Jam Report #58: 2/4/06
Feb. 5th, 2006 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperIn which MurkNorth sees its very first impromptu jam session, thanks to a power outage, because ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
spazzkat, solarbird, and I have nothing else to do but music in the dark! Songs: A lot of neat-sounding twiddling from Paul, and "Mari-Mac", "Trois Navires de Ble", "Lukey", "Jack Hinks", "Old Black Rum", and bits and pieces of "Ordinary Day" from me.
Bet y'all didn't ever think you'd see another Jam Report out of me, did you? Neither did I, for that matter! But you know what? We were all full of WRONG! And you can thank the Great Windstorm of February 4, 2006 for that. As I am as we type six scant days away from my next Great Big Sea concert, I had already vowed that there would be bouzouki and guitar this weekend, but these weren't quite the circumstances I had in mind!
We lost power around 7:40pm--after the storm had actually mostly blown over. We think a utility pole that Dara had spotted waving back and forth had had to be taken down, and that they had to shut down our circuit to fix it. And since this was after sunset, the house was nice and dark, too dark to read or write without the aid of flashlights. Which left us with pretty much one other option for entertaining ourselves: MUSIC. (Well, okay, we could have played Scrabble or Mah Jongg or something, but that would have required light too. And besides, music was more fun. Work with me here, people! ;) ) Paul grabbed his guitar and I grabbed my guitar, and for about two hours or so we proceeded to make music. Dara did not delay in grabbing various and sundry flutes, and Paul soon fetched his drum machine from downstairs as well.
Now, Paul is a way better guitarist than I am. He can actually do things besides rhythm strumming, but he did show me a few of the barre chords he was using to do some riffs on his instrument. We determined that they're harder to do on mine--because I have a classical and my frets are so wide, my little bitty fingers have to stretch in weird and uncomfortable ways to do what he was doing. Also, sliding doesn't sound quite as cool on my nylon strings as it does on his metal ones. It can be done, sure, but I don't get that neat little raspy metallic sound that seems to add flavor to it, to my ear, anyway.
Paul also fiddled around with some Ace Frehley stuff, but couldn't quite do it to his satisfaction since his guitar wasn't tuned down half a step as he says KISS always did their guitars. So he couldn't sing low enough to actually really do the song he was playing with.
Me, I played GBS. Which will of course surprise no one. But hey, all the songs I can sing and play at the same time are Great Big Sea ditties!
After I played a few bars of "Mari-Mac" Paul remembered how to play it, but the problem was that we couldn't do it in its standard GBS key, which is E minor. I can't sing it right in that key. So I had to transpose to A minor. Teaching Paul the chords wasn't hard, though Dara had trouble finding a flute in the right key to play with me.
"Trois Navires de Ble" was easier. I can't really sing this one in its native key either, but if I go up three frets to B flat, I'm a lot comfier. That still caused Dara flute troubles, so I kicked it up another two frets to go to C. That was kind of weird and fun since I'd never played my guitar capoed that high before, and that was a really comfy key for that song for my voice. I kept having trouble hitting the capoed B minor in the bridges, though. (Transposed, I suppose that was coming out as E minor. Whatever it was, I was fingering it badly. My frets and strings start changing spacing that high on my fretboard, so it was throwing me off.)
I capoed "Lukey", too, but only up to A--the key we'd used for this song back when we were regularly jamming, and the key we used for playing it at Monica's wedding. That worked well enough. By then Paul had gotten out his drum machine, and was playing around with trying to find a nice snare setting for playing along with me. We had a bit of fun figuring out what to do with the bridge, though. I was trying to play it the way GBS does in the live performances, when you come out of the chorus on the fourth verse and they just drop all the instruments out and go "A HA ME BOYS A RIDDLE AYE DAY", and then BOOM, right into the bridge.
Also, Dara was vexed to realize that I was changing keys for the bridge--unfortunately she could not capo her flute. She expressed her displeasure by poking my strings as I played through that part. Heh.
I tried to show Paul the chords for "Jack Hinks" but I couldn't quite make it click. I wound up playing through it anyway, in D, since that's the key I can sing it in. (I play the same chords GBS does, only without a capo; they capo on the third fret to take it into F.)
I also did "Old Black Rum", again in D, and played it straight through without a bridge.
And last, bits and pieces of "Ordinary Day". Yet again in D, uncapoed. I still haven't quite gotten the hang of this particular GBS ditty, though. I know the chords at this point, but the problem that keeps throwing me is that I can't quite get the hang of how the strum patterns change between the verses and the choruses. The choruses are all standard GBS-style, off-beat strumming. But in the verses, the strums are doing something that's syncopated in a way I can't quite grasp, not when I'm trying to sing at the same time.
At that point my wrist was starting to wear out, since I hadn't played like that in quite some time. So I bowed out and left Paul to take over the twiddling. Both Dara and Jenna played with the drum machine as well.
Sadly, we had no pie. But we think the pizza we ordered as per usual on Saturday night should count!
And even if it was all dark and stuff, jamming was fun. Hopefully we can do that again--and not have to wait for a power outage to have an excuse!
spazzkat, solarbird, and I have nothing else to do but music in the dark! Songs: A lot of neat-sounding twiddling from Paul, and "Mari-Mac", "Trois Navires de Ble", "Lukey", "Jack Hinks", "Old Black Rum", and bits and pieces of "Ordinary Day" from me.Bet y'all didn't ever think you'd see another Jam Report out of me, did you? Neither did I, for that matter! But you know what? We were all full of WRONG! And you can thank the Great Windstorm of February 4, 2006 for that. As I am as we type six scant days away from my next Great Big Sea concert, I had already vowed that there would be bouzouki and guitar this weekend, but these weren't quite the circumstances I had in mind!
