Jam Report #41: 4/14/02
Apr. 14th, 2002 01:48 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 have the smallest official jam session ever; in which I not only sing backup while playing the mandolin, I sing harmony too; in which Cyn demonstrates musically talented anatomy, and in which we take a field trip; and in which, despite the immense amount of yakking we do, we manage to cover seven songs. Songs: "Trois Navires de Ble", "Acres of Clams", "Jolly Butcher", "You Woke Up My Neighborhood", "Judas Cart", "Lukey", "Old Black Rum".
I appear to be breaking tradition here by actually posting this Jam Report more or less on time; well hey, as I work on this now it's actually 3am of the morning after we jammed, but I haven't been to bed yet, and I think it still counts as the same day if you haven't actually slept, don't you?
At any rate, this was an off-week and therefore it was time slated only for those of us who want to busk this summer to get together and practice. Of those of us who wanted to busk,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mamishka (Mimi) had to work -- and solarbird (Dara) had been going to go over to our friend smeehrrr's (Phil's) to join spazzkat (Paul) for hanging out and videogames and drawing. But she didn't make it, because when she pulled out of our driveway, she got blindsided by a university student going past on the street. She hit her hard enough to spin the car about some, and the bumper has now been ripped clean off our car.
Thankfully, both Dara and the student are okay, but the whole affair resulted in Dara being pretty much right out of the mood for making music. It also resulted in a cop showing up to take a report just as we were getting started, and when he saw our instruments and asked if we were about to practice, we cheerfully replied that we were. Monica asked him if he wanted to join us and I chimed in that we had extra instruments. He was, at any rate, a nice understanding cop, and didn't want to write Dara up a ticket, but he apparently had to on the grounds that since Dara was the one pulling out into traffic, his regulations required he write the citation. But he did make a point of remarking on Dara's good driving record, which he'd looked up, and writing up the citation such that it would be fairly easy for Dara to take to a migitation hearing.
Dara wound up going over to our friend Joby's down the street to hang out with him, but before she left she did set up the minidisc player to record those of us who were present and wanted to play: Monica,ssha (Cyn), and myself.
First up was "Trois Navires de Ble", since I'd been working on that the night before to try to figure out if I could play it and sing it at the same time and since Cyn wanted to do her fiddle parts.
I tried the initial take with Summer, and the rest with Autumn, and we decided as a result that when we have so few of us the big mand sounds better on this song -- on the grounds that if we have only Monica on the guitar, I tend to take over the sound with the little mand, and drown her out. But if we have all of the guitars, the big mand sort of vanishes against them, and the little mand is needed for the brighter accents. Monica had her own issues with sound as well, as she sang lead and thought that she sounded about ten years old, given that she's singing on the very top of her range. She thinks it's not really a good sound for this song, given the innuendo of the singer flirting with the three pretty young girls... but well hey. We told her she sounded fine!
In related news, I actually SANG BACKUP while we were playing, too. Go me! I was very pleased to discover that despite the relative (in my limited span of experience) difficulty of the strum pattern for this song in conjunction with the difficulty of the lyrics (because a) there are a lot of syllables to sing in there, and b) they're in FRENCH), I seemed to pick up playing and singing this song pretty quickly. The trick now though is for me to remember when I'm supposed to come in when I'm singing backup, and to see if I can come up with a credible harmony. Cyn expressed satisfaction that I was singing low, since Monica was singing high and she wound up coming in between us. But I was pretty much singing an octave down from Monica on the melody for the bits where I did remember to come in, and there are parts where I actually want to be singing harmony, such as the bit right before the first bridge. GBS does a really yummy harmony on the recorded version on Turn, and I have found a harmony to sing along with them while I'm listening to this ditty in the car, but damned if I could remember what that harmony was while we were singing today.
After we got all Trois'd out we moved on to "Acres of Clams", and I broke out the piccolo. Happily, I had a lot more breath this week than the week before; let's hear it for being healthy! I missed Dara's contribution on the flute line here, though. It really enhances the flute section to have her counterpoint to me, especially her harmony on the B part of the Frolic.
