Living on the Edge Every Day

Click above to order via Paypal!

But you can read about my November self-challenge to compose at least 8 measures a day here

It's late, I'm exhausted, still a bit hyper, and very pleased. Today we finally had the massive string scoring project performed by 9 live musicians. I'm listening to the rough mix right now, and I'm still having a disconnect between hearing it and realizing that we made it all happen - the countless hours @ museician's house, wrestling with our ideas and with Sibelius (the new scoring app. which I had just bought as we were getting heavily into it), listening to it over and over on the cheesy midi simulation, worrying that when it came to real life it would somehow Just Not Work... it was especially hard for me in the execution because as one of the players I had to both play my own part and try to pay attention to what everyone else was doing AND try to remember what we had written for them to be doing at that moment, in order to judge if it was getting better or heading for a train wreck - I can see why conductors rarely play solo pieces with their orchestra! Fortunately all my string friends (and one newcomer to us) were as good as I'd told M & S they would be - we started actually playing through it about 11:30am, and had enough satisfactory takes by 1:30 I think (maybe a bit before).

It was a strange/interesting full-circle thing for me - on March 23, 2003 I played the first professional gig of my new non-classical musical career: it was a recording session at Wellspring Studio in Acton, hired by Paula Kelley to record the string parts for her self-produced, self-scored, first full orchestra album. I had gotten in on it via Meredith, with whom I'd been studying how to become an improv player since Sept 2001. I remember how impressed I was that Paula had written all those parts herself (as well as kind of annoyed that they were in keys like B major - 6 sharps!) And now just under 5 years later here I was sitting in another studio, with Meredith and some other people who had been at the PKO session, playing parts that *I* had co-written (but in a better key)!!!

And it sounds *really* good, even in the rough mix w/o reverb. We doubled the takes so it sounds like a BIG string orchestra - we will probably paste in a couple of notes here and there from other takes, but we aren't looking for a computer-perfect recording - it sounds like real people. At times working on it I'd almost lose sight that all this instrumentation was there to be supporting M's vocals, which I didn't get to hear much of beforehand (he was still working on words) - but it all works.

Plus we did two other songs this weekend - the ones we started on Saturday, and then needed to clean up, add my parts, and have M do final vocals on all of them. The other strange/interesting thing in all that is actually hearing myself singing a small bit of backing vocals with S. on one. I certainly won't be as up in the mix when done, but not only haven't I heard my "girl" (alto) voice since college, but all I've gotten to sing in performance with the GS is growling punk choruses about drinking ("hey you m-f's I only drink stout!") and my one solo half-verse where I sing the part of an angry dyke about to cut the throat of a drunk guy making eyes at my wife ("Star of the County Down" - admittedly my own lyrics). So it was fun to sing like someone who's voice might be considered pleasant.

And if you think recording is just people walking into a room and playing all their parts together once or twice, here's a sample of what really happens:

I know I said a year ago:
Last night was my 100th gig of 2006 - knowing I can do that with a FT day job feels good, but having done it I don't know that I necessarily need to repeat it in 2007.
... so yeah, sounded good, but not the reality. Statistics for 2007:

• 110 gigs
  
• 224 sets (i.e., some shows have one 45-50 min. set, some 2 or 3)
• 93 hours in recording studios (half again as much as last year)
  
• 12 different bands (live performance and/or studio recording)
  
• 49 different clubs/venues (plus private functions)

Highlights:

• Club played most often: Paddy O's, 13 times with The Gobshites due to the mid-year Sunday residency.
  
  
• Most Performances with one band: 63 with The Gobshites
  
  
• Most show shuffling (distance & #) in one day: June 23 - afternoon private show in Plymouth with The Gobshites, 8-11pm @ Lynn Gulu-Gulu with Rev. Bob & the Darkness, and race back to Cambridge to do the last 1.5 sets @ The Plough & Stars with The Gobshites
  
  
• Most preparation required: String and other instrument parts arranging for The Milling Gowns' recording sessions.
  
  
• Furthest away from home gig: Savannah GA with The Gobshites
  
  
• Best one-time musical experience: The July performance workshop with my role model/inspiration Deborah Henson-Conant.
  
  
• Best ongoing band experience: The Milling Gowns :-)
  
  
• Worst playing experience: The whiskey-sponsored Gobshites show where some members went so overboard on stage that I almost quit.
  
  
• Best music-related thing I did for myself: Quit RBD to spend more time with TMG.
  
  
• Best new gear acquired: Probably finally getting my own laptop, though that's still so new I'm ramping up and haven't got all the ancillary recording gear installed yet. Overall most useful was my new Subaru - 12K miles in 9 months and can fit a small band with gear...

Overall a very good year - still acquiring new skills, new music, new friends but also learning to prune nonproductive connections (which is actually harder for me).

