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Kind of busy weekend but not nearly so busy as the next two look to be...

Saturday Rachel had karate and soccer. After dropping off Rachel, Deb and I met up to sign our names and take care of some other business. I headed home, we ate lunch, and just as we were finishing, [livejournal.com profile] noone234 arrived for band practice. Our drummer-to-be was held up at w*#k, and couldn't make it - I did get word today that he had hauled his drums out of storage, dusted them off, and found absolutely no rats nests within them, so that's a good thing!

We worked on the Signature Tune a wee bit. [livejournal.com profile] noone234 had music for 2 and a half bars more than the others - just alto sax - and we had intended to keep everybody playing through it. We orchestrated a bit for trumpet and clarinet, but Rachel was getting increasingly agitated, saying she couldn't play it, and so forth, tears streaming down her cheeks. She went in and out of the house a few times, then came back out. I pulled her aside (as aside as you can get when you're less than half a dozen feet from the other two) and finally realized what was bothering her. She didn't think it sounded good.

The half bar that [livejournal.com profile] noone234 had at the end called for a call-and-response treatment, so I suggested Rachel and Justin sit out for the intervening two bars. [livejournal.com profile] noone234 and Justin do the call-and-response bit for two bars after that, and then come together for the next bar. Rachel accents the the second note for both calls and both responses, and also accents through the last bar.

Soccer happened at that time, and then [livejournal.com profile] noone234, Justin, and I worked on the Breezy Tune, coming up with a bit more marimba and bass (having also switched from grand piano to the former instrument for Justin's part). [livejournal.com profile] noone234 then grabbed his bass, Justin switched from marimba to synth, and I traded bass for guitar. [livejournal.com profile] noone234 learned the remainder of the intro/bridge/outro riff and the pre-chorus. That leaves the verse, chorus, and tag ending parts as well as learning the arrangement. We found that Justin's suspended fourth triads were too much. Actually, I realized that before, but I put it down to him swapping back to the 1-3-5, which he was prone to do. They clashed too much with the guitar holding out the sus4 chords for a half note each. I realized this when he "came up with something else to play", which, when I asked him what it was, in typical musician fashion, he admitted he had no clue what he had played because he accidentally and quite randomly screwed up. A few tries, and we found that if he arpeggiated his sus 4 triads, they fit and the sound was complimentary with the guitar and bass lines.

As we were starting to get cold out on the porch - Justin went in for a sweatshirt, [livejournal.com profile] noone234 grabbed his jacket - we decided to pack up, as there wasn't enough time to really get into something else before dinner. After dinner, we relaxed with some martial arts drills, and we determined that some future band practices might include sparring and other less musical practices.

While we played out on the porch, Mr. B proceeded to get his peanut butter in his chocolate, so to speak, except where peanut butter = sand and chocolate = water. He was really happy to just mess about in the sand/water table we got him for his birthday. Unfortunately, I realized late yesterday, that he's not going to get much time with it this year - frost warnings are already being called for our area.

Sunday, I felt blah. A cold has really been bearing down on me for the last few workdays last week, and I pretty much just sat around, and for five or so hours, did this. If you haven't already, follow through on that other Top Sekrit post and let me know what you think over on that post.
ellyssian: (Default)
A couple of new Brandonisms:

neener neener - used as one might guess, this little gem is also mistakenly used as a follow up to a safety-related scold, as in: "I don't have to. Neener neener." He was rather disappointed to find out that not only did he have to, but I didn't find it as entertaining as his big sister did - who egged him on to it and stood in the corner for the half a minute I pointed this lack of entertainment out to him. She was also the one who taught him this gesture.

'Eakey, 'eakey! - revenge upon big sister, as her band nickname makes for a scathing insult when wielded by one who will be three years old tomorrow.

male bonding - what happens at the house when Deb takes Rachel out, leaving Mr. B with Justin or me, or if all three of the guys are home alone. Sunday - as the girls ran out for a quick soccer photo session - male bonding involved a hammered dulcimer, chanter, recorder, rainstick made from a bit of cactus, native wooden flute, orchestral flute, electronic percussion, and a djembe. We suspect that the result of said male bonding was what really scared the bear away from next door and saved Hugs & Kisses from death by stupidly barking at a small bear twenty times bigger than them. The neighbor yelling at said bear was probably less disturbing than three of us playing a variety of instruments rather badly. We did discover that the modern orchestral flute is the only instrument on this planet (or any others we've been to) that I can play better than Justin. This isn't really saying much. We also proved that the wind needed to play trumpet can be aimed into a highland pipe chanter, and it sounds better that way then when I try.

