![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperIn which I must do a double Jam Report because I didn't actually do last week's, thanks to the Martian Death Cold; in which we have two consecutive guest Jammers (two words: didgeridoo and cello); in which last week's mini-Jam is entirely blown out of the water by this week's super-Jam; and in which we have special added Russell-Crowe-inspired bodhran jamming! Songs: oh, well, hell. Lots!
We had to have a mini-Jam last week, due to scheduling conflicts with Consonance on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cflute's part and concom meetings for sutures1. But technoshaman was still available, and he brought along with him his friend radarrider, who came armed with an extra guitar and several very cool didgeridoos made out of PVC pipes. I am bummed that we weren't actually able to do those didges justice, in no small part because I was well and thoroughly in the grip of the cold I'd contracted the previous weekend, and didn't have energy for much.
Between my cold and our being down Callie and Ellen, this put a pretty big damper in what we were able to play. However, we did fool around a bit with "Elf Glade", this time withsolarbird tackling the vocals, and I seem to recall that we played with "Goin' Up" as well, with me dropping off the guitar so I could actually sing the lyrics. "Lukey" and "Old Black Rum" both got thrown in there, as I can generally play GBS ditties in my sleep, though I didn't have the voice to carry more than a few bars of the latter.
At one point Dara and Nevada just completely adlibbed something with the didge and the little bodhran, which was pretty nifty to listen to. I didn't try to play along--I didn't need to. Those two things alone, very primal and very basic, didn't want ornamentation.
There was much admiring of Nevada's instruments in general. He'd brought his guitar, a Seagull, which reminded me quite a bit ofauntmonkey's guitar from the previous incarnation of our jamming group, and which had quite a bit more muscle to it than my little Rags. The didges: also very cool, with pieces in different sizes so that Nevada could swap out depending on what key he needed to be in. Some of them were painted nifty colors, too. And I was most impressed by the deep rumbly noises those things make.
The rest of it? Really kind of a blur for me, but I shall defer tosolarbird and technoshaman if they want to contribute anything I've missed in the comments!
I remember the pie, though. Key lime. That was super-tasty. ;)
Today's Jam was not only a lot more back to normal speed, with Callie re-joining us, but we had a lot of extra oomph provided by the presence ofstealthcello, who joined us for the first time! Y'all may remember from my Conflikt report that this is the lady whose cello I was admiring before. I'm here to tell you: it's even cooler up close and when we're jamming along with it!
However, that wasn't the only instrument Betsy brought with her. She also had a bodhran, a full-sized one with a very fancy tipper, a nicely weighted one made out of lovely dark wood. She said she got it as a stocking stuffer. And she whipped out that bodhran quite a few times, jumping back and forth as appropriate. And between her presence, me starting to feel much better now that the cold is finally weakening its grip, we had a lot of glorious energy going on in today's session.
The first round was introducing Betsy to Dara's various pieces, so first up, we played with "Dream of an Incomplete Flute". This was the first time we'd seriously tackled this one, and we worked with it enough that we were starting to get ideas about how to back Dara up. My chord line on Rags? Very simple: a whole boatload of D's and A's throughout, though Betsy rightly pointed out that there are a couple of bits in there where I could also get away with throwing in some G. But I need to listen harder and see if I hear any other chords besides those. There's a nicely little complicated bit at the end of this piece that I'll need to practice as well; it breaks the rhythm I previously establish. And, I need to remember to not come in immediately, in keeping with the theme that Dara's setting up with this: to wit, the idea of this being a song-to-be for a flute that isn't finished yet. I was pretty happy with the final little arpeggio bit on her last measure, though; I'll be keeping that.
Callie had to briefly duck out to pick up her bass flute, and while she was doing that, Dara played "Leaffall" and "Cherry Tree Station" for Betsy. Betsy observed that she wasn't sure if the cello could bring anything to the latter, and we mostly just chatted a bit about both of these pieces. Had Ellen and the dulcimer been with us, we probably would have spent more time on 'em.
When Callie came back, we jumped over to "Mononoke Neko". Not much room here for the guitar either; at most, maybe a little bit of plucky stuff. But I think this one's better with Dara and Callie on the flutes, and the cello was a nifty addition, too, to give more of a range of sound on the involved instruments.
After that, it was time for "Elf Glade". I am pleased to report that I actually practiced this thing a couple of times this weekend before the Jam, and it's finally starting to come together for me, now that I have an idea of what to do in the bridge, the tricky bit of the last verse, and the outro.
Callie and I sang. Right now we're doing it so that she's got the lead on the verses, with me doing the responses; I jump into singing the lead on the chorus, though, just so she can sing some harmony. Because we really need some harmony, there. Something dark and fey; I need to think about this and maybe play around with listening to the recording and see if I can come up with something. I really want to sing some lower harmony beneath Callie's higher voice.
