Musical Week in Review, 3/25

* Our friend Don (from the acoustic jams and the Folk Fest) turned 60 on Sunday, and to celebrate, he invited a few friends to his house on Saturday night for a jam. We'd been to one of his jams before, so we knew it would be a great time. And it was. Great music with good people. I took a guitar and a mandolin, and played each about the same amount. It was gratifying to find out that I'm now comfortable keeping up with most songs on the mando. Super fun evening.

* I saw that there was going to be a two-hour mandolin workshop in Ardmore on Sunday. My afternoon was pretty much free, so I decided to attend. It was fun and helpful. I wouldn't say I learned anything brand new, but it was good to review some things, and to hear some things in a new way. The focus was moveable chord shapes. I realize that I know a decent bit of music theory, and it always kinda startles me that not everyone knows that.

* I'm still on a major "Inside Llewyn Davis" kick. I *love* the soundtrack. I've been playing some of the songs, and decided to see if I could learn "Green Green Rocky Road". A few clicks later, I was watching Dave van Ronk show how to play his song! Dave van Ronk is the musician that "Llewyn Davis" is loosely based on. Very cool. He starts by calling the song "easy", and then demonstrates a finger-picking pattern that's going to take me a while to learn. But that's my project.

* Rosewood practice last night. We play Sunday afternoon at the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Band-o-Rama fundraiser, and we're looking forward to it.

* I'm about to download some travel music. I like to get some new music to take on vacation, and I've decided on two discs from Mike Marshall, my mandolin teacher. I've heard tracks from both these discs on Pandora, and thought they were fantastic:
     * Mike Marshall & Darol Anger: At Home and on the Range
     * Mike Marshall & Darol Anger with Vasen

Mike Marshall Lessons

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'm still enjoying the Mike Marshall mandolin lessons very much. I've been continuing through the intermediate track, and practicing his tunes and techniques a lot.

I also mentioned that I hadn't yet worked up the nerve to send him a video of me playing. That's one of the key points of the program - if you submit a video of your playing of a lesson, Mike will review it and respond with a video with his feedback/pointers/critiques. I've been thinking about it, and finally progressed from "I should really do that" to "I'm *going* to do that."

Once that decision was made, there was the question of "how?" How to video myself, how to get it in the right file format, etc., etc. I spent most of an evening working out these details.

My best video camera turned out to be my iPhone. I did a few takes of "Whiskey Before Breakfast" (a great fiddle tune), then transferred the file to my laptop and got ready to submit. Oops, not so fast - the video showed me upside-down. Googling showed that yes, it's a known problem, and no, there's no easy way to flip it around.

Another take of "Whiskey Before Breakfast". Try to upload...wrong file format. Find a freeware program to convert video file formats. Try to upload...no, the file is too big. Sigh.... Find that the freeware video conversion program can also compress files. Success!

I waited, unsure of how quickly he turned these videos around - and then a week later I got an e-mail notifying me that a video response was ready. *Gulp*

I went and watched it, and was *very* pleasantly surprised. He must do a ton of these video exchanges, but he gave me very personal and very un-rushed feedback. He asked me for some background into my playing and what I hope to get out of the mandolin, gave me some good feedback, and then demonstrated a whole bunch of options for ways to embellish "Whiskey Before Breakfast." It was kinda boggling to actually get feedback from a world-class player.

I immediately made a second video ("Red Haired Boy"), and got a response this morning with more good feedback. You can guess that I'll be submitting my next video very soon.

These traditional fiddle tunes are a lot of fun, and I've learned a good number of them. Another nice feature of the Mike Marshall program is PDF tabs and MP3 backing tracks of these tunes. So I can print out the tabs and play along with a guitar accompaniment. It would be nice to play with a real guitar player - and I happen to have one in the house...so maybe I'll recruit her and see what happens.

Anyway, I can't recommend this program highly enough.

Rosewood at the WEA, 3/8/14

Rosewood had another gig at the West End Alley in Pottstown last Saturday night. As before, we were scheduled to play from 7:00-9:00. As an added wrinkle, we were playing our first gig with new drummer Bruce. We knew that space would be tight, but we were hoping it could work.

The plan was to arrive at 6pm, but it was more like 6:15 before everyone got there and unpacked. I was there with our #1 fans, Darling Wife and Brother Chris. Darling Wife hadn't made a reservation, and we were told that the place was booked solid, but that they could sit at the bar. That was fine - and it was exciting to hear that we'd have a full house.

We didn't have much time to set up, and we needed every second of it. Sandy's mic wasn't working, and Chip feverishly troubleshot it - finally pinpointing it was a connection failure in her vocalizer machine (that lets her harmonize with herself.) He rigged an emergency fix, and she was good to go.

Bruce set up a very small stand-up kit at the side of the stage - and then was told at about 6:59 that he couldn't be there. He frantically put a snare drum on the stage and stood next to it - which allowed him to do *something*. So it was Murphy's Law in action, but at 7pm we were ready to go.

The place was indeed full, and it was the most energized crowd we've yet played for. People were singing along, and shouting compliments and encouragement. During the second set, some ladies jumped up to dance - and Brother Chris was up in a flash to join them. It was a blast, and two hours sailed by.

We said goodnight after the last song, and people yelled for one more song. So we played another. And then another. And then one more, and then we said we were really done.

The post-mortem was that it was a super-fun evening. The technical problems with the vocal mic continued off and on. It wasn't really evident to the listeners - but we knew it wasn't as good as it could have been. We need to do our sound check earlier before a gig - this is two straight times where we've been fixing problems right up until the last minute.

Bruce made the best of a bad situation, but I think we're going to have to be a trio at this venue going forward - there's simply not room for a fourth person.

There are a number of exciting things coming up, and all details are here.

Ibanez SR500

As Darling Wife has been known to say, the problem with looking is that it leads to finding. She usually says that to me in a tone approaching accusatory, especially when the "looking" is at musical gear.

Of course she's right. And she was never more right than a few weeks ago when I looked at some basses in Sam Ash. I was interested in how different a Fender Jazz Bass felt and sounded from my Precision Bass. I liked the Jazz Basses, and thought that maybe I'd see if I could find a Craigslist buyer for my Precision in order to get one.

But then I played a used Ibanez SR500. I'm pretty sure I heard angels sing when I picked it up and started playing. It was the best-feeling bass I've ever had my hands on. I decided right then that if I could sell my Precision, I would get an SR500.

Craigslist worked to perfection for me, as it has so many times. I found a buyer who couldn't put cash in my hands fast enough - and as soon as I had that cash I was on the Guitar Center website. I found an SR500 in the "used gear" section, rated as "excellent condition." It was just a few dollars more than the cash I'd just received for the Fender - so a few clicks of the mouse later, it was winging its way to the Wilmington Guitar Center.

I love it as much as I thought and hoped I would. It feels great and sounds great. I didn't get it with Rosewood in mind, as I still like my Ibanez fretless. But the fretless has an occasional low buzz, which has to be something in the electronics. When the band is playing, you don't notice it - but it bothers me, and I want to get it fixed. So I've used the new bass for Rosewood rehearsals and for last night's gig (more about that very soon), and it's worked great.

This was effectively a straight trade of the Precision Bass for the SR500, and I'm completely thrilled.