Later in the day, we played a tiny little bit. Rachel and Justin practiced a number of things. I spent most of the time discovering that active pickups need batteries to work, 9-volt batteries last somewhat less than a decade even if they're not used, and, most importantly, that some moron kid who had his 1969 Guild S-60 refinished and assembled with three active EMG single coil pickups really should have said "Yes, please" when the guy doing the work back in the early to mid Eighties asked if he should cut out some of the back to provide access to the battery. The strings were at least a dozen years old, so it was worth it to take them off; it was unfortunate that the entire front pick guard had to be removed (involving the removal of all the strings) to be able to plug in the guitar and hear the results via an amplifier. There's a buzzing on the first fret, killing the open notes on the D and B strings, but other than that it plays much better than I had remembered.

I worked with Justin for a little bit on some improvisation - trading blues lines back and forth. He gets overly frustrated trying to think about what note would sound good, and what should come next. He is apparently a little un-trusting that centuries of music theory agree that any of those seven notes in the scale would work - five, actually, as we stuck with the pentatonic for the exercise. Early in the day, he watched and then worked through the first exercise in the piano lesson DVD I picked up for him. Funny enough, it stressed a few things I had said were critical for him to learn from it: posture, finger position, & improvisation.

Saturday, I took care of some things I had to do - but really, there's so much going on, and so much to do, that I didn't get enough done this weekend.

There was a really impressively powerful thunderstorm in there somewhere as well.
ellyssian: (Default)
Busy weekend.

In short: Friday, hosted a couple of bikers. Saturday, invented music. Sunday, moved mountains. Monday, cookout!

My brother and one of his brothers stopped by on their way across the country. Talked a bit, ate some food from Trainers Inn, and looked at their route. They spent Saturday night with my grandmother, and were in the Smokey Mountains for Sunday night. I expect there somewhere between there and Phoenix at the moment.

The Lefty Valdez Funk University Band had a practice session on Saturday and new & existing tunes were worked on, and a brand-spanking new tune was created.

Sunday, Justin and I relocated some two thousand pounds (conservatively estimated) of books from the garage to the cellar. Lots of other stuff went downstairs or upstairs or moved horizontally to make it all happen. My guitar rack was de-spidered and set up and still sounds as great - and, unfortunately, as unreliable - as ever.

With some research, we discovered M-Audio keyboards. They have a couple of exceptional instruments, and, conveniently, they're reasonably priced. Justin's saving for them, and I've added them to his wish list. I was guiding him towards their simpler semi-weighted digital piano, but as soon as he heard the vibes and strings on the hammer-weighted model he made up his mind. The 61-key MIDI controller would be a later addition that, when paired with a computer (a laptop, most likely), would give him exceptional capabilities for a variety of sounds.

Monday, we enjoyed the company of [livejournal.com profile] noone234, [livejournal.com profile] kk1raven, [livejournal.com profile] thefrogger, my future sister-in-law-in-law [livejournal.com profile] 1jadedhart & my brother-in-law, my niece, my father-in-law, and one of our neighbors. Food was simple fare - burgers, hot dogs, sausage with built-in onions and peppers, grilled corn - along with some homemade salsa from [livejournal.com profile] noone234, lemon cake from [livejournal.com profile] kk1raven (we officially gave her permission to try some other kind of cake for next time, provided she also brings the lemon cake! =) [livejournal.com profile] thefrogger brought some truffles that went over very well, and our next-door neighbor made some spinach dip that was very good.

