READIN

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

🦋 A couple of new songs

John was over this evening -- we're going to play the open mic at Summit Unitarian Church on Saturday, looks like our set list will be "Louisville Burglar" and "California Stars" for our primary 2 songs, and "Prodigal Son" (which turns out to sound much better in E than in D) and "Meet Me in the Morning", if we get a chance to play more than 2 songs. We mostly went over stuff we have played before; the new songs we tried out:

• "Somewhere East of West Berlin" (Stonewall Jackson) -- Cold War Country/Western.
• "The Growling Old Man and the Growling Old Woman" -- French Canadian fiddle tune; I've been working on this a fair amount the past few days, using my metronome technique. It sounded very nice.
• "Uncle Pen" -- I did not know this tune at all, it was kind of tough to catch the tune. But worth working on.

Someone who found my site by searching for "Louisville Burglar" sent me a link to this magnificent version of it, by John Specker: Grassroots Festival, 1996.

(John reminds me, we also played Neil Young's "I am a Child", and "Ophelia" by The Band.)

posted evening of December 10th, 2009: Respond
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Sunday, December 6th, 2009

🦋 Metronome etude

Something new is opening up for me musically as I start using the metronome -- I was able tonight to learn a new tune in about an hour, where it usually takes me weeks before I can think of a song as something I feel comfortable with. I learned "Boys of Blue Hill" -- which is a vaguely familiar tune from my youth but I have not listened to consciously in a long time -- from sheet music; starting with a very slow metronome (80 or so) I played the notes to rhythm, adhering to the metronome's time even when I stumble on the melody. Play it through a few times until the slowness begins to feel like a drag, and speed the tick up to 108, which is the very slowest I can play most reel or jig type of fiddle tunes and have them sound anything like a song. And repeat; keep playing until the slowness feels like a drag, and raise the speed a bit, for a few iterations, until the speed has begun to feel right; only then do I start thinking about really learning the notes by heart -- and by then I have played them enough times that they are already fairly solid!

I tried this with a second tune, "Harvest Home" -- which is much less familiar, which a lot of YouTube fiddlers seem to like to make a medley of with "Boys of Blue Hill" -- and spent about half an hour on it, not getting nearly as close to knowing it as I feel with the other song, but still making palpable progress with it. I made a recording of "Boys of Blue Hill" which I will post if I can get my browser to coöperate in uploading it to a host.

Update -- got my browser walking on the straight and narrow again. The "Boys of Blue Hill".

posted evening of December 6th, 2009: Respond
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Saturday, December 5th, 2009

🦋 Thou shalt dash them in pieces

Last April in Vienna, Claus Guth staged a remarkable interpretation of Handel's Messiah. Dusan Bogdanovic explains the storyline in comments at mostly opera...:

For me it was very clearly a more or less straight forward story of a guy committing suicide, not being able to withstand the burdens poised by demands and pressures of the world in which we are all living. The only person knowing that this was suicide is a priest, who stages it like a murder, so that the guy can be at least properly buried. And the question arises whether this can be understood and whether there could be redemption for such a deed. The answer comes from an angel like figure, though speaking to us in a sign language. (Basically God speaking to us and us being â??blind and deafâ? or not open enough to understand his words).

Aha! No need: carosaxone already did it. Handel's Messiah, as staged by Guth.

posted evening of December 5th, 2009: Respond

🦋 Pendulum

Some thoughts about using a metronome when practicing music:

• I have to devote a fair amount of attention to the metronome, to really benefit from its clicking -- possibly not as much attention as I need to pay to a musician I am jamming with, but it is unexpected -- my impulse is to think well it's a machine, let it click away on its own.
• If I do pay attention and really think about where the click is supposed to come in relation to the notes I'm playing, it makes me sound a lot better -- my rhythm can range from fairly sloppy to quite crisp, but to be crisp I need to be thinking about it. The main purpose I see in using the metronome is learning how to think about that.
• So that's what I'm hoping will carry over into my jamming with other musicians, is the understanding of precisely where my notes should start and end in relationship to the song's meter.

This evening I played five songs with the metronome, moving progressively to slower songs. "Whisky Before Breakfast" was at 160; "Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine" at 140; "Old Joe Clark" and "Napoleon Crossing the Rocky Mountains" at 120; and "My Grandfather's Clock" at 108. I have never played that last one before, at least not as a serious song -- just sort of a clichéed musical joke to fill in space at a jam. But it's a song where rhythm is really vital -- the ticking of the clock is the backbone of the song -- and it actually has a pretty nice sound. The others I have been playing a lot of over the past few weeks, I'm actually working on developing a repertoire! Had been meaning to work on that for a while now...

posted evening of December 5th, 2009: Respond

Saturday, November 28th, 2009

🦋 An evening with old friends

Jim Cross and family were in town today; I brought a guitar for him to play over to Antonio's house and we played with Bob, Janis and Greg. Some of the songs were just great, sounding like we had been playing together for all this time -- like the thread of practice was unbroken. Song list below the fold.

