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annathepiperIn which we have two waves of jamming as folks show up, in which Naomi breaks in a new and nifty song, and in which Billy Bragg is too awesome for my guitar. Songs: "Goin' Up", "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate", "Stars", "You Woke Up My Neighborhood", "Least of My Kind", "Elf Glade", "Nemesis", "The Chemical Worker's Song (Process Man)", "Will You Come Back Home?", "You Woke Up My Neighborhood" (round 2), "Mononoke Neko".
Just for the sake of getting warmed up for Jam today, I broke out my iPod and Rags, and went through most of my "Anna's Set" playlist.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
solarbird wandered through in the middle of "Captain Kidd", and technoshaman showed up when I hit "Trois Navires de Ble".
So we hung out for a while waiting forcflute and pocketnaomi, and like she is wont to do, Dara started in on "Goin' Up". Naturally I joined her, and was apparently in decent voice this afternoon, maybe because of warming up before hand or something; I did actually sing a bit going through the playlist. I wound up actually producing some credible volume in bits of this song.
We messed around next with "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate", since I was in the mood for it. Ditto here with the vocals; I've got enough power on the opening verse and chorus, anyway, though I need to work on learning all the words. The chord progressions need some practice too; they're simple chords, but I just need to learn what order they're in in this song. I'm not doing myself any favors by consistently playing the barre chord F, but hey, that one always sounds best on Rags. Dara and I noodled a bit with the linking chords between the verses, too; she plays it different when she's busking, so we needed to go over that briefly.
"Stars" was next, but only partially. I tried to play along with Dara when she started whipping through it, only for that to fall over when she realized that the copy of the song she'd given me was still an old one without any lyrics. Oops. I really need to get her to give me updated copies of all her songs, so I can actually learn 'em and stuff for when we busk at Folklife this year.
After that, since I was feeling all nostalgic (as well as having just found the chords for it re-sorting my song folder), I broke out "You Woke Up My Neighborhood". We amused Glenn by playing the old MP3 left over from TGM, just so we could show offdaspatrick's guitar on it, and I was rather surprised at myself that I could actually carry the vocals for the whole thing, more or less. The syncopation of the words on top of the long stretches of A and G is still a little rough for me, but I think I'll get it after a few more rounds of playing with it. I'll be keeping it in D, though. Bragg does the song in G, but as I have established, I just don't play well in that key, most of the time.
Smack in the middle of playing with this song, though, my low E string went PANG. I fumbled to a halt and looked down at Rags in general bemusement, and had to pronounce that clearly, Billy Bragg was TOO AWESOME FOR MY GUITAR. Kind of like "Stars", really, only so far I haven't busted a string playing Stars.
So anyway, I swapped out the E for one of the new Augustines, which meant of course I had to stop every few minutes during the rest of the Jam for the joy of retuning. But at least I did have extra strings.
Right about here was also when Callie and Naomi showed up, so we had a bit of a powwow about what to do next. Since Glenn was heading to the airport right after Jam, we all encouraged him to pick something he wanted to work on. This went at slightly crossed purposes with the need for Callie and Naomi to play a bit with songs they're planning on doing at Conflikt, and at least for one take of one song, that latter directive won out: Callie whipped through "Least of My Kind".
She amused herself by winding up having done it a whole fourth lower than the original version of the song, and way down at the bottom of her range, but that actually worked for her. This is after all a song about werewolves, so singing it growly and low seems called for.
I joined in a bit on the chorus and I think I actually had a spot of harmony pop into my brain. This was a good thing. If we play with this ditty more, I'll see if I can encourage that.
Glenn finally called for "Elf Glade", which was supported all round, and we wound up doing two takes: one with me singing the backup lines, one with Naomi. I am conclusively getting better on the riffs, although I'm having trouble with it still if I'm also singing on the choruses. Holding out that long note on "desire" while I'm also trying to riff on the A minor is intriguingly difficult.
Next we actually had a new song to play with: Naomi's brand spanking new "Nemesis", which she unfortunately couldn't sing very loudly because she's been sick. But Callie had a good flute part for it, and Naomi was able to sing enough of the song to give Dara and me an initial idea of the chords. Which are Interesting and Difficult--we had to play capoed up one, so we didn't have to worry about playing F minor. Because ow. OW.
The melody line of this thing, especially in the bridge, is complex too. I was pleased to tell Naomi that I'd quite like to see the song written out so we could get a better idea of the chords necessary. I had a bit of random thought for a drum beat, but since Glenn had control of the drum at the time, I just beat on Rags. We'll definitely revisit this one later, I think.
Next up we belted out a take of "Process Man". Which I sang lead on for once, which was satisfying, especially since I actually mustered the necessary volume for it, and didn't mangle the melody anywhere. Go me!
Another new (to this jam group anyway) song was next: "Will You Come Home?" by a gent named Mike Richards, known in filk circles, but new to me and Dara. That was a sweet little ditty, and this time we were in C, which was a lot easier for the chords.
We flailed around a bit as to what to play after that, so just because I could, I cycled back around for a couple more takes of "You Woke Up My Neighborhood". And didn't break a string this time. Go me!
By then we needed to call Pie since Glenn had to take off for the airport, but while we started the pie distribution, Callie and Dara took a swing through "Mononoke Neko" by Callie's request. She expressed a hope to play "Dreams of an Incomplete Flute", too, but we put that on the queue to play for next time.
The pie called itself Grasshopper Pie, and was all chocolate-y and mint-y and tasty. I wanted to pick up something we hadn't had before, and this was well received indeed.
Next Jam is February 8th, since Conflikt is coming up. More music to come in three weeks!