After the meal, the Lefty Valdez Band set up on the Front Porch Stage and played through the portions of tunes we know. We did a little bit of work, extending [livejournal.com profile] noone234's bass parts in The Kraken and Sorrow's End. We also worked a bit on getting Rachel a clarinet part for Breezy. Justin and I both caught our nicknames on our first session - indeed, I haven't played the right-handed-bass-strung-lefty since then, so Lefty doesn't directly apply. I suppose it's still funny, considering I'm the only Righty in the household (Mr. B. is still Undecided.) Valdez referred to the vast quantities of valve oil needed for the trumpet - which is now in the shop and will hopefully not apply in the future. Yesterday, we coined names for the other two band members. Rachel's nickname came up from her occasional blasts from the clarinet - usually when she's frustrated, but sometimes by accident as well. She is now Squeaky, a name which Mr. B delights in calling her over. And over. [livejournal.com profile] thefrogger actually suggested [livejournal.com profile] noone234's name when he mentioned a flub - thus, we now feature Flubber on alto sax, electric bass, and - someday soon - C sax.
ellyssian: (Default)
No drums or percussion, alas.

We did, however, go over Sorrow's End (Chris on bass, Justin on synth, me on guitar). Justin (pipe organ) and I (guitar) demonstrated the more complex verse riff in Forgotten Royalty. We did The Kraken, with Chris playing bass, Justin playing grand piano, and me doing my thing on the guitar.

For the jazzier portion of the program, we worked on the still officially nameless Dm Mellow Jazz Tune, with Rachel taking the lead on clarinet, Justin imitating the trumpet on the keys (his horn is in the shop trying to get the Valdez-nickname-earning stuck valve un-), and me doing clean 7th chords on the guitar. We did a few rounds of the equally nameless Signature Tune (which we're now calling it, as "First Tune We Wrote With All The Horns Going Dun-Da-Duh" is getting a wee bit awkward), but with no new material added (Rachel, clarinet; Justin keys-as-trumpet; Chris, alto sax; me, fretless bass). While goofing off with that, we accidentally came up with yet another truly unnamed tune, this one codenamed Breezy. Justin plays grand piano on this 5/4 wonder, as I speed along on the fretless, and Chris is writing the alto sax part. We'll come up with a clarinet part after we get a bit further with it.

We're thinking of having Chris play his bass on the Dm Mellow Jazz Tune, but haven't tried anything with it yet. We've got to get additional parts for the tunes that are complete songs - Sorrow's End and The Kraken - that way we can get through an entire actual, real, live song. The three other bits will take longer as they are being entirely written from scratch, so we have no clue where they're going next. =)

The Kraken is the easiest of the two, as we're just arranging the tune - and by that, I mean we're playing it pretty much verbatim, except for jumping up an octave or two here or there. Sorrow's End was written in 1990-1991 while I was working at a retail store in Lexington. Used to have to "stand guard" over the parking lot for my first hour or two of work, as no one was supposed to park there until after we opened. So I would stand there, warn people off once in a while, be ignored most of the time, and, while doing so one chilly morning, I wrote the entire tune in my head. There's lyrics somewhere, and I'll likely post them here if I can find them...
ellyssian: (Default)
Unfortunately, [livejournal.com profile] noone234 was out of commission for today's practice on account of a battery failing yesterday at a most inopportune moment.

Rachel and I were both in and out for the session - her, more so than me. She was so pale that a few times we had to force her to stop and get some rest. I felt a bit wiped at one point, and opening the windows didn't help. A low fan did the trick and let me continue for a bit.

We worked on fleshing out the Dm mellow jazz jam Rachel and I had done, going off of the Bb-D-F-Bb opening slur she came up with. That jam is now officially named Dm Mellow Jazz, until Rachel gets the honor of naming it once it's done. For the A section, we counter her lines on clarinet with Justin's simpler lines on trumpet over a simple, clean progression on the guitar. The first part of the B section continues in that vein, and then ends with a line harmonized in thirds - Justin still plays simple bits (to downplay the power of the brass) and Rachel plays an approach to their chords.

We also worked on the first - still nameless - tune, just getting it a bit tighter. When [livejournal.com profile] noone234 is over next time, we'll continue writing work on it, with Justin and Rachel coming up with their parts.

