Jam Report #39: 3/24/02
Mar. 24th, 2002 01:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperAs originally posted to the OKP. Transcribed to Livejournal 1/26/06.
In which we do more with instrumentals, in which I do backup vocals, and in which everybody but me is pretty solid on the tempo! Songs: "Dancing With Mrs. White", "Jennie's Jealous", "You Woke Up My Neighborhood", "Mari-Mac".
As I write this I'm at the science fiction convention Norwescon, killing some time while I wait for my spouse to work on tonight's issue of the convention's daily newsletter. Having just come out of the filk, where I did in fact attempt to play my mandolin and sing in public for the second time this weekend, I am reminded that I really ought to have this Jam Report ready for when I come back tomorrow night and can get this online! (For those of you who might want to know more about my various frustrations with my laptop and my MP3 player this past week, I rant about them at length in my Livejournal. You can see me getting geeky over there. For that matter, I'll talk about Norwescon there as well. However, in the meantime...)
For the session on 3/24 we were again sans Dana due to her unexpectedly having to cover for a coworker; we also did not have![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ssha (Cyn), since she had gone down to visit her father in Portland. We did, however, have daspatrick (Patrick), which was a pleasant surprise. We also had myself, Monica, solarbird (Dara), and mamishka (Mimi), and because we had Patrick, we also had spazzkat (Paul).
First up we took another stab at "Dancing With Mrs. White". It took forever to get going on this, because I had to try three times to get everything I needed for this song printed out; I'd written harmony in Music Write and didn't have printouts yet, so I had to a) make those printouts and b) write out what notes I was supposed to be hitting, for maximum effectiveness at playing them at speed.
The tempo was too slow on the first take, but I kind of needed it as I was breaking in the harmony I had written for the B and D parts. As it happened, said harmony's D part was voted down; as Mimi opined, it sounded a bit too discordant against the melody line, and also defeated the purpose of having the sort of "dancing flutes duet" air we were attempting. We're keeping the B part, though now I have to learn how to play it properly and segue smoothly back into the A part of the song after playing it, which I am not yet able to do; I am also finding it a challenge to play both repetitions of the B part and the next round of the A part immediately after. It's not nearly as taxing as playing the whole thing all the way through, but still.
Another problem I'm having, since this was pretty much the All About Anna's Problems Song, is that I'm too breathy in my piccolo's lowest octave. I need to get stronger down there somehow, and I'm not sure how yet; I do need to stay in that octave though to better mirror Dara.
We gunned the tempo up for the subsequent takes, which was really needed, though this didn't much help the tuning issues I was also having. Sigh!
Onward then to "Jennie's Jealous", the ditty of Patrick's creation. I couldn't really see myself playing flute or piccolo or mandolin on this, as it seems to want none of those instruments and nothing entertaining immediately presented itself for me to try to play for supporting rhythm. So Patrick asked me if I wanted to sing backup vocals.
This was a weird experience for me -- singing backup, without playing any instrument at all. I'm not sure if I like the sound of myself doing this yet, but this is a song very much still in the initial stages. Patrick has written harmony, but I'm not sure my range can handle it; Monica's going to try to take the higher harmony while I come in lower, since this is in the key of D and I'm stronger in lower notes in that key. I managed to figure out something that works on the bridge while Patrick and Monica are singing the main melody and harmony, of which they approve: me doing descending descending notes beneath them on a couple of the lines. Yay! I'm not too experienced with this whole singing thing, so it was nice to know I did something decent.
The guitars aren't quite solid on the solo section yet, as they're having to work out how long that part's going to go. Meems did some drum experimentation, starting off with her bodhran and doing rim hits to accentuate the beat; for later takes, though, we broke out Roland for her, which the song really did seem to like better, style-wise, even though we had a majority bent in favor of having a "live" drum if possible on the grounds that that just sounded more real. Mimi, though, decided that her generally used drums sounded too ethnic for this particular song.
We moved the mike around a bit to make Patrick as audible as possible while he was singing, and between the mike moving and Mimi on the keyboard, Monica asserts that we sound 'so garage'.
