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I’ll get the hang of this yet!

userinfosolarbird and I have been doing this thing for the last several weeks where we go to session only every other week–and use the off-week as a practice night. Meanwhile, I’ve shifted from taking the General to session to taking my piccolo instead, and focusing on learning the actual melody lines for various tunes.

This is working out pretty well! I can only play five or six tunes semi-reliably–by which I mean, I can actually play “Si Bheag Si Mhor” by heart, and about five others if I’m reading the sheet music at the time. I ALMOST have “Banish Misfortune” down by heart but the C part is still eluding me. What this tells me though is that by practicing, I CAN learn these things. And it gets noticed in session, too! Once you start showing up and being able to play the tunes, you get significantly more cred, even if you’re still pretty much a newbie like me.

Right now I’m focusing my efforts on the handy dandy PDF session leader Matt gave me, with about 25 tunes he’s fond of and considers a good introduction to sessions in general. From that, I’ve been working on “Banish Misfortune”, “Road to Lisdoonvarna”, “Morrison’s Jig”, and a bit of “Blarney Pilgrim”. Although I haven’t actively practiced them yet, I can also whip through “Kesh Jig” and “Foggy Dew” if I’m reading the PDF.

Meanwhile, I’ve got TunePal on the iPad and I spend a good chunk of session these days just listening to what the others are doing–and seeing if TunePal can figure out what the tunes are so I can save ’em for later exploration. Half the time, the app has a pretty good idea of what it’s hearing. If it wibbles and has no goddamn idea, I’ll just ask! Then I can look it up manually. And once you have a tune in the app, you can make it play it for you, adjusting the tempo if you need to. It’s a GREAT learning/reference tool for session newbies. Highly, highly recommended if you have an iPad.

Last night’s session in particular was relaxed and groovy, with just me, Dara, Matt, and a couple new folks Dara and I hadn’t met before, a woman who played fiddle and mandolin and a guy who played guitar and bodhran, and from them I picked up a couple more tunes to add to TunePal for later investigation: “The Yellow Tinker” and “The Frieze Breeches”. Plus, I had to giggle and giggle at one particular wibble TunePal had trying to identify tunes–when it offered me “Whiskey Makes You a Lunatic”. Which had NOT A GODDAMN THING to do with what was actually being played, but the title alone made me LOL, so I had to add it to my list.

And to tie back to my French Canadian fangirling post, I’ve also decided I have designs on learning “The Jig of Slurs”, “Irish Washerwoman”, and “Atholl Highlander”, which make up the “Fortierville” set that’s track one on La Volee d’Castors’ kickass live album. It’ll be approximately oh, I dunno, EIGHT YEARS before I’m able to play that set nearly as fast as they do, but TunePal helpfully provided me the sheet music to each. I’m armed. I’m dangerous. I HAVE A PICCOLO. BRING IT.

August 18, 2011 by
Music, Nethack

If Irish musicians played Nethack

It has amused me for a while now that in the vast repertoire of tunes available to Irish musicians, several of them have vaguely SF/F-nal names, like “King of the Fairies”, “Queen of the Fairies”, and “The Elven Cloak”.

That last one in particular, though, got me thinking of Nethack thanks to my propensity for playing Elf characters. Which, of course, led me to wonder about other hypothetical Nethack-themed Irish tune names! Such as:

  • The Surly Shopkeeper
  • Farewell to My Pet Cat
  • Gold in the Bag of Holding
  • The Cursed Loadstone Lament
  • The Polymorph Trap Jig (this one would definitely change keys AND time signatures between the A part, the B part, and the C part)
  • Yet Another Stupid Death Reel
  • The Elven Boots
  • The Infravision Jig
  • Izchak’s Magic Lamp (That I Stole in Minetown)
  • The Vibrating Square
  • The Lich That Cursed My Broadsword
  • Road to Gehennom
  • Drowsy Maggie Needs Sleep Resistance
  • A Luckstone to Banish Misfortune
  • The Succubus Washerwoman

Anybody got any others?

August 10, 2011 by
Music, The Murkworks

Dara at Cafe Venus/Mars Bar tomorrow night!

Hey, Seattle-based peeps! My belovedest userinfosolarbird, in her auspices of Crime and the Forces of Evil, will be doing her very first bar-type show at the Cafe Venus/Mars Bar tomorrow night! She will be playing along with Natalie Quist and Gimmie a Pigfoot, and I’ll be there to provide merch support.