Monica tried to duplicate Patrick's beginning, unsuccessfully, so she just dived right in -- which managed to throw me off a time or two on when I was supposed to come in, because I wasn't ever quite sure when Monica was going to start singing. However, when she did, Monica and Cyn sounded really good together on the vocals; when we have this few instruments, the vocals are rather stronger! We had to gun up the tempo a bit more on latter takes, though, just to make sure that the Fisherman was actually frolicking again and not sauntering. ;)
Cyn improvised herself a new part on the violin for this song, which sounded quite good and rhythmic and provided a good counterpoint to me on the piccolo. After the take on which she produced said part, Monica inquired, "So did you just pull that out of your ass?" Cyn replied that she had, to which Monica then proclaimed, "Your ass makes really pretty sounds!"
Needless to say, we giggled like mad for this for quite some time. Cyn wishes it stated for the record, however, that the pretty sounds in question were in fact produced ON HER FIDDLE.
Onward then to "Jolly Butcher". Before we actually did any formal Butchering of the Butcher, I did a run through the bridge just to make sure I could still remember how to play it. While I did not in fact play it perfectly all the way through, it turned out to be pretty much my best take of "Salmon Tails Up the Water" in some time. Which just figures. Drat. ;)
Monica and Cyn harmonized again on this song, and it came out quite nicely. They've also got a new trick with doing the "voices" on the last verse, with Monica singing "Why did you bring him here?!" and Cyn answering, "Well he is your own, kind sir!"
I actually fairly consistently managed to hit my high G's on "Salmon Tails Up the Water", but my embouchure wasn't as clean as it should have been. Sigh!
"You Woke Up My Neighborhood" was next -- and I actually sang backup on this, too! And the scary thing was that I made up a harmony for the chorus, which is not quite there, but when I sang it right it worked really well with Monica on the melody. I also tried to sing "till it grew cold" on the bridge where Mimi comes in, but she does it better than I do. Monica and Cyn both advised me that I was singing too timidly, and repeated the exhortation that it is better to sing with confidence, even if you happen to be wrong.
And I STILL miss Patrick's cheese at the end of the song, not to mention his general guitar numminess all throughout. My little tremolo on Summer at the end of this ditty is not an adequate substitute. ;)
We worked pretty heavily on "Judas Cart" next, and Cyn and Monica and I got some really nice harmony going on it, which is quite assuring. I'm still not quite comfortable enough playing in front of the mike as lead instrument, though, nor am I entirely assured playing the part for "Judas Cart" while I'm singing, especially on the third verse. However, I am actually beginning to hear potential here, which is very good. So was our decision to repeat the chorus three times at the end, as 30 Odd Foot of Grunts actually does it on the recorded version on their last album. However, unlike the Grunts, we are dropping out our instruments out from under the final repetition of the chorus.
I kept having a bunch of false starts, and Cyn kept encouraging me to relax and reminding me that there was absolutely no pressure going on here whatsoever. I told her that I understood that intellectually, but still, I was nervous about having myself recorded, not to mention really anxious to do a nice take of this song. Cyn helpfully suggested I pretend I was in front of my computer in between roleplay poses on the MUSH I play on, which helped a bit; so did trying to channel Mr. Billy Dean Cochran of the Grunts. I didn't get the mandolin part where I wanted it -- but our last take produced some nice harmony on the final repetition of the chorus, when we dropped the instruments out.
Just before we did the final take, though, we thought we'd better check on how far along the minidisc had gotten. And we managed to misunderstand exactly how much time we had left, and furthermore weren't sure exactly what to do to make the device go again or whether the extra disc Dara had left lying on the couch was one on which it was safe to record. So we all put on our shoes and jackets and stepped out into the blustery afternoon to go down the street to Joby's, in search of Dara and enlightenment about the Mysteries of the Recording Device, since we were all anxious not to damage it by hitting a wrong button or something.
Dara came back and enlightened us that we did in fact have 20 minutes left, and set it up again for us, and went back to Joby's to help him get his Bobcat out of the mud. And we, after our last take of "Judas Cart", moved on to "Lukey".