We lost power around 7:40pm--after the storm had actually mostly blown over. We think a utility pole that Dara had spotted waving back and forth had had to be taken down, and that they had to shut down our circuit to fix it. And since this was after sunset, the house was nice and dark, too dark to read or write without the aid of flashlights. Which left us with pretty much one other option for entertaining ourselves: MUSIC. (Well, okay, we could have played Scrabble or Mah Jongg or something, but that would have required light too. And besides, music was more fun. Work with me here, people! ;) ) Paul grabbed his guitar and I grabbed my guitar, and for about two hours or so we proceeded to make music. Dara did not delay in grabbing various and sundry flutes, and Paul soon fetched his drum machine from downstairs as well.
Now, Paul is a way better guitarist than I am. He can actually do things besides rhythm strumming, but he did show me a few of the barre chords he was using to do some riffs on his instrument. We determined that they're harder to do on mine--because I have a classical and my frets are so wide, my little bitty fingers have to stretch in weird and uncomfortable ways to do what he was doing. Also, sliding doesn't sound quite as cool on my nylon strings as it does on his metal ones. It can be done, sure, but I don't get that neat little raspy metallic sound that seems to add flavor to it, to my ear, anyway.
Paul also fiddled around with some Ace Frehley stuff, but couldn't quite do it to his satisfaction since his guitar wasn't tuned down half a step as he says KISS always did their guitars. So he couldn't sing low enough to actually really do the song he was playing with.
Me, I played GBS. Which will of course surprise no one. But hey, all the songs I can sing and play at the same time are Great Big Sea ditties!
After I played a few bars of "Mari-Mac" Paul remembered how to play it, but the problem was that we couldn't do it in its standard GBS key, which is E minor. I can't sing it right in that key. So I had to transpose to A minor. Teaching Paul the chords wasn't hard, though Dara had trouble finding a flute in the right key to play with me.
"Trois Navires de Ble" was easier. I can't really sing this one in its native key either, but if I go up three frets to B flat, I'm a lot comfier. That still caused Dara flute troubles, so I kicked it up another two frets to go to C. That was kind of weird and fun since I'd never played my guitar capoed that high before, and that was a really comfy key for that song for my voice. I kept having trouble hitting the capoed B minor in the bridges, though. (Transposed, I suppose that was coming out as E minor. Whatever it was, I was fingering it badly. My frets and strings start changing spacing that high on my fretboard, so it was throwing me off.)
I capoed "Lukey", too, but only up to A--the key we'd used for this song back when we were regularly jamming, and the key we used for playing it at Monica's wedding. That worked well enough. By then Paul had gotten out his drum machine, and was playing around with trying to find a nice snare setting for playing along with me. We had a bit of fun figuring out what to do with the bridge, though. I was trying to play it the way GBS does in the live performances, when you come out of the chorus on the fourth verse and they just drop all the instruments out and go "A HA ME BOYS A RIDDLE AYE DAY", and then BOOM, right into the bridge.
Also, Dara was vexed to realize that I was changing keys for the bridge--unfortunately she could not capo her flute. She expressed her displeasure by poking my strings as I played through that part. Heh.
I tried to show Paul the chords for "Jack Hinks" but I couldn't quite make it click. I wound up playing through it anyway, in D, since that's the key I can sing it in. (I play the same chords GBS does, only without a capo; they capo on the third fret to take it into F.)
I also did "Old Black Rum", again in D, and played it straight through without a bridge.
And last, bits and pieces of "Ordinary Day". Yet again in D, uncapoed. I still haven't quite gotten the hang of this particular GBS ditty, though. I know the chords at this point, but the problem that keeps throwing me is that I can't quite get the hang of how the strum patterns change between the verses and the choruses. The choruses are all standard GBS-style, off-beat strumming. But in the verses, the strums are doing something that's syncopated in a way I can't quite grasp, not when I'm trying to sing at the same time.
At that point my wrist was starting to wear out, since I hadn't played like that in quite some time. So I bowed out and left Paul to take over the twiddling. Both Dara and Jenna played with the drum machine as well.
Sadly, we had no pie. But we think the pizza we ordered as per usual on Saturday night should count!
And even if it was all dark and stuff, jamming was fun. Hopefully we can do that again--and not have to wait for a power outage to have an excuse!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-02-05 07:37 pm (UTC)High enough. I couldn't sing high enough. My voice is too low for most of the stuff I'd like to sing with.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-05 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-06 02:29 am (UTC)Hey! It's also called "pizza pie", ain't it?!?
I don't know about the rest of your readers but it was your jam reports (and later, Andy Ihnatko's Yellowtext blog) that got me going on the whole journal/blog thing. I was just tickled pink -- not my color -- to see "Jam Report #58" appear in my RSS aggravator.
More jams, please! (And don't go and wait for another power outage, y'hear?)
HH
no subject
Date: 2006-02-06 05:30 am (UTC)And *beam*, thank you, it was a pleasure to write one up. I just need to actually corral people to jam with me some more.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-12 08:54 am (UTC)On the plus side, I will also be getting into music at my church, finally.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 01:57 am (UTC)If you can make it up for an occasional jam, that would be fabulous. And as of last night before and after the GBS show, there were actual rumblings that this might happen! As I posted about here.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 02:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 05:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 10:09 am (UTC)I am excited. And I looked at my calendar to find that the appointment with my eye doctor is, in fact, TOMORROW!
WHOO!
no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 05:50 pm (UTC)