(Yes, you heard that correctly, I will be in an actual bar on an actual Friday night. But with my belovedest performing, hey, it’s worth it!)

Music starts up at 9pm and there will be a $6 cover charge. There will also very likely be shenanigans, and definitely rage-driven acoustic elfmetal. You should all come listen, and furthermore, buy her album while you’re at it. And if you see me, say hi!

July 7, 2011 by
Music

On better notes (several, actually)

I continue to be somewhat intimidated by the Serious Business(TM) level of musicians that show up for the sessions at A Terrible Beauty. We had two more show up last night, one lady named Beth who’s a local harpist and flautist, who has taught harp in Ireland, and who has played with a local folk band, and another lady (whose name I have sadly forgotten) who had a pretty awesome looking instrument that was either a mandobanjo or a banjolin (userinfosolarbird said ‘mandobanjo’; all I know is, it was pretty cool).

The intimidating part for me here was that both of them very, VERY clearly knew what they were doing and could hear the places where I was screwing up. On the other hand, they were also very kind about cluing me in as to when we all went into a key I had a hard time recognizing by ear, or when chord changes I hadn’t quite grasped were happening. I had the strange reaction to this of being simultaneously prickly and grateful for it–a feeling I think any of my fellow authors will recognize when somebody offers you beta reading advice you’re not entirely convinced you need, and then you get over it and realize that actually, yeah, you did kinda need that. I’m here to tell y’all, it applies to music, too. *^_^*;;

That said, it was good to finally have some of the pieces Matt and Annie like to get into identified as having parts in the key of B minor. This is NOT a key I’ve played in before that I can recall, at all, even with a capo on and faking it by doing the base chords of G or A. The good part of this was, though, that I have enough chord exposure now that I could pick out the base chords I needed once the key was identified. I.e., a lot of B minor and A, with occasional D’s and E’s and F# minors thrown in for good measure, all of which are chords I can play at this point. The tricky part is just being able to recognize that key by ear when I hear it.

It was also vaguely intimidating to see the newcomers clearly not quite knowing what to make of me and Dara belting out our version of “Old Black Rum”. This is what we get for the songs we know being either GBS, GBS-influenced in style, or Dara’s very own unique concoctions, none of which are exactly “Irish”. I continue to be very grateful to Matt and Annie for indulging us periodically and inviting us to sing, and at least it gave me another chance to make the “well, Newfoundland is NEAR Ireland” joke. 😉 Also, it gave Dara and me a chance to show off singing in harmony, which we’ve actually been practicing a bit, and which I feel works for us!

Still though I must start learning some songs (and I specifically mean ‘songs’ as opposed to ‘tunes’, i.e., stuff with words) that would fit better in a session environment. I’ve already mentioned the ones I’m interested in, I think–I just need to allocate practice time for them, in between rehearsing with Dara on her stuff so that I can play support for her at Norwescon. To wit: *gulp*. Yeah, I know, I’ve already been playing the guitar in public for a while thanks to these sessions, but being part of a formal set with Dara is not the same thing. *^_^*;; Playing at a session is ‘hanging out with fellow musicians and learning from them’. Playing a formal set is performing.

Meanwhile though I was very grateful as well to Annie for giving me a listening ear before we got started–as well as for introducing me to a drink called the Irish Truffle, which is Guinness mixed with raspberry lambic! I’ve tried Guinness before and hadn’t cared for it, but if you mix it up with raspberry lambic I suddenly find it quite drinkable. Those of you who have been following my ongoing admiration of the Lovely and Talented Pike Place Marketboys will be familiar with my affection for raspberry-related things. This has now been expanded to include ‘booze’.

Giggles as well to userinfosolcita, who made cracks about how we’d better be careful if we wanted to set an empty chair in the session circle in honor of GBS–because I’d still hyperventilate even for Imaginary Alan Doyle. She is, of course, entirely correct, given that it is scientifically proven that I hyperventilate for real Alan Doyle.

(This has led today on Facebook to userinfofredpdx making cracks about how, given that I’m a proud owner of the Alan Doyle Action Figure, complete with bouzouki and Hair Tossing Action, I’d be over the whole hyperventilating thing by now. Which made me LOL. And also made me really, REALLY wish that there was in fact an Alan Doyle Action Figure. Because you know I’d BUY IT.)

So yeah. Session homework for me: figure out how the hell to play and sing “As I Roved Out”, in whatever key I can manage. So I can have something a bit more Irish on hand next time Matt asks me to sing!