I wanted to take a stab at "You Woke Up My Neighborhood", to see if I could sing on the choruses. I'd been practicing this and had even begun to try to work out a bit of harmony, but hadn't tried to sing and play on this song with the group as a whole yet. Short form of the story: I did manage to come in on the choruses more or less, though my harmony went right out of my head. It was very satisfying to have Patrick back, though, because his guitar playing really rather makes this song for me, and for that matter so does Mimi's coming in singing "tlll it grew cold" on the bridge. Everyone told me that if Patrick's going to do his cheesy little ending to this song, I need to do a final tremolo on the mand when he hits his last chord. Hee hee. I did try to do that on our public take of this ditty, but I have a hard time hearing my little mand over the electric guitar. Clearly I'm not tremming loud enough!
Last but not least we did another practice run of "Mari-Mac", though we didn't have Cyn on the fiddle and her contribution there was rather missed. For one thing, it adds a certain panache to have the fiddle in there; for another thing, we all still do love the fiddle part thatkathrynt (Kathryn) wrote out; for a third thing, it's usually Cyn that gives us the physical cue for closing out the song, by tipping her head back as she plays and then forward again, so we had to make sure to watch each other instead, which made life a bit entertaining. Now that Mimi's taken over singing this she's not yet as comfortable as she'd like with belting out the lyrics either, but they're coming! It was rather gratifying as well to not have too many tempo issues on this song for once; Mimi announced to us that she was paying extra special attention to the tempo. All hail Mimi!
We did the obligatory "one too many" takes of "Mari-Mac" and then called it Time for Pie. This week's: key lime, though Monica could not partake of that pie, so she finished off the last of the previous week's apple. Monica has also moved that we start doing a pie rotation for Jam, of which I approve, as I've about worn out the stock of pie that they sell at QFC and Fred has not yet rejoined us to bring us the Viking Pies of the Hinterlands. Who knows, though... if this keeps up, we might have to start branching out into cake.
Till next time, and hopefully on time for once,
Anna the Piper
In which we do more with instrumentals, in which I do backup vocals, and in which everybody but me is pretty solid on the tempo! Songs: "Dancing With Mrs. White", "Jennie's Jealous", "You Woke Up My Neighborhood", "Mari-Mac".
As I write this I'm at the science fiction convention Norwescon, killing some time while I wait for my spouse to work on tonight's issue of the convention's daily newsletter. Having just come out of the filk, where I did in fact attempt to play my mandolin and sing in public for the second time this weekend, I am reminded that I really ought to have this Jam Report ready for when I come back tomorrow night and can get this online! (For those of you who might want to know more about my various frustrations with my laptop and my MP3 player this past week, I rant about them at length in my Livejournal. You can see me getting geeky over there. For that matter, I'll talk about Norwescon there as well. However, in the meantime...)
For the session on 3/24 we were again sans Dana due to her unexpectedly having to cover for a coworker; we also did not have
ssha (Cyn), since she had gone down to visit her father in Portland. We did, however, have daspatrick (Patrick), which was a pleasant surprise. We also had myself, Monica, solarbird (Dara), and mamishka (Mimi), and because we had Patrick, we also had spazzkat (Paul).First up we took another stab at "Dancing With Mrs. White". It took forever to get going on this, because I had to try three times to get everything I needed for this song printed out; I'd written harmony in Music Write and didn't have printouts yet, so I had to a) make those printouts and b) write out what notes I was supposed to be hitting, for maximum effectiveness at playing them at speed.
The tempo was too slow on the first take, but I kind of needed it as I was breaking in the harmony I had written for the B and D parts. As it happened, said harmony's D part was voted down; as Mimi opined, it sounded a bit too discordant against the melody line, and also defeated the purpose of having the sort of "dancing flutes duet" air we were attempting. We're keeping the B part, though now I have to learn how to play it properly and segue smoothly back into the A part of the song after playing it, which I am not yet able to do; I am also finding it a challenge to play both repetitions of the B part and the next round of the A part immediately after. It's not nearly as taxing as playing the whole thing all the way through, but still.