• I Know You Rider
• Old Joe Clark
• Country Roads
• Saint James Infirmary
• I Threw it All Away
• Girl from the North Country
• How Long (Hot Tuna) -- I had never heard this song before; it would be a great one to work on. Sounded pretty nice just playing whatever I could come up with on the spot.
• Long Black Veil -- We batted this one around for a while but eventually could not agree on how to play it.
• Death Don't Have No Mercy/ West Texas Cowboys
• Mama Tried -- we played this straight, and then played a bluesy version Jim has come up with, then jammed from that into "Heart & Soul" and made a stab at playing "People Get Ready".
• Teardrops Will Fall -- another song I have never heard.
• Bonaparte's Retreat
  ↻...done

posted evening of November 28th, 2009: Respond

Friday, November 27th, 2009

🦋 Vocals, instrumentals

Speaking of set lists: I played music with John this afternoon (also his brother Vic was sitting in on piano). We played a number of songs we've done before, and also did some instrumentals out of my fiddle book (the misleadingly named but comprehensive Fiddle Fakebook) -- it was a new thing to play these pieces with an accompaniment, very enjoyable. We are going to play the open mic at John's church in two weeks!

Song list below the fold.

• Meet Me in the Morning -- I've been listening to this song a lot lately and working out some fiddle parts to it. We didn't really get it the first time around, but later on we came back to it and it sounded very nice.
• Old Joe Clark
• California Stars -- this is one of our best pieces.
• Prodigal Son -- still needs work, definitely; we're not sure yet whether to play it in D or in E, we tried it both ways.
• Jockey Full of Bourbon -- I like this song a lot, but I need to figure out how the verse goes. Right now I follow along gamely but there's a key uncertainty about where the changes come.
• Louisville Burglar -- we played this in C (which the lead sheet I sent John is in) and in G (which is where I normally play it) -- G is definitely the better key for my voice.
• In Your Dreams (by Wilco) -- this is a brand-new song for me, I don't think I had ever heard it before. It's got a nice sound, sort of ragtimey.
• Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine and a little bit of Bonaparte's Retreat. These are such fun songs! Earlier today I started learning Bonaparte Crossing the Rocky Mountains, too.
• Up on Cripple Creek -- Band songs are a lot of fun but difficult. We did not have quite straight where the verse starts, where the chorus ends, etc. I want to learn the fiddle tune "Cripple Creek" and play these two songs together.
• Wild Horses
• Will the Circle be Unbroken -- again, G seems like a better key than C.
• Sloop John B.
• Devil's Dream -- this song is my downfall -- I try to play it very fast, and I can do it, but I lose track of where I am. Need to slow down and learn it.
• Someday Soon -- another Wilco song that I don't know.
• Praying Mantis (Don Dixon) -- I had never heard this song before, I fell in love with it first time around. It is pretty easy to play on violin, too!
• Hickory Wind
• I Shall Be Released
• Angel from Montgomery
• Can't Always Get What You Want -- John's guitar part for this is great. We played for a long time, attempting with mixed results to jam into various songs like "Nails in my Coffin" and "Up on Blue Ridge Mountain".
• My Home's Across the Blue Ridge Mountains
• Meet Me in the Morning reprise
• Saint James Infirmary -- John played his arrangement of this, which is very different from the tune I know. Definite possibilities.
• Stagger Lee -- we both played guitar on this.
• Irene Goodnight
• Helpless

↻...done

posted evening of November 27th, 2009: Respond

🦋 Hi Kinks fans!

Hey look, I got linked from kindakinks.net! They linked some other reviews of the Wellmont show too:

• No Expiration -- a blog about timeless music. No set list, but many of the songs Ray played are named.
• Ken Schlager's review in New Jersey Monthly.
• Jonny Diamond's (kind of callow) review in L Magazine.
• ...Looks like Jon Mandle of Crooked Timber was there as well.

