Jam Report #30: 12/2/01
Dec. 2nd, 2001 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperAs originally posted to the OKP. Transcribed to Livejournal 10/5/05.
In which my very own brother Donnie as well as U.S. Navy Sailor Brom (as opposed to U.S. Navy Sailor Fred) drop by; in which Dana brings a guitar and gets a CD; and in which we have Adventures in Ringing Phones, Tempo and Key Change Oddities, and most importantly, more homemade pie. Songs: "Stray Cat Strut", "Bluesy Butcher", "You Woke Up My Neighborhood", "Judas Cart", "Goin' Up".
This, it must be officially noted, is Murkworks Jam Report #30. Not because of anything particularly special connected with this, just that I thought it was pretty cool that we'd made it up to thirty sessions and have in fact kept this little endeavor of ours going almost a whole YEAR.
Today's session was one of those incidents of feast following a time of famine; after weeks of pretty much nothing (and in fact![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
solarbird (Dara) observed that we'd had exactly one jam session in all of November), we not only had eight people turn out for today's but also a couple of visitors as well.
One wasbrombear (Brom), a friend of Dar's and spazzkat's (Paul's) who makes for the actual second Navy connection to the group -- and who even showed up with a couple sets of pipes that he said we could have and that he'd never played. Brom plays the bodhran, but we had a pretty big group today so he didn't pull it out to play with us.
The other visitor was my very own brother Donnie, who is in town because his band is recording their very first album in local studios, and who had his first day off today after a week of cutting drum tracks. So he came to hang out with us and listen in, and even whipped out the camcorder to catch a bit of us doing "Stray Cat Strut". He claims this recording will not be leaving his PERSONAL possession... ;)
Today's roster of actual jammers included myself, Dara, Paul,mamishka (Mimi), ssha (Cyn), daspatrick (Patrick), and Dana, and Dana even showed up with her guitar for the first time. I gave said instrument the obligatory get-acquainted inspection, and determined that Dana does indeed have a lovely little classical that isn't in fact too terribly much bigger than my Ragamuffin. On a further Dana-related note, I finally got to give her her belated birthday gift of a copy of Road Rage, because everybody needs a little more GBS in their lives, and it turned out my timing was impeccable as she had in fact planned to buy that very album tomorrow. Now she can get Rant and Roar instead!
Monica was out due to prior obligations andkathrynt (Kathryn) as well, but still, seven was a good number even if we'd been out of practice for a while!
Starting off the lineup, "Stray Cat Strut" was helped quite significantly by Mimi's contribution of her djembe -- and some advice about where instruments should drop out to make the vocals more emphasized on "I got cat class and I got cat style." I still have had some problems with what to do on my flute while Patrick plays the guitar solos, but I have concluded now that I need to just shut up entirely while Patrick goes to town. Because, well, solo.
"It reminds me of Ren and Stimpy," says my brother of the little guitar riffs at the end.
Patrick sang first and then Paul, and group majority opinion seems to be that we do need Paul singing there. Patrick sings rather demurely on this ditty, which is not really what you want for a song about an alley cat.
On then to another thing we haven't played in a while -- the blues version of "Jolly Butcher". But well, we hadn't played this one in a while, and it kinda showed.
Third up: "You Woke Up My Neighborhood." We had some oddness on this one for a take or two as well, as Patrick and Paul shifted around who was playing electric and who was playing acoustic guitars. We finally settled in on Patrick still playing his electric and Paul shifting to his acoustic, which helped resolve some of the weirdness as well. Some intro work was done as well, to try to give everyone an opportunity to sync up before the vocals start and to give Mimi an idea how to bring in her drums; we settled on Patrick doing two measures of noodling on his electric, then four measures of everyone else coming on D chords, then the singing.
We played, but only briefly, with doing a bit of the song in the original key. Mimi, Dana, and Cyn all did an impromptu take of it in G, while Dana and I both determined that we could probably play the chords in both keys, but Dara firmly shot down even thinking about changing the key since D is what we all know it in now.
Some debate also occurred about whether Patrick should indulge in cheesy riffs at the end. I, at least, was personally amused to notice that the string-bearing instrumentalists were in favor of cheese, while the vocalists were not as much. That I wanted to do a bit of tremolo just after Patrick's best cheese has absolutely nothing to do with my opinion in this matter. Honest. I swear!
