Jam Report #23: 9/9/01
Sep. 9th, 2001 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperAs originally posted to the OKP. Transcribed to Livejournal 10/4/05.
In which Monica gets to sing lead on pretty much everything -- almost; in which Anna discovers she does in fact have the potential to sing and play the mandolin at the same time; in which we commit acts of strangeness to "Jolly Butcher"; and in which we have an actual AUDIENCE. Songs: "You Woke Up My Neighborhood", "Trois Navires de Ble", "Jolly Butcher", "Y.O.D.A.".
Since a number of us had gone up to Vancouver yesterday for the Ritual Ogling of the B'ys, we had some uncertainty as to whether or not we were actually going to jam today. Especially since![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
spazzkat (Paul) had been flattened by a cold, which also rolled out to knock solarbird (Dara) for a loop, and we're also fairly sure it smacked kathrynt (Kathryn) upside the head as well. In addition, Fred was on duty and mamishka (Mimi) had waffled about whether or not to show.
As it turned out, however, we did in fact jam. Today's attendees were myself, Monica,ssha (Cyn), a late daspatrick (Patrick), and a spacey Dara who discovered to her amusement that Robitussin cough medicine apparently makes her quite loopy. Additionally, my visiting friend tabithaclayton (Mary) stood in for an actual audience -- arguably the first time we've had someone hanging out listening to us who wasn't actually also participating in the Jam. Mary informs us that we need to stop being so negative about ourselves, which is ego-boosting! On the other hand, she wasn't responsible for some of the chord crashes on my mandolin today, either. ;)
Since we were down Kathryn, we had to rearrange who sang what some today, though since Monica has been singing more on songs while playing the guitar as well, this was all good.
First up: "You Woke Up My Neighborhood" with Monica on guitar and me on the mandolin. Getting in the chord changes was a bit of an adventure for me -- I had to figure out exactly what A chord I thought I was hitting, and when. But Monica had the vocals down, and Cyn sang harmony with her.
Next up: "Trois Navires de Ble", since I'd spent most of Worldcon actually practicing the chord changes on this one. We had to take the tempo down a touch, though, so that I could figure out how to hit all my chords to blend in with Monica's strum pattern. I'm having some issues with where to hit my E minors, and the whole pattern of chords under "Sur le bord de l'eau nous irons jouer dans ile" is still wonky to me. However, I eventually got the idea, putting in some punctuation on top of the guitars. Guitars, plural, since Patrick finally showed up in the middle of one of our takes of this ditty, so we did it a few extra times to help him break it in.
I covet the G chord with the added ninth. It sounds extremely warm and mellow on Monica's guitar, but as near as I can tell I can't actually hit the durned thing on my mandolin! "Mellow", it seems, is not in the repetoire of attitudes a mandolin can achieve. (Maybe when I get that bouzouki...)
Dara improvised some nice flute work on this, though she kept playing softly since she wasn't quite sure what she was doing yet in addition to being spacey from the cold medicine. In the meantime, Cyn's fiddle work on the instrumental bridges was quite tasty.
The scary thing for me, though, was on the last couple of takes when I suddenly had part of my brain go 'Y'know, if you keep your chords really simple, you might be able to come in to sing on the choruses here'. When I started trying this, it did throw me off some -- because when I wanted to sing, I wanted to actually try to sing the harmony I generally do when I'm singing along with Turn in the car. And I couldn't quite figure out how to make that go on top of my chords. But the cool thing was, I felt like I had the potential of pulling it off!
Patrick thinks that this song is pretty forgiving, in terms of mistakes made while we're playing not seeming very glaring when we go back and listen to our recordings of ourselves. I think Patrick must have been having better luck with his chords than I was, and furthermore, my chords sound a bit more obvious, since I'm higher than both of the guitars. ;)
We need to kick the tempo up on this, though. For pretty much all of our takes, we played it too slowly so that I could try to get the chord changes down. I need to practice playing it along with the disc some more -- and practice seeing if I can sing the backup parts as well as hit the simple chord structure I'm trying to put together. There are parts where I wouldn't have to sing, where the mandolin can ornament, and that would be all good.
Next up: "Jolly Butcher", which we hadn't done in some time. Monica got to sing lead on this, which doesn't normally happen, but since we had no Kathryn she was on tap to sing. Tempo issues happened here too, though, since Monica determined that she can't play this too terribly fast and sing at the same time. It didn't help either that the alpha piper, not having practiced this song in a while, was rusty on her part. ;P
After that, "Jolly Butcher" again.
Except blues-style.
Which is pretty much self-explanatory. ;) We leave it as an exercise to you, our readers, as to how exactly a blues version of "Jolly Butcher" would sound.
Last, but not least -- pretty much because Patrick had seen sitting beside him Paul's copy of the chords for this -- "Y.O.D.A.". As in, Weird Al Yankovic's song. We'll leave that as an exercise for the reader to imagine, too. ;)
The pie: dutch apple again, pretty much because I had to go fetch a pie, Safeway was the closest source of pie, and that was that they had that wasn't a cream pie, which Monica can't have because milk products and Monica in the same space is generally a Very Bad Thing, like matter and anti-matter.