Betsy jumped over to the bodhran for this, which was super-cool. We almost had three drums--hers and Dara's and Glenn's--but I reminded Dara that we needed her on the flute for this one, since she'd been twiddling around with playing a chorus variant during the bridge. But oh my yes, the bodhran adds something to this song. I almost wish I had a bigger guitar with that bodhran banging along with me, but I think Rags acquitted himself pretty well on this regardless! (Amazing what happens when I actually, y'know, practice.)
Once that was done and dealt with, we branched out into doing a couple of new things: Echo's Children's ditty "John Talos Canon" out of the songbook, which Callie really wanted to hear done as a round. So we tried this with her singing the lyrics and Betsy following her on the cello, and then tried it again purely instrumentally, and then we tried it again with Callie, Betsy, Dara, and I all singing. Which was a switch for us, and very cool!
Doing it as a capella vocals seemed to go over best amongst us, though we tried to keep it to two parts in the round, with Callie and Dara taking the first part and Betsy and I following behind them since we have lower voices. We may want to mix this up a bit and see if we come up with something cool for our mix of voices; there's harmony potential here, too.
That song totally put us in the mood for rounds, so, spurred on by Betsy, we broke out the Heather Alexander songbooks and tackled a couple of those songs we hadn't done before: "The Mushroom Song" and "Close Your Eyes". These are fun; the first is a nicely spooky little ditty from the most excellent album Insh'Allah, and the latter, from the earlier Heather album Midsummer.
"The Mushroom Song" turned out to be mostly vocal for us, too. The best arrangement we came up with for our grouping was Betsy singing the first part of the round, me taking the middle, and Dara following behind, with Callie coming in on the obligato towards the middle. Whether Callie will be doing this vocally or on the Big Kid seems to be undecided as of yet, and this will undoubtedly require further exploration. It will also require me to listen to this song some more so I can learn it better and get comfortable enough singing it in a round; I kept getting lost! *^_^*;;
"Close Your Eyes" was easier, mostly because I went back to the guitar for that, and the chords in it are super-easy. In the songbook, the song's in G; we kicked it into D though for Callie and Betsy's voices. But that meant D and G for my chords, which were just as easy as G and C. Dara broke out the mandolin, and succeeded in a nifty first for herself here: she did some pluck-work as well as finding places to stick in extra chords that weren't actually written out in the piece. Very, very cool of her.
Once we rounded ourselves out (aheh), we went instrumental again and broke out "Chickies in the House" and then "Napoleon's Rant". I was very pleased to actually mostly get those tricky D minors for once. See previous comment re: practice. ;) However, the funky bit in the C part of "Napoleon's Rant" is still eluding me. I need to work with that some, outside Jam, and see if I can get it down.
And, warming my little fangirl heart, we finally jumped around after that to playing some GBS. "Lukey" was first as Glenn's getting very fond of it; however, we couldn't do the Staten Island version since Ellen wasn't with us. So we defaulted to doing the Gone By the Board version instead, since that's the version I know better, and which I can play with minimal effort. We did it in A, and Dara went back to the mandolin, and Betsy broke out the bodhran. Because you pretty much gotta, with "Lukey".
I'd thought that was going to finish us off. I was wrong. I had "Old Black Rum" in me, too! And we did it in D, my comfy key for that, and I showed Dara the chords so she could keep going on the mand. I have found that I can maintain vocal power for this if and only if I do the live-GBS version, in which the B'ys stick a bridge in between the second and third verses; otherwise, I just don't have the breath to keep going on the last verse and choruses. This does, however, mean that it's quite weird for me to be tearing through the bridge and not hearing 2,500 fangirls all belting out the lyrics. ;)
"Old Black Rum" did finish us off at last; I started falling apart the second time through. So we called it Pie--and I'd gotten Irish Cream, in honor of it being St. Patrick's Day weekend. It seemed appropriate!
While we got into the pie, though, it turned out that we weren't quite done yet after all--or at least, Dara and Betsy weren't! I'd wanted to play Russell Crowe's "Mr. Harris" for Glenn, since he was interested, and just for giggles I also played Russell's take of "Folsom Prison Blues".
Partway through that, the Grunts were joined by two bonus bodhrans. Very, very cool. And then, Dara reports, Betsy made a silly joke and Dara finally called it Pie for them, too.
A fantastic Jam all around. Much appreciation was expressed to Betsy for joining us, and hopefully she'll be able to do so again!
Next Jam, for the interested: March 30th! There may also be a mini-Jam at Norwescon, if Dara and Ellen and I can pull that off; if any local folks with instruments plan to be there, look for us! I'll be bringing the guitar.
