My Happy Place

Yes, this is my happy place!

Last Saturday, I played a set with the Rosewood Trio as part of a charity event/polo match benefitting the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The weather was perfect, and it was a very fun day, and I think we sounded good. Darling Wife, who has been at every open mic and every one of the three gigs I've played with them, said this is the best we've sounded. We also were actually a quartet for the day, as my friend Joe played the drums with us (two rehearsals and he was good to go.)

I was very happy that brother Eric and his family were able to be there - I was pretty sure that he'd enjoy seeing us, and he did (his very gracious take on the day is here.) Even better, he's a good photographer, so we finally have some band pics with a quality above an iPhone camera (posted on the Facebook page.)

Now, one thing Darling Wife tells me after every single performance is something to the effect of, "You look *so* miserable up there." I assure her every time that I'm practically giddy with delight to be on stage performing with some very talented musicians. But I'm also *concentrating*.

I've been hearing about "bitchy resting face." Apparently I have "miserable performing face." I'm not sure there's anything I can do about it. So yes, this really is a picture of me in my happy place. Believe it or not.

Anothery Bakery Night

Last Friday night, the acoustic band had our second gig at the bakery. The first gig was a complete success, and we'd been looking forward to playing there again (though with some last-minute uncertainty.)

Chip, Sandy, Dave

I left home around 5:00, looking to be there sometime after 5:30 for a 6:30 start. I had brother Chris with me, and Darling Wife would be coming directly from work to join us. I arrived to find multiple voice and text messages on my phone. It was our guitar player, telling me that our singer had canceled. What??? Really?!? Noooooooo....

I went into the bakery, and found him deep in discussion with a woman behind the counter. It turns out that she didn't cancel. Apparently the bakery got a call saying something about canceling, and assumed it was us. But things got straightened out, and we were playing. Whew.... So the evening started off with anger, disappointment, and exhilaration.

Issue #2. Darling Wife had called and reserved a table with 8 seats. I looked around and saw that the tables had name cards on them. But none with my name. There was one table of 8 labeled "Wyeth" - perhaps they got the name garbled. I asked, and the woman got out her book - yes, the Wyeth reservation was under Darling Wife's cell phone number. But she firmly insisted that she listened to the voice mail 3 times, and it was definitely "Wyeth." That's disappointing - I would have hoped that after 12 years, Darling Wife knew her new last name. But apparently there's still work to do there....

Anyway, once the false cancellation and the reservation name issues were resolved, it was all smooth sailing. Our singer's voice was improved from the night before, and there were no vocal issues. We did play the songs in the revised lower keys, and it all worked out fine for the most part. For me there was one exception - we recently added Jewel's Forever and a Day, which is a *gorgeous* lullaby. I have the song down, but it's not a simple three-chord song. Our singer asked for a key we hadn't practiced it in, and I wasn't able to transpose it on the fly. After a few clunkers, I simply stopped playing.

The two hours went by in a flash, and next thing I knew we were packing up and accepting kind words from the patrons (some of whom weren't even family or close friends!) Oh, and I had a chat with a young guy who was obviously a bass player. He came in as we were setting up and doing a sound check, and he looked at my bass and mouthed something. It took me a minute to realize that he was asking "fretless?" I gave him the thumbs-up, and he smiled.

The bakery again treated us wonderfully. We had all the food, drink, and desserts we could handle, and they gave us each a bag of treats as we were packing up. And once again, we split the contents of our tip jar, and went to the restaurant next door for a celebratory glass of wine. We calculated that if we did 20 of these shows every day, we could quit our day jobs. I'd do it in a heartbeat!

I'm basically out of superlatives to describe how much fun it is, first just to make music with talented people, and then to actually play out in public. I'm not sure there's anything better.

As the World Turns

...or "Soap Opera-type Happenings Playing in Bands"

Life is never dull. There have been a number of band-related ups and downs this week.

The electric band has been going great since we added a good lead guitarist late last year. We have hours of tight material, had great fun recording some demo tracks, and have been actively looking for little bar gigs (we had one scheduled for a Saturday night in July, but we got bumped for reasons unknown and were trying to reschedule.)

Note the past-tense "we *were* trying to reschedule." Tuesday morning, we got an e-mail from the lead guitarist, saying he had too many other commitments and had to quit the band. Okay, no hard feelings - he's a good guy, and we'll stay in touch, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if we play together again somewhere down the road. But we're sad about it, and have to decide how to move forward. We'll put an ad for a lead guitarist on Craigslist and see what we find. Or we could look for a bass player, and I'll move back to guitar (which is where I started with this band.) Stay tuned for next week's episode and find out what happens.

Then there's the acoustic trio. We play our second gig at the bakery tonight, and I'm very excited. But it was touch and go right up to the last minute. We practiced Wednesday night, and our vocalist came in with a cold and a sore throat and could hardly sing a note. We worked through some songs, telling her to please not do anything to strain her voice, and we finally ended practice early with a discussion on whether or not we'd have to cancel the gig.

We agreed that canceling on the day of the gig was bad form, so she said she'd make a decision yesterday. Thankfully, the text message I got yesterday said that she was improving, and could go if we could make some adjustments to the set list. She can't really hit the high notes, so a couple of songs have to be dropped, and a number of others have to be played in a slightly lower key. That's not a problem, and we rehearsed last night and figured out the new keys we'd be playing in.