While Rachel was resting, Justin and I worked a bit on Jack Sparrow (minus any decoration from sea shanties). The fretless does really well on the cello lead, as we had expected. Switching back to the guitar, dropping the low E to a D, and we played through The Kraken a couple of times.
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The FinalFest post, which wraps up my rather shoddy coverage of Musikfest appeared on Sunday. It covered events on Wednesday and Friday, because, hey, not so speedy with all the other stuff going on.

A meeting of the Lefty Valdez Band (or whatever it actually winds up being called!) took place on Saturday night.

Sunday, Mr. B and I had the house to ourselves, as Justin was up in the Nearly Great White North of Cow Hampshire, riding around on a motorcycle, and Deb and Rachel were getting sneakers and shin guards on sale. We had a Veggie Tale marathon going on, with almost no episode going unwatched. Also, we drove a giant dump truck down the front yard, rolled it over after bouncing off a tree, and then went inside because the bugs were after us. =)
ellyssian: (Default)
3 out of 4 of the active members of the Lefty Valdez Band got together last night to work further on The Tune.

We started out on the front porch, until it got dark, and Deb unlocked the door and let us back in. After a few rounds of practice, some playing around on other potential themes, we got to work on The Tune. A second riff for the bass introduced itself to me, and so I played it for [livejournal.com profile] noone234 and Rachel. Once we came back inside, we set to work devising the sax part for the transition and the new riff, and, by the end of the night, we had it.

We refined the existing parts by following the lead Justin had accidentally set when he first transcribed The Tune, and we don't give the horns a measure off between each of their lines. Now, we come in pretty much at the same time with only a quick slide on the last bit of the 4-e-and-a, so, boom, we all start at 1. Four measures of intro, then we segue to the new bit, which, on its own is 12 measures of bass. The final holding note of the intro hangs over that first measure (so we have 5 measures of the horns) and we've got the sax part for the next two measures, completing the first figure of the new part. We'll tighten that up once Justin gets back from vacation and writes his trumpet part - posibilities are: harmonizing the sax part, sitting out for a short sax solo and coming in after, or doing something completely different. In any case, the tune is shaping up nicely.

We met, briefly, our temporary percussionist - Korg, his name is - although we couldn't hear a beat he played on account of a distinct lack of RCA plugs (or 1/4" to RCA conversion cables). [livejournal.com profile] noone234's cousin sounds like he'd be a good fit, although he'd have some difficulty commuting down from Buffalo. So the position is still officially open.
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The short form report of Friday and Saturday can be found at the Festing Frenzy, in which I go on a bit about the Philadelphia Funk Authority and other bands, and a report on the gathering on Saturday, in which I mostly go on about yet another band - this one featuring yours truly, [livejournal.com profile] noone234, Justin, and Rachel.

On Sunday, I discuss the PercussionFest, in which percussion instruments were purchased, and in which I performed to a standing-room only crowd at Musikfest (well, it was on Main Street, so there weren't all that many chairs around... =)

Still have to get to a more detailed post about PFA...
ellyssian: (Default)
So I ended that last post with a statement that we needed a percussionist, with no further information.

Well, today, we went down to MusikFest (we being: [livejournal.com profile] patrixa, Justin, Rachel, and me). After a lunch at Bowmanstown Diner (the only diner in the world that won't serve omelets or home fries at 11:30am on a Sunday, but is otherwise my favorite diner), we parked and began to wander around the fest.

None of the acts really hit me - they were mostly bluegrass, country that sounded kind of like bluegrass, and celtic that sounded almost like bluegrass. Even the trombone quartet - which was mostly playing classical - did a ragtime swing piece that probably would have sounded natural with a banjo playing along.

Rachel picked up an ocarina, flute, and a percussion shaker (for Mr. B) from the Native North/South American folks. [livejournal.com profile] patrixa also picked up an album of the flute music being played at the moment. They bought Deb a bead bracelet as well.

Met up with [livejournal.com profile] noone234 at the Volksplatz and after a bit we headed over to the drums at Spirit in the Wood. They had some dununbas that sounded great, and a beautiful conga (the picture at the link is nowhere as near as nice looking as the one they had there - the hardware looked like cast iron, and it the wood itself had a beautiful, but simple appearance). We picked up a kalimba, a carved, hollowed out frog with a sawtooth pattern that makes a frog-like sound when the stick is slid over it, and a djembe.