More in a week,
Anna the Piper
In which Monica gets to sing lead on pretty much everything -- almost; in which Anna discovers she does in fact have the potential to sing and play the mandolin at the same time; in which we commit acts of strangeness to "Jolly Butcher"; and in which we have an actual AUDIENCE. Songs: "You Woke Up My Neighborhood", "Trois Navires de Ble", "Jolly Butcher", "Y.O.D.A.".
Since a number of us had gone up to Vancouver yesterday for the Ritual Ogling of the B'ys, we had some uncertainty as to whether or not we were actually going to jam today. Especially since
spazzkat (Paul) had been flattened by a cold, which also rolled out to knock solarbird (Dara) for a loop, and we're also fairly sure it smacked kathrynt (Kathryn) upside the head as well. In addition, Fred was on duty and mamishka (Mimi) had waffled about whether or not to show.As it turned out, however, we did in fact jam. Today's attendees were myself, Monica,
ssha (Cyn), a late daspatrick (Patrick), and a spacey Dara who discovered to her amusement that Robitussin cough medicine apparently makes her quite loopy. Additionally, my visiting friend tabithaclayton (Mary) stood in for an actual audience -- arguably the first time we've had someone hanging out listening to us who wasn't actually also participating in the Jam. Mary informs us that we need to stop being so negative about ourselves, which is ego-boosting! On the other hand, she wasn't responsible for some of the chord crashes on my mandolin today, either. ;)Since we were down Kathryn, we had to rearrange who sang what some today, though since Monica has been singing more on songs while playing the guitar as well, this was all good.
First up: "You Woke Up My Neighborhood" with Monica on guitar and me on the mandolin. Getting in the chord changes was a bit of an adventure for me -- I had to figure out exactly what A chord I thought I was hitting, and when. But Monica had the vocals down, and Cyn sang harmony with her.
Next up: "Trois Navires de Ble", since I'd spent most of Worldcon actually practicing the chord changes on this one. We had to take the tempo down a touch, though, so that I could figure out how to hit all my chords to blend in with Monica's strum pattern. I'm having some issues with where to hit my E minors, and the whole pattern of chords under "Sur le bord de l'eau nous irons jouer dans ile" is still wonky to me. However, I eventually got the idea, putting in some punctuation on top of the guitars. Guitars, plural, since Patrick finally showed up in the middle of one of our takes of this ditty, so we did it a few extra times to help him break it in.
I covet the G chord with the added ninth. It sounds extremely warm and mellow on Monica's guitar, but as near as I can tell I can't actually hit the durned thing on my mandolin! "Mellow", it seems, is not in the repetoire of attitudes a mandolin can achieve. (Maybe when I get that bouzouki...)
Dara improvised some nice flute work on this, though she kept playing softly since she wasn't quite sure what she was doing yet in addition to being spacey from the cold medicine. In the meantime, Cyn's fiddle work on the instrumental bridges was quite tasty.
The scary thing for me, though, was on the last couple of takes when I suddenly had part of my brain go 'Y'know, if you keep your chords really simple, you might be able to come in to sing on the choruses here'. When I started trying this, it did throw me off some -- because when I wanted to sing, I wanted to actually try to sing the harmony I generally do when I'm singing along with Turn in the car. And I couldn't quite figure out how to make that go on top of my chords. But the cool thing was, I felt like I had the potential of pulling it off!
Patrick thinks that this song is pretty forgiving, in terms of mistakes made while we're playing not seeming very glaring when we go back and listen to our recordings of ourselves. I think Patrick must have been having better luck with his chords than I was, and furthermore, my chords sound a bit more obvious, since I'm higher than both of the guitars. ;)
We need to kick the tempo up on this, though. For pretty much all of our takes, we played it too slowly so that I could try to get the chord changes down. I need to practice playing it along with the disc some more -- and practice seeing if I can sing the backup parts as well as hit the simple chord structure I'm trying to put together. There are parts where I wouldn't have to sing, where the mandolin can ornament, and that would be all good.
Next up: "Jolly Butcher", which we hadn't done in some time. Monica got to sing lead on this, which doesn't normally happen, but since we had no Kathryn she was on tap to sing. Tempo issues happened here too, though, since Monica determined that she can't play this too terribly fast and sing at the same time. It didn't help either that the alpha piper, not having practiced this song in a while, was rusty on her part. ;P
After that, "Jolly Butcher" again.
Except blues-style.
Which is pretty much self-explanatory. ;) We leave it as an exercise to you, our readers, as to how exactly a blues version of "Jolly Butcher" would sound.
Last, but not least -- pretty much because Patrick had seen sitting beside him Paul's copy of the chords for this -- "Y.O.D.A.". As in, Weird Al Yankovic's song. We'll leave that as an exercise for the reader to imagine, too. ;)
The pie: dutch apple again, pretty much because I had to go fetch a pie, Safeway was the closest source of pie, and that was that they had that wasn't a cream pie, which Monica can't have because milk products and Monica in the same space is generally a Very Bad Thing, like matter and anti-matter.
More in a week,
Anna the Piper