So we're good to go, and I'm looking very forward to a fun evening. Though I will admit to a little nervousness. Changing the key of so many songs the night before a gig isn't ideal. It's not a *problem* - the guitar players just adjust the capo and play the exact same thing. I learn songs by patterns, and the patterns don't change - there's just a different "home" point. But there's a greater chance that I'll just play something by habit that used to be right, but is now wrong.

Stay tuned for a full report.

Traveling with Guitar

Adirondacks '12

I've written about my travel guitar a few times since getting it last year, and I still couldn't be more pleased with it. It's been exactly what I envisioned it would be - a guitar that I can toss in the car whenever I'm going anywhere that I might have some time to sit down and play. So far, it's gone to the River many times, Ocean City, MD twice, Staunton, VA a few times, and it accompanied us on our Adirondacks hiking trip last year. (As an aside, I'm very sad that I won't be able to bring it to Maine next month, as we're flying.)

I realized after a couple of lazy afternoons sitting out by the river and playing, that I tend to go through a pattern of tunings and songs, which I'll document here mostly so I can look back later and see how the pattern changes over time.

Standard Tuning, no capo
The Needle and the Damage Done (Neil Young)
Babe I'm Gonna Leave You (Led Zeppelin)
Scarborough Fair (Simon and Garfunkel)
Feelin' Groovy (S&G)
Blackbird (Beatles)
Guaranteed (Eddie Vedder)
Norwegian Wood (Beatles)
Rainy Night in Georgia (Brook Benton)
Across the Universe (Beatles)

Standard Tuning, capo 2
America (Simon and Garfunkel)

Standard Tuning, capo 3
Catch the Wind (Donovan)
Something in the Way She Moves (James Taylor)

Standard Tuning, capo 7
Here Comes the Sun (Beatles)
Hotel California (Eagles)

Drop-D Tuning
Harvest Moon (Neil Young)

Double Drop-D Tuning
Going to California (Led Zeppelin)

Ocean City '13

Open-G Tuning
That's the Way (Led Zeppelin)

Open-G Tuning, capo 2
Morning Morgantown (Joni Mitchell)

DADGAD Tuning
No Quarter (Led Zeppelin)
Kashmir (Led Zeppelin)

This isn't to say that I can play all these songs well - some are very much works-in-progress - but I think they're all at least recognizable to someone who knows the song.

The pic at right was taken from the beach at Ocean City. It was after our nightly walk on the boardwalk, and I was playing while Darling Wife and Chris walked on the beach. Since I have the capo on the 7th fret, that means I'm playing either "Here Comes the Sun" or "Hotel California."

Maidencreek Old Time Music Festival, 7/14/13

(There's been so much music, and so much *life* going on, that I've fallen way behind in things I want to write about. Hopefully a number of posts over the next few days will clear the backlog. Hopefully. :-))

Open jam (I'm not in the pic)

A few weekends ago, I saw a notice for the Maidencreek Old Time Music Festival, an annual event in the Reading vicinity. It sounded like a day of acoustic music (guitar, mandolin, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, etc.) - with both scheduled performances, workshops, and jam sessions. I decided I wanted to go if vacation permitted, and thankfully it did. When the day dawned warm and sunny, Darling Wife decided to join me.

I decided to take the back roads route, rather than the turnpike, and it was a very pleasant drive through some rural areas between Pottstown and Reading that I wasn't familiar with. Oh, and I decided I was a mandolin player for the day. In retrospect, there's no reason I couldn't have taken a guitar too - but there were mandolin workshops, and I decided that would be my focus for the day.

The event was at Maier's Grove, a private picnic grove run by the Lions Club. It was small and intimate. Most of the workshops I was at had 10-15 people. We saw some individual performances to start, then the instrument workshops started in the middle afternoon. I sat in on the "beginning mandolin", then continued with the "advancing mandolin".

Both sessions were very helpful. All my mandolin work is self-taught - I'm working from books and YouTube lessons, but I haven't had anyone look at me and give pointers/corrections. The "beginning" workshop was good feedback that I'm on the right track with my basics, and the "advancing" workshop was good feedback that I'm on the right track with the things I'm currently working on (pentatonic scales, movable chord shapes up and down the fingerboard, picking patterns.)

While I was attending my workshops, Darling Wife was looking in on the other workshops, and then found herself captivated by the square dancing workshop. She said the caller was a Pennsylvania Dutch guy who was hilarious and made it a great time. She said that when our kids get married, we're hiring him for the wedding. (She hasn't broken this news to the kids yet.) She also almost got a degree from Yodeling University - but that's her story to tell.

There were no formal workshops in the late afternoon, so we listened to some informal jam sessions, then found a shady spot under a tree next to a bubbling stream and enjoyed the summer day. The Lions Club was there selling food and drink from a pavilion, and that's what we did for lunch and dinner. The food was really good, and much of it was homemade, including ice cream, which was to die for!

The last event was a concert by the workshop instructors. They were all good, but the highlight for me was the "advancing mandolin" workshop leader Ken Gehret. He played a few songs, including a beautiful solo version of George Gershwin's "Summertime."

All in all, a very fun day. What they call "old time" music is basically Appalachian music - fiddle tunes derived from Irish/Scottish folk music. They're mostly simple three-chord songs, but they're fun to play and fun to listen to. At the end of the day, they announced that next year's festival would be on the same Sunday in July. We vowed to mark our calendars and be there again - but within days, we got a "save the date" postcard for a wedding we'll be expected to attend. Ah well.

Here's an article from the Reading Eagle.