Jam Report #60: 9/30/07

[annathepiper]

In which technoshaman and cflute visit the Murkworks for a jam with solarbird and me, sort of a Three Good Measures Meets Echo's Children jam; in which we have less music than we might have liked and more restringing of my guitar; and in which I finally learn some chords to a Heather Alexander ditty as well as "Simple Gifts". Songs: "Mari-Mac", "Trois Navires de Ble", "Tomorrow We Leave for Battle", "March of Cambreadth", "Simple Gifts".


Once the Murkworks learned that the folks over in technoshaman's household are barely a stone's throw away, it was quickly decided that we had to get together and jam. Actually acting on this took a while, and the plans for today even wound up kind of flexible. We'd originally planned to meet over at Glenn's place, but then they were stricken by a collective Plague, which scrapped those plans. We opted to have things here instead, and luckily, Callie rallied well enough to join us.

Before they showed up, I started breaking out my instruments and getting them tuned, since I hadn't in too damned long. Rags was quite happy with this, but the bouzouki? Not so much. I am ashamed to admit that I hadn't tuned my bouzouki in so long that I kind of forgot which order the pegs were in for the D and G courses, and I broke one of the D strings. *^_^* Which meant that I was down to guitar and the big mand for stringed instrument efforts today.

But with the guitar tuned up, noodling around with GBS was a requirement. So I started futzing with random snippets of songs, trying to remind myself of how all the ones I knew went. Dara broke out her flutes, and we played for a bit with trying to see if she had a flute which would let her play her "Mari-Mac" part still if I changed keys from E minor into A minor. As I have lamented on previous Jam Reports, I can't sing "Mari-Mac" in the key GBS does it in; A minor, though, I'm good with. And capo'ing on the fifth fret while playing the E minor chords isn't really an option, at least with Rags. Rags' voice gets way too high capoed that far, and if I'm the only guitar on "Mari-Mac", I need more muscle than that. We have not yet settled whether Dara and I can do "Mari-Mac" in A minor. More research in this area is required.

Once Glenn and Callie joined us, much flutegeeking occurred as Dara started breaking out both the flutes she's made and the ones that were made by Romy Benton. Callie broke out her bass flute too, and aw man, so cool. So very cool. The sound of a bass flute absolutely makes me swoon. I eventually also had to break out my own flotilla of flutes, which only served to remind me that I haven't played any of them in way too long. Nor have I oiled them, either. I need to renew my acquaintance with them, especially Jade. My fingers have missed Jade.

The first actual song we played with was "Trois Navires de Ble", once I explained that my French pronunciation of the lyrics is, in a word, sucky. (For those of you who haven't read previous Jam Reports, the main issue I have with singing this song is the accent drift. When I've imprinted on French Canadian lyrics sung by a Newfoundlander with a heavy accent, and I am myself singing with a watered-down Kentucky accent and have a lot of years between me and my one year of badly-learned college French, I don't have very good chances of singing French that actually sounds like, well, French.) We had to futz around with the key here too. Previous TGM attempts to do this song kept it in G, since that's where auntmonkey did well singing it. I, however, do rather better if I kick it up to B flat. I leave the imagining of the look on Dara's face when I asked her about playing this in B flat on any of her flutes as an exercise to the reader. ;)

Next up, since this was kind of the point to begin with, we eventually broke out copies of the Heather Alexander songbook. I wanted to play with "Tomorrow We Leave for Battle", since I'd always loved that song a lot and had in fact filked it for RP as Shenner on Star Wars MUSH, and since I'd more or less taught myself how to play the violin parts on my flutes. The challenge with said violin parts is however the range--I can't easily handle the range on any of my bamboos, and while I might be able to work up to it on the silver, it'll take a bit for me to try to get back my high notes.

It was however very nice to play around with the chord line. Very easy chords, those; the song's in A minor, so the chords were all ones I know and can easily do on the guitar. The strum pattern's trickier for me, but that's a problem I can rectify after listening to the recording a few more times, I think. Callie was good enough to work out the chord pattern on the bridge, too, which is pretty much the same as the verse and chorus played straight through.

Callie took over the guitar for a bit, too, while playing with the song--and she did better with it than I did, since she picked up faster how to sing it and play it at the same time. Right about then though was when she realized that my guitar was in fact STRUNG WRONG. I have niggling little memories about knowing this before, I think. But I must have forgotten completely about it, because it was startling when she pointed this out. I quickly gave permission, though, for her to restring it properly. This'll just require me to remember to do a C-shape pointing inwards rather than a C-shape pointing outwards when I go around the tuning pegs. For that matter, I am informed I really ought to get new tuning pegs. Considering how badly Rags squeaks when tuned, I think this will indeed happen.