We had some Adventures with the bridge on "Lukey" -- since although Cyn does possess a transcription of "Staten Island", it's in the wrong key for the recording. Her transcription has it in the key of D, and starts it out on the A above middle C. On the recording on up, it starts off on the next highest D. So we'll have to transpose the bridge for Cyn to be able to play it. She can't play it yet at tempo, so this will require some practice.
Now that I'm actually singing more often I need to get better on where to sing backup on this ditty, though. I'm belting out harmony all the time on "Lukey" when I sing it in the car, but as with "Trois Navires de Ble", for the life of me I couldn't remember what I wanted to sing in terms of harmony on this song either. Cyn had similar problems, playing with a harmony before we actually started doing formal takes, but kept finding herself instinctively singing the melody.
After "Lukey", we did exactly one take of "Old Black Rum", mostly because I felt like it. We just sort of fell into it, but went all the way through it nevertheless; I have determined that I do in fact like belting out "Old Black Rum" at the top of my lungs while playing the big mand. Muahahaha. We had a bit of good harmony going too, but the final "And Iiiiiii drank sixteen doubles for the price of oooooooooone" was just pure Goofy, especially Monica hitting a high note on "one".
Lastly, we delved a bit into both of my Irish songbooks, to look up "Wind That Shakes the Barley" and "Rising of the Moon". We didn't actually do formal takes of either of these songs, but Cyn sang the first of them for us and we debated about how it should properly be performed (consensus was, it would probably be best a capella). Monica then did a rough run through of the second, while I glanced over her shoulder and determined that I could do the chords on it but that it also really wanted a drum of some kind, as I kept finding myself tapping out a rhythm on the top of my big mand as she did it.
And after that, we called it Pie.
I hadn't actually bought new pie -- but we had leftover blueberry from the last session, and leftover birthday ice cream from Wednesday, since that had been Dara's birthday. Next week, we are looking forward to NEW PIE, as Monica has volunteered to bring some!
And until then,
Anna the Piper
In which we have the smallest official jam session ever; in which I not only sing backup while playing the mandolin, I sing harmony too; in which Cyn demonstrates musically talented anatomy, and in which we take a field trip; and in which, despite the immense amount of yakking we do, we manage to cover seven songs. Songs: "Trois Navires de Ble", "Acres of Clams", "Jolly Butcher", "You Woke Up My Neighborhood", "Judas Cart", "Lukey", "Old Black Rum".
I appear to be breaking tradition here by actually posting this Jam Report more or less on time; well hey, as I work on this now it's actually 3am of the morning after we jammed, but I haven't been to bed yet, and I think it still counts as the same day if you haven't actually slept, don't you?
At any rate, this was an off-week and therefore it was time slated only for those of us who want to busk this summer to get together and practice. Of those of us who wanted to busk,
mamishka (Mimi) had to work -- and solarbird (Dara) had been going to go over to our friend smeehrrr's (Phil's) to join spazzkat (Paul) for hanging out and videogames and drawing. But she didn't make it, because when she pulled out of our driveway, she got blindsided by a university student going past on the street. She hit her hard enough to spin the car about some, and the bumper has now been ripped clean off our car.Thankfully, both Dara and the student are okay, but the whole affair resulted in Dara being pretty much right out of the mood for making music. It also resulted in a cop showing up to take a report just as we were getting started, and when he saw our instruments and asked if we were about to practice, we cheerfully replied that we were. Monica asked him if he wanted to join us and I chimed in that we had extra instruments. He was, at any rate, a nice understanding cop, and didn't want to write Dara up a ticket, but he apparently had to on the grounds that since Dara was the one pulling out into traffic, his regulations required he write the citation. But he did make a point of remarking on Dara's good driving record, which he'd looked up, and writing up the citation such that it would be fairly easy for Dara to take to a migitation hearing.
