to feel wonky anyway, we went ahead and opted for pie -- and in this case cupcakes as well, since Mimi wanted to give solarbird (Dara) and Kathryn late birthday presents. :)The pie: strawberry creme, and THAT was yummy.
Next time: probably more with "General Taylor", as I have in fact started trying to transcribe the thing into my music writing software, all four parts. As near as I can tell, we've got the key of G and 6/8 time. Alan's singing a third up from Sean, and I think Darrell's singing an octave down from Sean, though I can't yet tell whether Darrell's actually singing the melody line that low or doing actual harmony. All I have for Bob's part is what I think is his part for "Walk him along, John, carry him along" -- but the rest of it is eluding me at the moment. One might well chalk this up to the general mystery that is Bob. ;)
Anna the Piper