What we did wind up doing though was a modified version of cheese. Patrick did a different riff, and I didn't tremolo, but I did try to arpeggiate (how's that for a three-dollar word?) my way through his last bars and hit the final D at the same time he did. It sorta kinda worked.
Fourth: a brief stop with "Judas Cart". As lead player of thing-with-strings for this ditty (in fact, for this session I was the ONLY player of a thing-with-strings, since Patrick wasn't playing and neither was Paul, and Monica wasn't here), I'm still too damned nervous with this song. This time around I did actually have something to play on the whole thing, courtesy of having whipped up at least a bit of a part in my music software. Whoo boy howdy do I love Music Write even more now that I've figured out how to make it spit out chords. HURRAY!
Still, though, I was only up for doing two takes to try to get in a bit of practice. So two takes it was. My printed-out part came in only sorta kinda handy -- the part I'd tried to transcribe for the third verse still rather lost me, but because of those aforementioned chords I'd actually worked out, I was able to sort of keep going and sound like I wasn't entirely clueless. ;) So that is a bit of progress.
One of two things needs to happen with this song, though (I mean, aside from me not sucking on my mandolin), and I'm not sure which is better. Either 1) we need richer harmonies, or 2) it needs to be faster. I'm not sure which will work better yet.
Last up: "Goin' Up". Some key deliberation took place on this, and although the last time we took this one on we did it in D, we wound up doing it in G because the singers present liked that key better. More great advice from Mimi on this, for Cyn singing lead: Cyn observed that for some reason it sounded to her as if we were still singing it in a different key than the one of the recording (which is in fact G), but Meems pointed out to her that Alan Doyle sings it quite lightly on the disc and Cyn had a noticeably heavier delivery than he did.
The pie: a sort of homemade chocolate-pudding, Oreo-cookie-crust, nummy delicious sort of thing which was made by our friendlyricae (Cheryl) and sent home with us after several of us had attended a party she'd held last night, and of which she modestly attempted to deflect compliments by describing the humble ingredients. However, as I pointed out to Cheryl, some of the best things in life are in fact simple, and this pie was extra special nummy with Cool Whip on top.
More when we have it, all,
Anna the Piper
In which my very own brother Donnie as well as U.S. Navy Sailor Brom (as opposed to U.S. Navy Sailor Fred) drop by; in which Dana brings a guitar and gets a CD; and in which we have Adventures in Ringing Phones, Tempo and Key Change Oddities, and most importantly, more homemade pie. Songs: "Stray Cat Strut", "Bluesy Butcher", "You Woke Up My Neighborhood", "Judas Cart", "Goin' Up".
This, it must be officially noted, is Murkworks Jam Report #30. Not because of anything particularly special connected with this, just that I thought it was pretty cool that we'd made it up to thirty sessions and have in fact kept this little endeavor of ours going almost a whole YEAR.
Today's session was one of those incidents of feast following a time of famine; after weeks of pretty much nothing (and in fact
solarbird (Dara) observed that we'd had exactly one jam session in all of November), we not only had eight people turn out for today's but also a couple of visitors as well.One was
brombear (Brom), a friend of Dar's and spazzkat's (Paul's) who makes for the actual second Navy connection to the group -- and who even showed up with a couple sets of pipes that he said we could have and that he'd never played. Brom plays the bodhran, but we had a pretty big group today so he didn't pull it out to play with us.The other visitor was my very own brother Donnie, who is in town because his band is recording their very first album in local studios, and who had his first day off today after a week of cutting drum tracks. So he came to hang out with us and listen in, and even whipped out the camcorder to catch a bit of us doing "Stray Cat Strut". He claims this recording will not be leaving his PERSONAL possession... ;)
Today's roster of actual jammers included myself, Dara, Paul,
mamishka (Mimi), ssha (Cyn), daspatrick (Patrick), and Dana, and Dana even showed up with her guitar for the first time. I gave said instrument the obligatory get-acquainted inspection, and determined that Dana does indeed have a lovely little classical that isn't in fact too terribly much bigger than my Ragamuffin. On a further Dana-related note, I finally got to give her her belated birthday gift of a copy of Road Rage, because everybody needs a little more GBS in their lives, and it turned out my timing was impeccable as she had in fact planned to buy that very album tomorrow. Now she can get Rant and Roar instead!Monica was out due to prior obligations and
kathrynt (Kathryn) as well, but still, seven was a good number even if we'd been out of practice for a while!Starting off the lineup, "Stray Cat Strut" was helped quite significantly by Mimi's contribution of her djembe -- and some advice about where instruments should drop out to make the vocals more emphasized on "I got cat class and I got cat style." I still have had some problems with what to do on my flute while Patrick plays the guitar solos, but I have concluded now that I need to just shut up entirely while Patrick goes to town. Because, well, solo.
