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annathepiperIn which the Martian Death Cold has some of us down, but not out, and in which we do an entirely pirate-themed lineup of music, stretching several musical wings as we go. Songs: "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate", "Pirate Bill and Squidly", "Captain Kidd", "Yo-Ho".
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solarbird and I have been fighting the plague all this past week, we were determined to try to jam at least a little. We therefore issued appropriate warnings to everybody yesterday, only to learn that stealthcello was down for the count with her own edition of the MDC, and that it had struck sutures1's household as well. However, technoshaman and cflute were ready and raring to go, and they brought radarrider back with them this time, so we were still fairly well representing at Jam today. Go us!
Moreover, we had ourselves an entirely pirate-themed Jam. This was not entirely intentional, but fun nonetheless--and with a starting song like "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate", how could you not do an entirely pirate-themed Jam?
I'm familiar only with the Captain Tractor edition of "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate", but for those of you who haven't heard either that or the Arrogant Worms version, this song is generally made of Awesome. Finding chords proved trivial; however, the thing's recorded by Captain Tractor in C, so singing it ain't so trivial for me at the moment, especially with my voice trashed. However, Callie and Nevada and Glenn all carried the day singing this while I focused on just playing the chord line. It worked fairly well. I need to get my voice recovered, though, so I can properly join in on roaring out the chorus to this thing. This is a PIRATE SONG, after all. It needs to be roared.
Having Nevada's guitar in on it with us was a lot of help as well. While I was surprised that Rags mustered as much muscle as he did for this song (especially with me being thrashed), he still ain't quite enough brawn to carry this song off properly. Multiple guitars is therefore a bonus. I'd even think about jumping over to the zouk if I could play F with any regularity; this may warrant further exploration once I get that thing properly restrung. Watch this space for further details on that.
After we went through this a time or two, we called a general pirate theme on the Jam and jumped over into the Heather Alexander songbook for the first of two pirate-themed Uffington Horse songs. First up: "Pirate Bill and Squidly", which impressed the hell out of me for general complexity of structure as well as strum patterns. Since Uffington Horse's sound is a bit more rock-flavored than I'm used to playing, I have to alter my typical strum patterns a bit--and trying to figure out how to do that with this song was fun. There's a particularly tricky bit in the middle with the bridge that goes into 6/8, where it's completely different in both time signature and rhythm, and that part especially will be a challenge.
One of the other fun bits about working with this song though was learning the intro, wherein there's a bit of ornamentation going on on the D chords--an extra finger down to make a D4, and then a later bit where I'd be playing a D5 if I had the finger reach to do that. I have to sort of fake it by doing a jump up to that single note instead on the high E string, which is acceptably close to what's going on in the recording. I don't have Alexander James' Mad Guitar Skills, but I do at least perhaps have Mildly Perturbed ones.
As long as we were in pirate mode, the next song I chose was pretty much mandatory and significantly easier as well: Great Big Sea's "Captain Kidd". We did it sans capo since I can roar it out in D better than in F, though I sadly only had a couple of very shaky takes of this in me. Significantly easier than the two Uffington Horse ditties though this was. ;)
Last up, though, was back into Uffington Horse land--with "Yo Ho!", which is an even more complicated arrangement than "Pirate Bill and Squidly". I cringed at the three sharps in the key signature, though Callie took pity on Nevada and me and wrote out the chords transposed down a step into E minor so we could play the much easier chords with capo on 2. We sorta kinda staggered our way through it, just enough to begin to get the idea; the rock-flavored strum pattern is an issue here, too. I'm going to have to listen to this song quite a few times before I'll really get the hang of it.
After this I was starting to feel wrung out, so we called it Pie: key lime this time, courtesy of Glenn and Callie.
Next Jam is in two weeks, which will be Sunday the 13th!
Despite the fact that
solarbird and I have been fighting the plague all this past week, we were determined to try to jam at least a little. We therefore issued appropriate warnings to everybody yesterday, only to learn that stealthcello was down for the count with her own edition of the MDC, and that it had struck sutures1's household as well. However, technoshaman and cflute were ready and raring to go, and they brought radarrider back with them this time, so we were still fairly well representing at Jam today. Go us!Moreover, we had ourselves an entirely pirate-themed Jam. This was not entirely intentional, but fun nonetheless--and with a starting song like "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate", how could you not do an entirely pirate-themed Jam?
I'm familiar only with the Captain Tractor edition of "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate", but for those of you who haven't heard either that or the Arrogant Worms version, this song is generally made of Awesome. Finding chords proved trivial; however, the thing's recorded by Captain Tractor in C, so singing it ain't so trivial for me at the moment, especially with my voice trashed. However, Callie and Nevada and Glenn all carried the day singing this while I focused on just playing the chord line. It worked fairly well. I need to get my voice recovered, though, so I can properly join in on roaring out the chorus to this thing. This is a PIRATE SONG, after all. It needs to be roared.
Having Nevada's guitar in on it with us was a lot of help as well. While I was surprised that Rags mustered as much muscle as he did for this song (especially with me being thrashed), he still ain't quite enough brawn to carry this song off properly. Multiple guitars is therefore a bonus. I'd even think about jumping over to the zouk if I could play F with any regularity; this may warrant further exploration once I get that thing properly restrung. Watch this space for further details on that.
After we went through this a time or two, we called a general pirate theme on the Jam and jumped over into the Heather Alexander songbook for the first of two pirate-themed Uffington Horse songs. First up: "Pirate Bill and Squidly", which impressed the hell out of me for general complexity of structure as well as strum patterns. Since Uffington Horse's sound is a bit more rock-flavored than I'm used to playing, I have to alter my typical strum patterns a bit--and trying to figure out how to do that with this song was fun. There's a particularly tricky bit in the middle with the bridge that goes into 6/8, where it's completely different in both time signature and rhythm, and that part especially will be a challenge.
One of the other fun bits about working with this song though was learning the intro, wherein there's a bit of ornamentation going on on the D chords--an extra finger down to make a D4, and then a later bit where I'd be playing a D5 if I had the finger reach to do that. I have to sort of fake it by doing a jump up to that single note instead on the high E string, which is acceptably close to what's going on in the recording. I don't have Alexander James' Mad Guitar Skills, but I do at least perhaps have Mildly Perturbed ones.
As long as we were in pirate mode, the next song I chose was pretty much mandatory and significantly easier as well: Great Big Sea's "Captain Kidd". We did it sans capo since I can roar it out in D better than in F, though I sadly only had a couple of very shaky takes of this in me. Significantly easier than the two Uffington Horse ditties though this was. ;)
Last up, though, was back into Uffington Horse land--with "Yo Ho!", which is an even more complicated arrangement than "Pirate Bill and Squidly". I cringed at the three sharps in the key signature, though Callie took pity on Nevada and me and wrote out the chords transposed down a step into E minor so we could play the much easier chords with capo on 2. We sorta kinda staggered our way through it, just enough to begin to get the idea; the rock-flavored strum pattern is an issue here, too. I'm going to have to listen to this song quite a few times before I'll really get the hang of it.
After this I was starting to feel wrung out, so we called it Pie: key lime this time, courtesy of Glenn and Callie.
Next Jam is in two weeks, which will be Sunday the 13th!