We had to have a mini-Jam last week, due to scheduling conflicts with Consonance on
cflute's part and concom meetings for sutures1. But technoshaman was still available, and he brought along with him his friend radarrider, who came armed with an extra guitar and several very cool didgeridoos made out of PVC pipes. I am bummed that we weren't actually able to do those didges justice, in no small part because I was well and thoroughly in the grip of the cold I'd contracted the previous weekend, and didn't have energy for much.Between my cold and our being down Callie and Ellen, this put a pretty big damper in what we were able to play. However, we did fool around a bit with "Elf Glade", this time with
solarbird tackling the vocals, and I seem to recall that we played with "Goin' Up" as well, with me dropping off the guitar so I could actually sing the lyrics. "Lukey" and "Old Black Rum" both got thrown in there, as I can generally play GBS ditties in my sleep, though I didn't have the voice to carry more than a few bars of the latter.At one point Dara and Nevada just completely adlibbed something with the didge and the little bodhran, which was pretty nifty to listen to. I didn't try to play along--I didn't need to. Those two things alone, very primal and very basic, didn't want ornamentation.
There was much admiring of Nevada's instruments in general. He'd brought his guitar, a Seagull, which reminded me quite a bit of
auntmonkey's guitar from the previous incarnation of our jamming group, and which had quite a bit more muscle to it than my little Rags. The didges: also very cool, with pieces in different sizes so that Nevada could swap out depending on what key he needed to be in. Some of them were painted nifty colors, too. And I was most impressed by the deep rumbly noises those things make.The rest of it? Really kind of a blur for me, but I shall defer to
solarbird and technoshaman if they want to contribute anything I've missed in the comments!I remember the pie, though. Key lime. That was super-tasty. ;)
Today's Jam was not only a lot more back to normal speed, with Callie re-joining us, but we had a lot of extra oomph provided by the presence of
stealthcello, who joined us for the first time! Y'all may remember from my Conflikt report that this is the lady whose cello I was admiring before. I'm here to tell you: it's even cooler up close and when we're jamming along with it!However, that wasn't the only instrument Betsy brought with her. She also had a bodhran, a full-sized one with a very fancy tipper, a nicely weighted one made out of lovely dark wood. She said she got it as a stocking stuffer. And she whipped out that bodhran quite a few times, jumping back and forth as appropriate. And between her presence, me starting to feel much better now that the cold is finally weakening its grip, we had a lot of glorious energy going on in today's session.
The first round was introducing Betsy to Dara's various pieces, so first up, we played with "Dream of an Incomplete Flute". This was the first time we'd seriously tackled this one, and we worked with it enough that we were starting to get ideas about how to back Dara up. My chord line on Rags? Very simple: a whole boatload of D's and A's throughout, though Betsy rightly pointed out that there are a couple of bits in there where I could also get away with throwing in some G. But I need to listen harder and see if I hear any other chords besides those. There's a nicely little complicated bit at the end of this piece that I'll need to practice as well; it breaks the rhythm I previously establish. And, I need to remember to not come in immediately, in keeping with the theme that Dara's setting up with this: to wit, the idea of this being a song-to-be for a flute that isn't finished yet. I was pretty happy with the final little arpeggio bit on her last measure, though; I'll be keeping that.
Callie had to briefly duck out to pick up her bass flute, and while she was doing that, Dara played "Leaffall" and "Cherry Tree Station" for Betsy. Betsy observed that she wasn't sure if the cello could bring anything to the latter, and we mostly just chatted a bit about both of these pieces. Had Ellen and the dulcimer been with us, we probably would have spent more time on 'em.
When Callie came back, we jumped over to "Mononoke Neko". Not much room here for the guitar either; at most, maybe a little bit of plucky stuff. But I think this one's better with Dara and Callie on the flutes, and the cello was a nifty addition, too, to give more of a range of sound on the involved instruments.
After that, it was time for "Elf Glade". I am pleased to report that I actually practiced this thing a couple of times this weekend before the Jam, and it's finally starting to come together for me, now that I have an idea of what to do in the bridge, the tricky bit of the last verse, and the outro.
Callie and I sang. Right now we're doing it so that she's got the lead on the verses, with me doing the responses; I jump into singing the lead on the chorus, though, just so she can sing some harmony. Because we really need some harmony, there. Something dark and fey; I need to think about this and maybe play around with listening to the recording and see if I can come up with something. I really want to sing some lower harmony beneath Callie's higher voice.
Betsy jumped over to the bodhran for this, which was super-cool. We almost had three drums--hers and Dara's and Glenn's--but I reminded Dara that we needed her on the flute for this one, since she'd been twiddling around with playing a chorus variant during the bridge. But oh my yes, the bodhran adds something to this song. I almost wish I had a bigger guitar with that bodhran banging along with me, but I think Rags acquitted himself pretty well on this regardless! (Amazing what happens when I actually, y'know, practice.)