"It reminds me of Ren and Stimpy," says my brother of the little guitar riffs at the end.
Patrick sang first and then Paul, and group majority opinion seems to be that we do need Paul singing there. Patrick sings rather demurely on this ditty, which is not really what you want for a song about an alley cat.
On then to another thing we haven't played in a while -- the blues version of "Jolly Butcher". But well, we hadn't played this one in a while, and it kinda showed.
Third up: "You Woke Up My Neighborhood." We had some oddness on this one for a take or two as well, as Patrick and Paul shifted around who was playing electric and who was playing acoustic guitars. We finally settled in on Patrick still playing his electric and Paul shifting to his acoustic, which helped resolve some of the weirdness as well. Some intro work was done as well, to try to give everyone an opportunity to sync up before the vocals start and to give Mimi an idea how to bring in her drums; we settled on Patrick doing two measures of noodling on his electric, then four measures of everyone else coming on D chords, then the singing.
We played, but only briefly, with doing a bit of the song in the original key. Mimi, Dana, and Cyn all did an impromptu take of it in G, while Dana and I both determined that we could probably play the chords in both keys, but Dara firmly shot down even thinking about changing the key since D is what we all know it in now.
Some debate also occurred about whether Patrick should indulge in cheesy riffs at the end. I, at least, was personally amused to notice that the string-bearing instrumentalists were in favor of cheese, while the vocalists were not as much. That I wanted to do a bit of tremolo just after Patrick's best cheese has absolutely nothing to do with my opinion in this matter. Honest. I swear!
What we did wind up doing though was a modified version of cheese. Patrick did a different riff, and I didn't tremolo, but I did try to arpeggiate (how's that for a three-dollar word?) my way through his last bars and hit the final D at the same time he did. It sorta kinda worked.
Fourth: a brief stop with "Judas Cart". As lead player of thing-with-strings for this ditty (in fact, for this session I was the ONLY player of a thing-with-strings, since Patrick wasn't playing and neither was Paul, and Monica wasn't here), I'm still too damned nervous with this song. This time around I did actually have something to play on the whole thing, courtesy of having whipped up at least a bit of a part in my music software. Whoo boy howdy do I love Music Write even more now that I've figured out how to make it spit out chords. HURRAY!
Still, though, I was only up for doing two takes to try to get in a bit of practice. So two takes it was. My printed-out part came in only sorta kinda handy -- the part I'd tried to transcribe for the third verse still rather lost me, but because of those aforementioned chords I'd actually worked out, I was able to sort of keep going and sound like I wasn't entirely clueless. ;) So that is a bit of progress.
One of two things needs to happen with this song, though (I mean, aside from me not sucking on my mandolin), and I'm not sure which is better. Either 1) we need richer harmonies, or 2) it needs to be faster. I'm not sure which will work better yet.
Last up: "Goin' Up". Some key deliberation took place on this, and although the last time we took this one on we did it in D, we wound up doing it in G because the singers present liked that key better. More great advice from Mimi on this, for Cyn singing lead: Cyn observed that for some reason it sounded to her as if we were still singing it in a different key than the one of the recording (which is in fact G), but Meems pointed out to her that Alan Doyle sings it quite lightly on the disc and Cyn had a noticeably heavier delivery than he did.
The pie: a sort of homemade chocolate-pudding, Oreo-cookie-crust, nummy delicious sort of thing which was made by our friend
lyricae (Cheryl) and sent home with us after several of us had attended a party she'd held last night, and of which she modestly attempted to deflect compliments by describing the humble ingredients. However, as I pointed out to Cheryl, some of the best things in life are in fact simple, and this pie was extra special nummy with Cool Whip on top.More when we have it, all,
Anna the Piper