Anyway, Dara and Callie took a while restringing the guitar, while I noodled around trying to remember all of how the bridge to "Tomorrow We Leave for Battle" went. Dara finally realized that I could in fact hook my iPod up to the stereo set, and we could play the song for everybody to hear over the speakers. Woot! This let Callie clue in on how the tempo patterns worked in the song, as well as working out the bridge chords, as previously mentioned.

And, well, this also led right into us singing along with "March of Cambreadth". Like ya do, when listening to that particular Heather Alexander album. I took the opportunity to play a couple of GBS ditties for them as well: "Mari-Mac" and then "Trois Navires de Ble" so that they could hear blazing fast GBS vs. gentler GBS. Parts of "Lukey" and "Old Black Rum" also occurred. But by then Glenn and Callie had to wind things down a bit, so we carried out Callie's suggestion of doing what is often done at jam circles at local filks: doing a few passes through "Simple Gifts".

This was interesting for me since I had never actually learned chords to "Simple Gifts", and I got to play with figuring out what chords sounded right where. For the record, since we were doing this in G (and oh my word, Callie doing this on the bass flute sounded fabulous), the chord pattern Callie and I worked out was:

(A part)
G G Am D
G G Am Bm G

(B part)
G G G Am D
G G G Am Bm G

So now, next time I'm at a con in a jam circle and people say "Let's do 'Simple Gifts'!", I can say "I know that one!" Go me! ^_^

Credit for the pie goes to jessicac and her previously-brought-over peach pie, but Glenn and Callie brought Breyer's french vanilla ice cream to go with it, and that was officially tasty. We have also tentatively decided to try this again in two weeks. Gods willing, minus rising creeks and medical complications, Jam is ON.

It's good to be back.

Comments

[callibr8]

It's good to be part of the new jammin' thing! Does GBS have a songbook? Or even lead sheets online somewhere? The latter, especially for songs you can sing in the key notated on the page, would give me a flying start at creating flute parts. I can't match solarbird's chops (which she demonstrated so impressively on Mari-Mac), let alone the bevy of beautiful instruments she has made, but I know various faking tricks, and still remember a lot of the jazz lab exercises. In fact, I could make copies of those labs for y'all, if you like, and with the chord map it'd be that much easier to cobble up a prototype harmony line in a hurry. Just sayin'.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Jam report #60! Wow! Wow! Wow! You guys rule. :)

[annathepiper]

My B'ys do not, I fear, have a songbook (though this has frequently been posted as a hope for the future on the OKP, the message board on their site). However, between the various members of my jamming group, we cobbled together the chord patterns for a whole lot of their songs, and I've got printouts of a lot of the songs they've used as bridges or as full instrumental songs, for purposes of playing myself on my flutes--that's how Dara and I started working on "Dancing With Mrs. White". :) I'd be happy to share those with you if you're interested!

[annathepiper]

Hee. Thank you. ^_^

[callibr8]

I {heart} chord maps! That'd be great, thanks!!

[annathepiper]

Most welcome. Do you have a preference between hard copy or e-copies?

[ssha.livejournal.com]

I am now jealous. And sad to be so far away that I cannot conceivably hop over to play with y'all.

I am, in other news, however, reteaching myself to play piano, and, as a result, to read bass clef. I'm amazed at the number of compliments and thanks I've gotten for my practice times, which occur on the piano in the community room. I can't fathom how they're deserved for banging away dischordantly on the keyboard.

[callibr8]

Actually, yes - I'd prefer the e-copies if they're available because I can easily print such, and then if I misplace them I can print them *again* as needed. *wry grin*

[annathepiper]

Okay! I'll go through my on-computer stuff and fire you a selection of stuff. :)

[annathepiper]

Cool about the piano. Keep at it!

I need to change out Rags' B string this weekend. Another thing Callie and Dara discovered was that the B string is resting right on a bit of the bridge, which'll make the string buzz. And I've got to start tuning that new G we put on, too.

And see if I have any replacement D strings for the zouk, too.

[ssha.livejournal.com]

You need to lower the action on the B-string it sounds like, if it is barely resting, rather than firmly pressed to. Or did you mean that it is brushing a portion of the fingerboard? If so, you should raise the action.

[annathepiper]

Nah, I'm talking about how the knot in the string, where it's actually tied down onto the bridge of the guitar, is resting right on the white bit of the bridge. This is as opposed to the other strings, whose knots are below it. I need to restring that B so it'll be the same as the others.

[ssha.livejournal.com]

Ah hah! Okay then, I shut up now.