Dara wound up going over to our friend Joby's down the street to hang out with him, but before she left she did set up the minidisc player to record those of us who were present and wanted to play: Monica,
ssha (Cyn), and myself.First up was "Trois Navires de Ble", since I'd been working on that the night before to try to figure out if I could play it and sing it at the same time and since Cyn wanted to do her fiddle parts.
I tried the initial take with Summer, and the rest with Autumn, and we decided as a result that when we have so few of us the big mand sounds better on this song -- on the grounds that if we have only Monica on the guitar, I tend to take over the sound with the little mand, and drown her out. But if we have all of the guitars, the big mand sort of vanishes against them, and the little mand is needed for the brighter accents. Monica had her own issues with sound as well, as she sang lead and thought that she sounded about ten years old, given that she's singing on the very top of her range. She thinks it's not really a good sound for this song, given the innuendo of the singer flirting with the three pretty young girls... but well hey. We told her she sounded fine!
In related news, I actually SANG BACKUP while we were playing, too. Go me! I was very pleased to discover that despite the relative (in my limited span of experience) difficulty of the strum pattern for this song in conjunction with the difficulty of the lyrics (because a) there are a lot of syllables to sing in there, and b) they're in FRENCH), I seemed to pick up playing and singing this song pretty quickly. The trick now though is for me to remember when I'm supposed to come in when I'm singing backup, and to see if I can come up with a credible harmony. Cyn expressed satisfaction that I was singing low, since Monica was singing high and she wound up coming in between us. But I was pretty much singing an octave down from Monica on the melody for the bits where I did remember to come in, and there are parts where I actually want to be singing harmony, such as the bit right before the first bridge. GBS does a really yummy harmony on the recorded version on Turn, and I have found a harmony to sing along with them while I'm listening to this ditty in the car, but damned if I could remember what that harmony was while we were singing today.
After we got all Trois'd out we moved on to "Acres of Clams", and I broke out the piccolo. Happily, I had a lot more breath this week than the week before; let's hear it for being healthy! I missed Dara's contribution on the flute line here, though. It really enhances the flute section to have her counterpoint to me, especially her harmony on the B part of the Frolic.
Monica tried to duplicate Patrick's beginning, unsuccessfully, so she just dived right in -- which managed to throw me off a time or two on when I was supposed to come in, because I wasn't ever quite sure when Monica was going to start singing. However, when she did, Monica and Cyn sounded really good together on the vocals; when we have this few instruments, the vocals are rather stronger! We had to gun up the tempo a bit more on latter takes, though, just to make sure that the Fisherman was actually frolicking again and not sauntering. ;)
Cyn improvised herself a new part on the violin for this song, which sounded quite good and rhythmic and provided a good counterpoint to me on the piccolo. After the take on which she produced said part, Monica inquired, "So did you just pull that out of your ass?" Cyn replied that she had, to which Monica then proclaimed, "Your ass makes really pretty sounds!"
Needless to say, we giggled like mad for this for quite some time. Cyn wishes it stated for the record, however, that the pretty sounds in question were in fact produced ON HER FIDDLE.
Onward then to "Jolly Butcher". Before we actually did any formal Butchering of the Butcher, I did a run through the bridge just to make sure I could still remember how to play it. While I did not in fact play it perfectly all the way through, it turned out to be pretty much my best take of "Salmon Tails Up the Water" in some time. Which just figures. Drat. ;)
Monica and Cyn harmonized again on this song, and it came out quite nicely. They've also got a new trick with doing the "voices" on the last verse, with Monica singing "Why did you bring him here?!" and Cyn answering, "Well he is your own, kind sir!"
I actually fairly consistently managed to hit my high G's on "Salmon Tails Up the Water", but my embouchure wasn't as clean as it should have been. Sigh!
"You Woke Up My Neighborhood" was next -- and I actually sang backup on this, too! And the scary thing was that I made up a harmony for the chorus, which is not quite there, but when I sang it right it worked really well with Monica on the melody. I also tried to sing "till it grew cold" on the bridge where Mimi comes in, but she does it better than I do. Monica and Cyn both advised me that I was singing too timidly, and repeated the exhortation that it is better to sing with confidence, even if you happen to be wrong.