Just for the sake of getting warmed up for Jam today, I broke out my iPod and Rags, and went through most of my "Anna's Set" playlist.
solarbird wandered through in the middle of "Captain Kidd", and technoshaman showed up when I hit "Trois Navires de Ble".So we hung out for a while waiting for
cflute and pocketnaomi, and like she is wont to do, Dara started in on "Goin' Up". Naturally I joined her, and was apparently in decent voice this afternoon, maybe because of warming up before hand or something; I did actually sing a bit going through the playlist. I wound up actually producing some credible volume in bits of this song.We messed around next with "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate", since I was in the mood for it. Ditto here with the vocals; I've got enough power on the opening verse and chorus, anyway, though I need to work on learning all the words. The chord progressions need some practice too; they're simple chords, but I just need to learn what order they're in in this song. I'm not doing myself any favors by consistently playing the barre chord F, but hey, that one always sounds best on Rags. Dara and I noodled a bit with the linking chords between the verses, too; she plays it different when she's busking, so we needed to go over that briefly.
"Stars" was next, but only partially. I tried to play along with Dara when she started whipping through it, only for that to fall over when she realized that the copy of the song she'd given me was still an old one without any lyrics. Oops. I really need to get her to give me updated copies of all her songs, so I can actually learn 'em and stuff for when we busk at Folklife this year.
After that, since I was feeling all nostalgic (as well as having just found the chords for it re-sorting my song folder), I broke out "You Woke Up My Neighborhood". We amused Glenn by playing the old MP3 left over from TGM, just so we could show off
daspatrick's guitar on it, and I was rather surprised at myself that I could actually carry the vocals for the whole thing, more or less. The syncopation of the words on top of the long stretches of A and G is still a little rough for me, but I think I'll get it after a few more rounds of playing with it. I'll be keeping it in D, though. Bragg does the song in G, but as I have established, I just don't play well in that key, most of the time.Smack in the middle of playing with this song, though, my low E string went PANG. I fumbled to a halt and looked down at Rags in general bemusement, and had to pronounce that clearly, Billy Bragg was TOO AWESOME FOR MY GUITAR. Kind of like "Stars", really, only so far I haven't busted a string playing Stars.
So anyway, I swapped out the E for one of the new Augustines, which meant of course I had to stop every few minutes during the rest of the Jam for the joy of retuning. But at least I did have extra strings.
Right about here was also when Callie and Naomi showed up, so we had a bit of a powwow about what to do next. Since Glenn was heading to the airport right after Jam, we all encouraged him to pick something he wanted to work on. This went at slightly crossed purposes with the need for Callie and Naomi to play a bit with songs they're planning on doing at Conflikt, and at least for one take of one song, that latter directive won out: Callie whipped through "Least of My Kind".
She amused herself by winding up having done it a whole fourth lower than the original version of the song, and way down at the bottom of her range, but that actually worked for her. This is after all a song about werewolves, so singing it growly and low seems called for.
I joined in a bit on the chorus and I think I actually had a spot of harmony pop into my brain. This was a good thing. If we play with this ditty more, I'll see if I can encourage that.
Glenn finally called for "Elf Glade", which was supported all round, and we wound up doing two takes: one with me singing the backup lines, one with Naomi. I am conclusively getting better on the riffs, although I'm having trouble with it still if I'm also singing on the choruses. Holding out that long note on "desire" while I'm also trying to riff on the A minor is intriguingly difficult.
Next we actually had a new song to play with: Naomi's brand spanking new "Nemesis", which she unfortunately couldn't sing very loudly because she's been sick. But Callie had a good flute part for it, and Naomi was able to sing enough of the song to give Dara and me an initial idea of the chords. Which are Interesting and Difficult--we had to play capoed up one, so we didn't have to worry about playing F minor. Because ow. OW.
The melody line of this thing, especially in the bridge, is complex too. I was pleased to tell Naomi that I'd quite like to see the song written out so we could get a better idea of the chords necessary. I had a bit of random thought for a drum beat, but since Glenn had control of the drum at the time, I just beat on Rags. We'll definitely revisit this one later, I think.
Next up we belted out a take of "Process Man". Which I sang lead on for once, which was satisfying, especially since I actually mustered the necessary volume for it, and didn't mangle the melody anywhere. Go me!
Another new (to this jam group anyway) song was next: "Will You Come Home?" by a gent named Mike Richards, known in filk circles, but new to me and Dara. That was a sweet little ditty, and this time we were in C, which was a lot easier for the chords.
We flailed around a bit as to what to play after that, so just because I could, I cycled back around for a couple more takes of "You Woke Up My Neighborhood". And didn't break a string this time. Go me!
By then we needed to call Pie since Glenn had to take off for the airport, but while we started the pie distribution, Callie and Dara took a swing through "Mononoke Neko" by Callie's request. She expressed a hope to play "Dreams of an Incomplete Flute", too, but we put that on the queue to play for next time.
The pie called itself Grasshopper Pie, and was all chocolate-y and mint-y and tasty. I wanted to pick up something we hadn't had before, and this was well received indeed.
Next Jam is February 8th, since Conflikt is coming up. More music to come in three weeks!
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NIggling little corrections
Date: 2009-01-19 05:49 am (UTC)"Nemesis" isn't actually newly written, it was just never written down because I can't write music and nobody else bothered. I originally wrote it for an OVFF songwriting contest (which it won) a few years ago. I'm glad you liked it, and would be happy to add it to the general Jam repertoire if you want to fiddle with it. Who knows, we may even get it written down. :)
Re: NIggling little corrections
Date: 2009-01-19 05:59 am (UTC)And yeah, new material is always good. :) I'd quite enjoy working with "Nemesis" more.
Re: NIggling little corrections
Date: 2009-01-19 08:44 am (UTC)Definitely cool and spooky and goes well with bass flute. I have a thing for bass flute spooky. :)