#band workshop

Like usual, I exaggerated my suspicions and paranoia for no apparent reason other than I'm sometimes overly anxious. We've played "Into the Sun" on two nights since my last blog. The first night was naturally rough but I was more concerned that it was going to happen at all. The second night we slowed a down a bit at my request and tried to make it a little more funky. As I feared, the drums were going to be trickier than the other instruments but only because some people DON'T PRACTICE. No matter how complicated a song (within reason) you can still learn parts by dedicating a bit of time. Our leader got everyone pointed in the same direction and we hopped right “Into the Sun”. Since my role is primary I just do the song that I've been practicing and hope everyone follows along. Our singer gave me some nice harmonies on the chorus, an unexpected and delightful benefit. Singing it gave me some strange looks, I'm still try to find my voice. The vocals I posted on my rough recording are an octave lower than what I'm attempting in class. Occasionally I can feel my voice coming in with the proper tone when I can get the right breath and relaxation. Let's just say I haven't got any compliments yet but I think it's getting there. I'm still not feeling much rapport with the group, their response to emails is tepid. Our assignment last week was to decide what next week's new song would be. We had one list posted by the drummer and I picked some songs and the other guitarist picked one song.  Our singer responded a few days later and there was one song that showed up on almost everyone's list; Bebe Le Strange. I emailed everyone if they were OK to go with this one and got no response. I emailed Sean and told him that it wasn't confirmed but it looked like Bebe Le Strange was a go based on my speculation. In the meantime I got busy learning the song because I knew what was going to happen next and I wasn't waiting any longer. Sean finally got back to me the following Wednesday saying he'd charted it. Even though there was no official consensus, I knew we were getting into the song that evening. There wasn't too much problem for me since I'd been practicing it and I'm carrying a lot of the songs, at least in the beginning. I'm happy to do it because it’s great experience but I'm not at the level Sean is. He can step into any song seamlessly on short notice. Our singer is great too, she also has that talent for not needing to over practice, unlike myself.

I had a really good day practicing today. My normal routine consists of going through scales and exercises but not much in the way of songs. This workshop has me focused on playing songs rather than exercises.

We have a really interesting set list so far. Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together”. Who would’ve thought this could be a great hybrid metal/pop song? My group doesn’t know it yet but when I propose doing a Led Zeppelin/Van Halen version like the one of I’ve been practicing , they might come around.

It’s the riff in the very beginning, just change the attitude slightly and you can see it!

I got into a bit of a debate about the arrangement our band leader gave us for the Pretender’s “Brass in the Pocket”. I felt he left out a part of the pre-chorus section but he insisted he didn’t.

I found exactly what was missing and sent him a polite email with links to my sources even though he’s defensive about this kind of thing. Sean prides himself on figuring out songs by ear but I’m just saying, why do extra work when someone has already done it?

And if you make a mistake transcribing something, so what? It’s not like anyone’s keeping “score”.

Our vocalist suggested canceling a song that I had been practicing last weekend. She said it wasn’t in the correct key and of course, this issue could be easily addressed by changing the key. 

There was an undercurrent of  women vs men in song choice; the complaint was partly about  not having enough songs by women even though she suggested the very same songs by men in the beginning!

Our second guitarist is not very confident about his playing. He has an excellent sense of humor and I’m hoping he can play bass instead. We need a bassist because our bassist never showed. 

The drummer has only been playing for two years and he’s also taking an additional band workshop. I hope he’s not to busy to practice, but I’m wondering because his tempo is inconsistent.

I’m not the greatest guitarist  either, learning on new song under pressure in a group makes any weakness even more apparent. We had had some messy, incomprehensible playing figuring out last weeks addition to our song list but I always make up by studying the song on my own time afterwards. 

Here’s a link to my video of “Brass in my Pocket” I made to get Sean’s approval before presenting it to the rest of the band.

Last week was a little scatterbrained, sorting through the clutter of what I want to do and what I’m able to do. Being capable of doing several things reasonably well requires discipline and time management, not easy traits for us emotional and impulsive creative types. 

Art requires passion, expressing emotion, trusting your intuition and spiritual impulses. Anyone can live life this way if they’re brave enough. We get trapped in limited mindsets that stifle our true selves by the obligations thrust upon us by our choices and circumstances.

The successful seem to be either very disciplined, uncompromising spiritual or a combination of both. May we all be fortunate to develop these qualities, more lives would have purpose. But we are mostly simple humans, bobbing along in the ocean and taking on whatever comes our way. 

The stage of my journey has now entered a new phase. It’s a 10 week project with other people to perform a show, more commonly known as a band workshop. Working with others creates a bigger sense of urgency than working by yourself. I’m putting my other music and art projects on hold because of the focus needed to face the upcoming challenges.

We had our first session to decide our set list. Then we started off learning two songs. The line up consists of another guitarist, bassist, drummer and vocalist. I’ve worked with Sean, our leader before and we all left feeling we made good progress that first night. 

The next day I thought about the strategy for arranging two guitars and contacted the other guitarist, Glenn. I proposed that I mostly play chord inversions so we could avoid playing in unison and have some harmony. He agreed and I was relieved there wasn’t any sensitivity with musicians suggesting what the other should be playing.

These are the exchanges that provide the drama and excitement of working with others. Feeling out personalities, forming relationships, the give and take may be daunting to anticipate in new situations. Keeping positive is the best approach but you never know when someone may just decide they don’t like you.

Musicians can be a particularly touchy about people they work with, the biggest factor is how well you play. But they will also judge on appearance, personality compatibility, politics and musical taste. Some will even factor in whether you smoke dope or drink. 

For now I’m working on inversions, something I’ve studied a little but never applied much. The first two songs are Elvis Costello’s “Peace, Love and Understanding” and Joe Jackson’s “It’s Different for Girls”. I was very excited to learn and refine these songs, I played for about eight hours yesterday.