Once that was done and dealt with, we branched out into doing a couple of new things: Echo's Children's ditty "John Talos Canon" out of the songbook, which Callie really wanted to hear done as a round. So we tried this with her singing the lyrics and Betsy following her on the cello, and then tried it again purely instrumentally, and then we tried it again with Callie, Betsy, Dara, and I all singing. Which was a switch for us, and very cool!
Doing it as a capella vocals seemed to go over best amongst us, though we tried to keep it to two parts in the round, with Callie and Dara taking the first part and Betsy and I following behind them since we have lower voices. We may want to mix this up a bit and see if we come up with something cool for our mix of voices; there's harmony potential here, too.
That song totally put us in the mood for rounds, so, spurred on by Betsy, we broke out the Heather Alexander songbooks and tackled a couple of those songs we hadn't done before: "The Mushroom Song" and "Close Your Eyes". These are fun; the first is a nicely spooky little ditty from the most excellent album Insh'Allah, and the latter, from the earlier Heather album Midsummer.
"The Mushroom Song" turned out to be mostly vocal for us, too. The best arrangement we came up with for our grouping was Betsy singing the first part of the round, me taking the middle, and Dara following behind, with Callie coming in on the obligato towards the middle. Whether Callie will be doing this vocally or on the Big Kid seems to be undecided as of yet, and this will undoubtedly require further exploration. It will also require me to listen to this song some more so I can learn it better and get comfortable enough singing it in a round; I kept getting lost! *^_^*;;
"Close Your Eyes" was easier, mostly because I went back to the guitar for that, and the chords in it are super-easy. In the songbook, the song's in G; we kicked it into D though for Callie and Betsy's voices. But that meant D and G for my chords, which were just as easy as G and C. Dara broke out the mandolin, and succeeded in a nifty first for herself here: she did some pluck-work as well as finding places to stick in extra chords that weren't actually written out in the piece. Very, very cool of her.
Once we rounded ourselves out (aheh), we went instrumental again and broke out "Chickies in the House" and then "Napoleon's Rant". I was very pleased to actually mostly get those tricky D minors for once. See previous comment re: practice. ;) However, the funky bit in the C part of "Napoleon's Rant" is still eluding me. I need to work with that some, outside Jam, and see if I can get it down.
And, warming my little fangirl heart, we finally jumped around after that to playing some GBS. "Lukey" was first as Glenn's getting very fond of it; however, we couldn't do the Staten Island version since Ellen wasn't with us. So we defaulted to doing the Gone By the Board version instead, since that's the version I know better, and which I can play with minimal effort. We did it in A, and Dara went back to the mandolin, and Betsy broke out the bodhran. Because you pretty much gotta, with "Lukey".
I'd thought that was going to finish us off. I was wrong. I had "Old Black Rum" in me, too! And we did it in D, my comfy key for that, and I showed Dara the chords so she could keep going on the mand. I have found that I can maintain vocal power for this if and only if I do the live-GBS version, in which the B'ys stick a bridge in between the second and third verses; otherwise, I just don't have the breath to keep going on the last verse and choruses. This does, however, mean that it's quite weird for me to be tearing through the bridge and not hearing 2,500 fangirls all belting out the lyrics. ;)
"Old Black Rum" did finish us off at last; I started falling apart the second time through. So we called it Pie--and I'd gotten Irish Cream, in honor of it being St. Patrick's Day weekend. It seemed appropriate!
While we got into the pie, though, it turned out that we weren't quite done yet after all--or at least, Dara and Betsy weren't! I'd wanted to play Russell Crowe's "Mr. Harris" for Glenn, since he was interested, and just for giggles I also played Russell's take of "Folsom Prison Blues".
Partway through that, the Grunts were joined by two bonus bodhrans. Very, very cool. And then, Dara reports, Betsy made a silly joke and Dara finally called it Pie for them, too.
A fantastic Jam all around. Much appreciation was expressed to Betsy for joining us, and hopefully she'll be able to do so again!
Next Jam, for the interested: March 30th! There may also be a mini-Jam at Norwescon, if Dara and Ellen and I can pull that off; if any local folks with instruments plan to be there, look for us! I'll be bringing the guitar.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-03-17 05:22 am (UTC)In Nr. 71 - we did もののけ猫 as a round, which is what got the whole let's-do-rounds trend started.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-17 01:52 pm (UTC)This does, however, mean that it's quite weird for me to be tearing through the bridge and not hearing 2,500 fangirls all belting out the lyrics.
Prrrrrrrrrractice. :)
(Although it's gonna be fun to see if you get that Keanu moment the first time they do... :)
no subject
Date: 2008-03-23 06:15 am (UTC)And, dude, if 2,500 fangirls suddenly start screaming the lyrics to "Lukey" at me, I'm going to wonder exactly when I got plunked down onto the stage of a Great Big Sea concert. ;)