The Elysian Fields

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, 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. 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 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. 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 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). noone234 then grabbed his bass, Justin switched from marimba to synth, and I traded bass for guitar. 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, 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.

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 noone234, kk1raven, thefrogger, my future sister-in-law-in-law 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 noone234, lemon cake from kk1raven (we officially gave her permission to try some other kind of cake for next time, provided she also brings the lemon cake! =) 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 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. thefrogger actually suggested noone234's name when he mentioned a flub - thus, we now feature Flubber on alto sax, electric bass, and - someday soon - C sax.

Unfortunately, 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 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.

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 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). 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.

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: 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. 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 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! =) 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 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.