And also, for those of you who may be interested, the aforementioned Beth is Beth Kollé, and she was in a Seattle-based folk band called Crookshank a couple years back. They have an EP on iTunes, and I may just have to check it out.

March 3, 2011 by
Music

This past Wednesday's session

Writing this now since I haven’t had a chance or the brain to blog about it until this afternoon, but here we go!

There were a couple of extra fiddlers at this past Wednesday’s session at A Terrible Beauty–people who turned out to be stunningly awesome, a couple of professional performers, Andrea Beaton and Glenn Graham. What really sold me on Andrea and Glenn’s playing was its liveliness and the excellent foot-stomping rhythm they had going at the same time–very, very familiar to me from all the listening I’ve been doing to La Volee d’Castors and La Bottine Souriante and Le Vent du Nord. It turned out that the reason their music resonated so strongly with me was because they are in fact Canadian, Cape Breton specifically, so no wonder. 😀

I’d already been pleasantly challenged trying to keep up with Matt and Annie, as I’ve written before–but trying to keep up with Andrea and Glenn? WHOA. WHOA AND DAMN, people. I’m just this fortysomething chick who likes to noodle around on her guitar in her living room, y’know? And there I am in the session trying to provide a decent rhythm line underneath two hardcore fiddle players, who, I might add, proceeded just last night to go perform with Matt at Benaroya Hall for the Mastery of Scottish Arts concert.

I have been in sessions now with people who have performed in Benaroya Hall, people!

Only by focusing with laser-guided intensity on every motion of Glenn and Andrea’s bows was I able to keep up, and more than once, I lost track of their key changes. But I was at least able to come back around when they jumped back to a key I could recognize. A lot of what I’ve been doing at the sessions so far has just been playing the same six or seven chords in different keys and strum patterns, just trying to be decent rhythm backup for all the people who actually know the tunes. But these two took it up a whole extra order of magnitude for me, and I haven’t had so much fun on a guitar in ages.

Afterwards a couple of older gentlemen came over to say hi to Dara and me, and to admire the General! I got asked what kind of Taylor it was, and I was happy to say it was a 210, and I thanked the gents nicely for the kind things they said about my playing. I also went over to Andrea to make a point of telling her how awesome their playing was, and she was very gracious too.

I am so, SO outclassed at these sessions, it’s kind of scary! But in a good and exciting way, one which is making me go OH SHIT I’d better practice. So this afternoon I whipped out the piccolo, worked my way through an octave of scales, and then tried to stumble my way through “Road to Lisdoonvarna”, “Morrison’s Jig”, and “Drowsy Maggie”. I made it through the first two, more or less, before my embouchure fell over and started sending me “you haven’t played piccolo in a long goddamned time, have you?” signals.

I’ve also gone through my songbook and yoinked out the little sheet music bits of the various tunes GBS have used as bridges on their songs, in the hopes that I can then track down fuller versions, and use those for practice fodder. I have “Si Bheag Si Mhor” too, along with “Fisherman’s Frolic”, which those of you who read the TGM Jam Reports may remember as our outro to “Acres of Clams”. I have a LOT of source material to learn from. And it’s awesome to be able to have a reason to use it.

ETA: OO OO OO and I forgot to mention that when called upon to do a song by Matt, I stood up and did GBS’ arrangement of “The Night Pat Murphy Died”. *^_^*;; I cannot roar it like Séan McCann does and I really need to learn to project, but at least I managed to go through the whole thing without falling over. And when I went DARA, Dara whipped into the bridge on cue; she’s been practicing the Bitchin’ Bouzouki Solo.

Another practice assignment I want to do is to see if I can whip up a proper version of “As I Roved Out”; the arrangement I’m most familiar with is the one by the Fables, but I can’t sing it in their key so I’ll need to finagle it some.

February 5, 2011 by
Music

Chibi session tonight

It’s kind of lulzy that userinfotechnoshaman, userinfosolarbird, and I made a point of doing a bit of session practice this weekend–because it turned out that the session tonight was just us and Annie! Our usual session leader was off busy playing with these guys at the Tractor Tavern tonight, so we had to make do with just us four!

But it was all good. Annie was technically our session leader but we took it really casually and just took turns picking things to play. This wound up meaning that Annie, being the one who knew various actual tunes, focused on those while Dara, Glenn, and I mostly chose the GBS ditties we knew and a couple of the other non-GBS things from Jam as well: “Elf Glade” and “Pirate Bill and Squidly”. The biggest reaction we got from the crowd in the bar though was the last thing we did: “Last Saskatchewan Pirate”. That got a big ol’ roar of approval, and that was very cool. 😀

Y’all remember though how I said that at last week’s session, the guys at the bar let me have one of my drinks for free?