Another problem I'm having, since this was pretty much the All About Anna's Problems Song, is that I'm too breathy in my piccolo's lowest octave. I need to get stronger down there somehow, and I'm not sure how yet; I do need to stay in that octave though to better mirror Dara.
We gunned the tempo up for the subsequent takes, which was really needed, though this didn't much help the tuning issues I was also having. Sigh!
Onward then to "Jennie's Jealous", the ditty of Patrick's creation. I couldn't really see myself playing flute or piccolo or mandolin on this, as it seems to want none of those instruments and nothing entertaining immediately presented itself for me to try to play for supporting rhythm. So Patrick asked me if I wanted to sing backup vocals.
This was a weird experience for me -- singing backup, without playing any instrument at all. I'm not sure if I like the sound of myself doing this yet, but this is a song very much still in the initial stages. Patrick has written harmony, but I'm not sure my range can handle it; Monica's going to try to take the higher harmony while I come in lower, since this is in the key of D and I'm stronger in lower notes in that key. I managed to figure out something that works on the bridge while Patrick and Monica are singing the main melody and harmony, of which they approve: me doing descending descending notes beneath them on a couple of the lines. Yay! I'm not too experienced with this whole singing thing, so it was nice to know I did something decent.
The guitars aren't quite solid on the solo section yet, as they're having to work out how long that part's going to go. Meems did some drum experimentation, starting off with her bodhran and doing rim hits to accentuate the beat; for later takes, though, we broke out Roland for her, which the song really did seem to like better, style-wise, even though we had a majority bent in favor of having a "live" drum if possible on the grounds that that just sounded more real. Mimi, though, decided that her generally used drums sounded too ethnic for this particular song.
We moved the mike around a bit to make Patrick as audible as possible while he was singing, and between the mike moving and Mimi on the keyboard, Monica asserts that we sound 'so garage'.
I wanted to take a stab at "You Woke Up My Neighborhood", to see if I could sing on the choruses. I'd been practicing this and had even begun to try to work out a bit of harmony, but hadn't tried to sing and play on this song with the group as a whole yet. Short form of the story: I did manage to come in on the choruses more or less, though my harmony went right out of my head. It was very satisfying to have Patrick back, though, because his guitar playing really rather makes this song for me, and for that matter so does Mimi's coming in singing "tlll it grew cold" on the bridge. Everyone told me that if Patrick's going to do his cheesy little ending to this song, I need to do a final tremolo on the mand when he hits his last chord. Hee hee. I did try to do that on our public take of this ditty, but I have a hard time hearing my little mand over the electric guitar. Clearly I'm not tremming loud enough!
Last but not least we did another practice run of "Mari-Mac", though we didn't have Cyn on the fiddle and her contribution there was rather missed. For one thing, it adds a certain panache to have the fiddle in there; for another thing, we all still do love the fiddle part that
kathrynt (Kathryn) wrote out; for a third thing, it's usually Cyn that gives us the physical cue for closing out the song, by tipping her head back as she plays and then forward again, so we had to make sure to watch each other instead, which made life a bit entertaining. Now that Mimi's taken over singing this she's not yet as comfortable as she'd like with belting out the lyrics either, but they're coming! It was rather gratifying as well to not have too many tempo issues on this song for once; Mimi announced to us that she was paying extra special attention to the tempo. All hail Mimi!We did the obligatory "one too many" takes of "Mari-Mac" and then called it Time for Pie. This week's: key lime, though Monica could not partake of that pie, so she finished off the last of the previous week's apple. Monica has also moved that we start doing a pie rotation for Jam, of which I approve, as I've about worn out the stock of pie that they sell at QFC and Fred has not yet rejoined us to bring us the Viking Pies of the Hinterlands. Who knows, though... if this keeps up, we might have to start branching out into cake.
Till next time, and hopefully on time for once,
Anna the Piper