Excellent! Also at kindakinks.net (and thanks to commenter John for pointing this out), the set list from Tuesday:

Ray Davies and Bill Shanley

• I Need You
• I'm Not Like Everybody Else
• Apeman
• In A Moment
• Waterloo Sunset
• Hymn For A New Age
• Dedicated Follower Of Fashion (with partial verse of I Walk The Line)
• Sunny Afternoon
• A Long Way From Home (with Ian on accordion and Karin on backing vocals)

Ray with Band

• Celluloid Heroes
• Till The End Of The Day
• Where Have All The Good Times Gone
• After The Fall
• Alcohol (short version)
• A Well Respected Man
• One More Time
• Vietnam Cowboys
• Apache
• Walk Donâ??t Run (small guitar tease)
• The Tourist
• Come Dancing
• Moments
• 20th Century Man
• Encore 1-
  Low Budget
  You Really Got Me (with slow story intro)
• Encore 2-
  Lola
  ↻...done

posted afternoon of November 27th, 2009: Respond
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Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

🦋 Audience Participation

So Ray Davies has (as Holly has been demonstrating all month) a huge catalog -- he made wonderful use of it tonight when Ellen and I saw him playing at the Wellmont Theater in Montclair, playing his greatest hits ("Lola", "You Really Got Me"), my personal favorites ("Come Dancing", "Waterloo Sunset"), songs I knew vaguely ("Low Budget", "Where Have All the Good Times Gone"), songs I had heard of ("Demon Alcohol"), and songs I had never heard of ("Cowboys in Vietnam"); and even one song he claimed himself to have forgotten having written -- "Moments", which he said he was playing because a Finnish journalist who was interviewing him requested it, and he had to look it up on YouTube to figure out what song the journalist was talking about.

A great, great show, and what I think will stick with me about it is the degree of participation from the audience -- from me and the people sitting around me and everyone in the theater. On every song, however well I knew or did not know it, I was bopping my head, stomping my feet, snapping my fingers, clapping my hands, bellowing out responses to Davies' calls. He played for two hours and my attention -- and the attention, it seemed to me, of the audience as a whole -- never flagged. I hope somebody posts a set list online, I'd like to remember all the songs he played.

posted evening of November 24th, 2009: 2 responses

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

🦋 At random

I found my iPod today! Have not seen it for months, and wondered occasionally on its whereabouts... Today it was sitting in plain sight on my desk. To celebrate, I shuffle:

• Pit of Souls, Robyn Hitchcock. Fantastic -- I don't really associate this style of music with Robyn but it is very nice for a change. Shades of Interstellar Overdrive!
• Djangology, the Hot Five. From Pet's picks. I can spend too much time on Hot Five listening for Grappelli's work and may miss some of the guitar. The violin solo about a minute ½ in is amazing though.
• Blue Moments, the Fletcher Henderson band.
• I'm Only You, Robyn Hitchcock. For you... (I like his play with pronouns, it reminds me of FaceBook a bit.) Live 2003 at the Great American Music Hall.
• Soldier's Drill, Rev. Gary Davis.
• The Clothes Line Saga, Dylan/The Band. Hypnotic. Wish this song was longer, it could easily have another verse and hold the mood.
• Morning Dew, The Grateful Dead.

  posted evening of November 7th, 2009: Respond
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Friday, November 6th, 2009

🦋 Set List

John was over tonight (after the reading) and we jammed out for a couple of hours. This is the approximate set list with some comments. (Hoping to keep set lists every time we play -- that seems like a good way of keeping track of the music.)

• Prodigal Son -- this was good, maybe my favorite song of the evening. I used to play a pretty good version of this on guitar, I'm finding it's a very different song on violin -- here is a tape of me playing it, except with no guitar or vocals: Prodigal Son (the ending needs work, both in the solo and duet versions)
• California Stars by Woody Guthrie and Wilco -- a really fun song to play. I'm trying to work out the structure of the song a little better. Playing the solos can be very much effortless, like laying one's head on a bed of California stars. But I have to maintain a balance, not sink too much into the bed.
• Lay Me Down a Pallette on Your Floor -- another song that is very different on fiddle. Lovely old tune about adultery.
• Beautiful World by ? -- don't quite get this song.
• Angel From Montgomery by John Prine. I like playing this song a lot, not sure if I enjoy singing it.
• IKY Rider
• Honky Tonk Woman
• Jockey Full of Bourbon by Tom Waits -- totally new song for me. I like it a lot.
• Cry Baby Cry
• Mother Nature's Son
• Will the Circle Be Unbroken
• Jesus Etc.
• The Louisville Burglar

A song it would be fun to play:

• Weary Day by the Stanley Bros.
• Amazing Grace, but faster and without the lack of synchronization caused by recording in multiple tracks -- which should be easily solved by having two people play it instead of one in two takes.
• After Midnight by Patsy Cline

posted evening of November 6th, 2009: 2 responses

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