To follow up on last night's post-gig revelation: "Shane's Dentist" has evolved into a theatrical/performance piece for me at this point, rather than a virtuosic music performance piece.

Starting last March with the "fiddle-dueling" improv with Jon, I realize now that it's actually developed into being less about my playing really fast than it is about my doing cool, unexpected things (which frequently interact with the other band members) that surprise and entertain the audience. Granted, the *audience's* view of what I'm doing is still that I'm some kind of awesome musician doing these amazing things... but Shane's is not a piece for actually doing tricky/elegant/fast playing. What it seems to be becoming is something more akin to Deborah's Invention & Alchemy version of "Danger Zone", where she and the orchestra dress like mad scientists and she does things like make a "ripping" noise during her solo by scraping a coin down a string of her harp.

If I have to do Shane's as a solo, like I did at the Barn, then yes it does need to be cleaner, as Deborah critiqued, b/c all that's in front of the audience is me with a violin (Though with some thought, and a looper, I could probably get around that situation as well). But with the band backing me, and their presence as "props" for me to play off, I'm free to actually not play much at all at some points if I get the inspiration to "perform" in a different way.

Now that I realize how this piece is developing for me, I will need to be conscious of not letting it become stale through repeating bits that work too frequently, or in place of being open to what the situation/audience/my intuition tells me in the moment. E.g, I'm glad Jon the other fiddler isn't with us too often, so the fiddle-duel bit doesn't get formulaic. In his absence, more recently I've sometimes been playing off Pete by faux-strumming his guitar with my left hand while continuing to bow open A & E. But since that wasn't really good for my fingers, last week I secreted a guitar pick in my watch band and pulled it out for strumming. Last night I just grabbed one of the picks from his extras clipped to his mic and "played" both his guitar and Pret's banjo. But that's enough of that shtick for a bit now.

Another bit that was already somewhat theatrical but is better now for the insights from the workshop is "Star of the County Down" - I think I've gotten quite good with "putting the words on the porches of the audience's ears" with my half-verse punch-line solo. Plus Pete recently commented that my staged grabbing of his mic away from him to do it, then getting it back to him to finish the verse is now so precise that it's like I'm a stage tech placing it right on the blocking mark.

This also has me starting to think about what to bring to the workshop next summer, assuming I can go again. I'm thinking where I need more clues now is performing in situations that are not as exuberant as GS shows, such as TMG - again that's not a performance situation that I can replicate solo, but I'll need to think about what would be similar, like maybe a classical piece of similar mood...

Note to self: Shane's Dentist is primarily a *theater* piece for me, not a musical piece. Elaborate more later when it's not 2:30am aftera gig...

AM - 2 SS
Gym - 2 SS, 1x Rolls, 37 cardio

Notes: no rolls for over a month, and not any gym for several weeks until this one, either - mostly due to one very long cold, then a recurrence after getting a flu shot. I'm FINALLY at a point where coughing and dribbling have died down enough to go back to exercising. I'm also annoyed that a month after signing a 2-yr contract with the gym 2 miles from me, a new Planet Fitness is opening 4 blocks away in a while.

I've been quite remiss in keeping up this journal in the past few weeks. Had a long, lingering fall cold thing combined with many day job demands combined with scoring prep for a weekend recording session with one of my bands. That was very challenging: scoring parts for strings and harp, along with other people scoring choir parts, then putting it all together. You can read the band's blog about the experience here.

That unpleasant gig on the 20th, plus having a dragged-out cold keeping me awake at night, has left me with no energy to role or exercise for a week. Cold finally seems to be on the way out now, but having to work 1-6am this morning then come in again @ noon (and still here now) wasn't helpful - my butt is actually sore from too much sitting.

Summary of the past week:

- I DID do the show Fri after profuse apologies and begging (since all the other lead instruments weren't coming, either).

- spent 8 hrs Sat. working on string arrangements w/ S. for {TMG}'s upcoming recording.

- Sun. night GS gig was very empty; only did two sets.

- Mon-Wed trying to get some sleep - couldn't take sick days due to wotk project.

- At work 1-6am this morning for the same reason, then back for the PM

That was quite an experience in giving the audience a good show in adverse circumstances... esp. since said circumstances were caused by other band members. Unlimited free whiskey is not a good thing for them (it was a launch party for a new brand that had hired the band). Frankly, if there had been a way that I could have safely left the stage earlier with my gear I would have, but the only way I could find to cope was to stay out of the way as much as possible and carry on the show with the part of the band that was *only* drunk (as opposed to the ones that were stupidly, falling-down, throwing things drunk) - kind of like playing in the band on the Titanic. Afterwards I was quite clear (in email since speaking to any of them f2f in their state would not have worked) that this was not acceptable to me, that as a result I would not be playing the next night's show (which also includes a free drink component), and that if anything like that happened again it would be my last show with them.