And I STILL miss Patrick's cheese at the end of the song, not to mention his general guitar numminess all throughout. My little tremolo on Summer at the end of this ditty is not an adequate substitute. ;)
We worked pretty heavily on "Judas Cart" next, and Cyn and Monica and I got some really nice harmony going on it, which is quite assuring. I'm still not quite comfortable enough playing in front of the mike as lead instrument, though, nor am I entirely assured playing the part for "Judas Cart" while I'm singing, especially on the third verse. However, I am actually beginning to hear potential here, which is very good. So was our decision to repeat the chorus three times at the end, as 30 Odd Foot of Grunts actually does it on the recorded version on their last album. However, unlike the Grunts, we are dropping out our instruments out from under the final repetition of the chorus.
I kept having a bunch of false starts, and Cyn kept encouraging me to relax and reminding me that there was absolutely no pressure going on here whatsoever. I told her that I understood that intellectually, but still, I was nervous about having myself recorded, not to mention really anxious to do a nice take of this song. Cyn helpfully suggested I pretend I was in front of my computer in between roleplay poses on the MUSH I play on, which helped a bit; so did trying to channel Mr. Billy Dean Cochran of the Grunts. I didn't get the mandolin part where I wanted it -- but our last take produced some nice harmony on the final repetition of the chorus, when we dropped the instruments out.
Just before we did the final take, though, we thought we'd better check on how far along the minidisc had gotten. And we managed to misunderstand exactly how much time we had left, and furthermore weren't sure exactly what to do to make the device go again or whether the extra disc Dara had left lying on the couch was one on which it was safe to record. So we all put on our shoes and jackets and stepped out into the blustery afternoon to go down the street to Joby's, in search of Dara and enlightenment about the Mysteries of the Recording Device, since we were all anxious not to damage it by hitting a wrong button or something.
Dara came back and enlightened us that we did in fact have 20 minutes left, and set it up again for us, and went back to Joby's to help him get his Bobcat out of the mud. And we, after our last take of "Judas Cart", moved on to "Lukey".
We had some Adventures with the bridge on "Lukey" -- since although Cyn does possess a transcription of "Staten Island", it's in the wrong key for the recording. Her transcription has it in the key of D, and starts it out on the A above middle C. On the recording on up, it starts off on the next highest D. So we'll have to transpose the bridge for Cyn to be able to play it. She can't play it yet at tempo, so this will require some practice.
Now that I'm actually singing more often I need to get better on where to sing backup on this ditty, though. I'm belting out harmony all the time on "Lukey" when I sing it in the car, but as with "Trois Navires de Ble", for the life of me I couldn't remember what I wanted to sing in terms of harmony on this song either. Cyn had similar problems, playing with a harmony before we actually started doing formal takes, but kept finding herself instinctively singing the melody.
After "Lukey", we did exactly one take of "Old Black Rum", mostly because I felt like it. We just sort of fell into it, but went all the way through it nevertheless; I have determined that I do in fact like belting out "Old Black Rum" at the top of my lungs while playing the big mand. Muahahaha. We had a bit of good harmony going too, but the final "And Iiiiiii drank sixteen doubles for the price of oooooooooone" was just pure Goofy, especially Monica hitting a high note on "one".
Lastly, we delved a bit into both of my Irish songbooks, to look up "Wind That Shakes the Barley" and "Rising of the Moon". We didn't actually do formal takes of either of these songs, but Cyn sang the first of them for us and we debated about how it should properly be performed (consensus was, it would probably be best a capella). Monica then did a rough run through of the second, while I glanced over her shoulder and determined that I could do the chords on it but that it also really wanted a drum of some kind, as I kept finding myself tapping out a rhythm on the top of my big mand as she did it.
And after that, we called it Pie.
I hadn't actually bought new pie -- but we had leftover blueberry from the last session, and leftover birthday ice cream from Wednesday, since that had been Dara's birthday. Next week, we are looking forward to NEW PIE, as Monica has volunteered to bring some!
And until then,
Anna the Piper