We stopped at another tent with drums - one was in the process of being carved. They were from Ghana, and the kpanlogos they had were exquisite - very intricate carvings, and, to top it off, a beautiful sound (this link goes to a vendor who imports them; I will correct if I can swing by during the week and find out if these guys have a site of their own - I'd much rather show off their art, although the linked one looks pretty good too! =) [livejournal.com profile] patrixa bought a unity sculpture from them; the man had carved the three intertwined figures out of a single piece of wood. You can see the approximate shape of the original piece when you slide them together, however the sculpture is best viewed folded open, as if the three figures were twirling in a dance.

We wandered some more, were nearly lulled to sleep by one of the celtic band's tunes, and headed back to the Main Street stage to hear the trombone quartet. On the way back, I noticed a few guys sitting out playing drums behind the stage; one guy had a kpanlogo, the other a conga (think he works next door to me; I recognized but couldn't place him at the time), and the third - well, I didn't see his drum. After the trombone quintet finished up, we headed back down to the drummers, and between one of the drummer's daughters (either the kpanlogo guy or the third guy) and [livejournal.com profile] patrixa, I was volunteered to jam with the three, plus an 18 year old playing electric blues guitar.

We played a couple of tunes - having owned the drum for a total of a couple of hours, I wasn't overly confident at first, nor, to be honest, at the end. I did, however, have fun.

Now, it's all well and good that we now have a bunch of percussion instruments to use while we play, or during recording. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that we need some one to play congas and/or a drum kit to play along with us when we're doing trumpet, sax, clarinet, and bass. So, yeah.

We need a percussionist.
ellyssian: (Default)
Quick update, as I intend to come up with an in-depth review (wow, those two things usually aren't found together here! =) some time in the coming week (to six months... if the record stands!)

Ogans - they caught our attention early on and we watched a couple of soundcheck songs. Swung by later on to catch most of their first set, but, due to me misremembering what time PFA came on, we missed out on their second set.

Cast In Bronze caught one of his sets after Ogans soundcheck, and one tune - the Carol of the Bells - out of another set after the Ogans performance.

Philadelphia Funk Authority. Excellent. Sat off of stage right so Justin could clearly see the horn section (most of the time; passing traffic or pausing traffic in the aisle between us and the stage caused some difficulty). The guy sitting next to us was there to watch the keyboard player - he plays keys & trumpet in a Blues Brothers tribute band. Go see PFA if you can, or, alternately, pay them to come play for you!

Although the gathering yesterday wasn't music-centric in the original intentions, it certainly became so after we ate. Inside and throughout the day, the music of PFA, the Blues Brothers, the Muppets from Space soundtrack (i.e. James Brown, George Clinton, and so on), and Martha Redbone played. After the meal was done, though, it was quickly decided that some music would now happen. I borrowed Deb's bass, Justin grabbed his trumpet, and Chris had his alto sax and we debated upon the merits of performing indoors in air conditioning or out on the front porch in the heat.

After a little bit of prep time, we set out to actually Play Something, and it was Good. Funk University (that's Funk U, for short) was thus formed. We're going to get a singing group to work with us, and we'll name them And The Horse You Rode In On. =)

Okay, so it's just a working name right now, but the possibility of us playing out at little jazz gigs here and there under some more sensible, but less entertaining, alias does exist. We've got a whole 30 seconds of original music written!

Rachel joined us on the clarinet - and, for 3 weeks of training followed by 2 weeks of vacation, she kept up with the seasoned pros. Ummm, that would be us. Rachel and Chris still need nicknames. I'm Lefty, on account of being right-handed, playing a right-handed bass that is strung lefty. Justin is Valdez, on account of a sticking valve that used more oil than spilled into Prince William Sound.

Anyway, we've got a nice slinky bass line that I mostly play over and over so the horns can get their timing down, but it opens itself up to a lot of variations which I'll toss in as we go. We've got four and a half sets of horn parts that run back and forth over the bass line. The tune is written out as it stands so far, so we'll work on ideas and get together in part over the next few weeks, and then in full as soon as Justin gets back from vacation.

We need a percussionist.

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Mina Ellyse

November 2024

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