This time they let Dara and me eat for free, so I only had to fork over for my two Irish creams. Dara and I have been paid for making public music with tasty foods! WOO!

Hopefully next time we’ll be back up to a more normal size of group, but in the meantime I’m clearly going to have to check out Matt’s band. See previous commentary re: that dude can PLAY.

January 26, 2011 by
Music

Levelling up a bit in Musician

Last night was arguably the most awesome of the sessions we’ve had yet at A Terrible Beauty, for quite a few reasons!

I actually got there first, it turned out–since I wanted to make a specific point of ordering food from the pub so as to support the place, I jumped on the 101 pretty much right after I got my daily market berries. That got me down there by 6:20, plenty of time to have tasty pub foods. This gave me a chance to note with GREAT amusement when a very familiar song came over the sound system: none other than “Rant and Roar” by my very own beloved B’ys! Y’all may imagine how at home that made me feel in the place. ;D

Shortly after I showed up, session leader Matt did, getting his instruments together–and then userinfotechnoshaman, formally joining the session for the first time, and armed with drum and shakers. I introduced him to Matt, and while the others started showing up, we got settled in back in what’s rapidly becoming the rhythm support section of the session. And, this gave Glenn an opportunity to give me an early birthday present! Specifically, a SIGNED hardcover copy of this, which was pretty damned awesome. Thanks Glenn! Props to him as well for acquitting himself nicely on the drum, especially when Matt called upon him to drive the beat of one set.

userinfosolarbird was running late due to rehearsing other music with , but showed up in time for the session’s beginning. And Annie started us off quite nicely with the “Road to Lisdoonvarna/Morrison’s Jig/Drowsy Maggie” set–2/3rds of which, I can now happily say, I can keep up with pretty well. I still need to get down the chord’s to Morrison’s, though. More homework is required!

The biggest unexpected thing of the session turned out to be this QUITE boisterous dude who proclaimed more than once that despite looking Mexican, he was actually Scottish; certainly his brogue backed him up on that, so he was either actually Scottish or did a hell of an impersonation of the accent. He got in on the session with us on three different songs, one of which was–wait for it–“MARI-MAC”. Not the same arrangement I know from the B’ys, of course, but close enough that I could follow along well enough on backup, AND we had the opportunity to trade off little instrumental solos while Looks-Mexican-Sounds-Scottish guy kept cueing us in.

Which leads me to mentioning that I actually played the piccolo this time, after being initially reluctant to get it out due to it not feeling quite properly session-y enough. But then I remembered what I’d already known from Jam: i.e., it may not be Irish but it’s pretty close to tin whistle in sound, so hey! And I did in fact start pulling back bits of my previous piccolo twiddles as long as we were all tearing through “Mari-Mac”. Which, it must be said, ROCKED.

Dara gamely went through “I’m a Rover”, and I backed her up as best I could, but we’re going to need to practice that one some more, I think. I’m also seriously going to have to practice “Salmon Tails Up the Water”, better known to me and mine of course as the bridge to “Jolly Butcher”. If I’m going to be showing up at these things with my piccolo, I’m going to have to damn well start learning more of these tunes! AND, next time we get called upon for a song, I’m going to have to be prepared to belt out “Paddy Murphy”. ‘Cause I mean, seriously, next best place for that song after “GBS concert”, wut? 😉

Looks-Mexican-Sounds-Scottish guy got perhaps a wee bit TOO boisterous for this crowd when Navy guy John, the other mandolin player besides Dara, started in on “Wild Rover”. Let’s just say some of the verses took on a distinct theme of sheep-shagging, and there was almost some dancing on the bar; L-M-S-S didn’t quite make it to the bar, but he was up on a chair at one point! But hell, he was clearly having such an awesome time that you couldn’t really hold that against him at all, and it must be said that the dude COULD indeed lead a song. After we finished up, he even hugged me at the bar. Aw!

And here’s the other thing that happened when I was at the bar paying the bill for me and Dara: the bartender (who, if HIS accent is any indication, is actually Irish) gave me one of my drinks for free.

This means, ladies and gentlemen, that I have been given complimentary booze for playing music in a public place.

I think this means I’ve levelled up a bit in Musician. 😀

January 20, 2011 by