First Practice (Feb 1, 2009)
The date for the first practice rolls around and I show up with a group of people across the street from our TTS practice site. I recognize Dave Zimmerman and introduce myself. There are a couple of other folks there for the 5:30 practice but there are also a bunch of folks for Dan Booth’s 5:30 practice. Turns out Dave was scoping out the other band….it seems there might be a friendly competition between the coaches on the band performances.
The practice space for both of Dave’s Sunday evening bands is the Freight admin offices, next door to the new Freight location under construction. It isn’t a big office but we have enough space to work with….it could get a little tight when we start rehearsing stage movements…but we’ll see.
Both groups I’m in have a good cross section of folks and instruments. In the 5PM band we have bass (Jon), 2 guitar players (Curtis and Dick), a frailing style banjo/fiddle player (Scott), me on dobro, and a vocalist (Lisa). Dave makes his welcoming remarks and we go around the room with introductions….for most of us this is our first performance workshop; this is Scott’s second or third TTS, he was with Madfish in the Fall TTS, and Jon has taken two of Dave’s workshops in the city.
Dave asks for some song proposals and right off the bat I suggest two I had in mind. We run through one of them….a little known but fairly straightforward bluegrass song that is often confused with a fiddle tune by the same name. I make a stab at singing it with my best Red Smiley imitation in A.
I should make it clear that this is my first foray into vocals. I sang in choirs and stuff as a teen but not since…so my pipes are rusty and not used to singing. I took Kathy Kallick’s summer ’08 vocals workshop, but that was months ago and besides one workshop doesn’t make me a singer. In spite of my butchered vocals the group seems interested.
We change keys and singers and settle on a 3 part harmony…Dave talks about vocal stacks…the song sounds good and has potential…but it looks like this might not be my lead after all. Oh well…I came into TTS with the philosophy that what sounds best for the band is what we should go with. I’m happy the song seems like a strong contender early on, I’m a little disappointed in not nailing the lead, but there’s still lots of practice time to go so who knows what the final mix will be. I’ve got my hands full with dobro anyway because I want to try and workup up at least one barn burning dobro break and I’m not sure I can pull off a barn burner.
We start performing some of the other song choices and I am definitely beginning to feel like the rookie of the group……everyone is pretty strong on their instrument and can sing too. It turns out Curtis already plays in a small bluegrass group and has a really good voice and Dick is not too shabby either. Scott and Jon are old hands with performance workshops and take it all in stride. Hilary is there to check out the first practice and helps out with some of the vocals and is enthusiastic about our early sound.
We make it through probably 2/3 of the songs the folks brought and call it quits for the evening. Dave’s parting words are that we will play through the rest of the songs next week and probably have a workable short list of 6 or 7 at the end of next week.
The 7:30 group has a similar makeup….but a different character. Where the 5PM group felt like it quickly slid into a comfortable groove….to me the 7:30 group has an slightly edgier character. We also found a comfortable groove…it’s just the proposed songs are different and I get the sense the group members might be more experimental….or maybe I’m projecting my personality again.
Jon and I are in both the 5PM and 7:30PM groups. In the 7:30 group we have Lou on guitar, TJ on mandolin, Terry on fiddle, and Wendy on vocals, from the Fall TTS Madfish band.
I throw out 2 song suggestions to the 7:30 group…..one is way off the wall…. and Dave almost immediately starts thinking out loud how cool it could be if the “off the wall” song could be done. Whoa…now I’m thinking “slow down hoss”….but if we could it would be very cool. Dave has us all worked up on getting called back for an encore after performing the song at the show…we proceed to have a short indulgence with pandemonium and fantasy…..it’s a fun moment.
The other song suggestion of mine overlapped with the 5PM group. In fact for both groups each member suggests 2-3 songs.
We work through most of the other song suggestions……it seems to me each one is a potential keeper and we are going to have to make some tough choices and give up on some really interesting songs.
After 5 hours of playing and jamming, my mind and fingers are turning to mush. The last half hour or so I flat lost my concentration and played what felt like gibberish….I make a mental note to bring food and stimulants next week.
What can I say….Dave is doing a great job guiding us through the song choices and showing us how to approach arranging the songs on the fly. I think everyone is working well with what Dave is trying to get us to do….the harmonies are going to take some practice….but even now to my ears there is good potential and it will be fun watching how the songs come together.
February 1, 2009-Feb 8, 2009
The 7:30 group certainly is the more active email band. Jon refines and adds songs to the web pages for both groups, but it is the 7:30 band that overwhelmingly has the most back channel chatter by email….as a group and individually.
We decide to informally get together for an unsanctioned jam at TJ’s house before the next practice and play through some of the songs. It works great….we play together well in both senses of the meaning…and I’m feeling like the rookie of the group again. Did I mention that I’m not the patient sort……..but I do have faith it’ll fall into place. This is just my normal fretting about stuff early on.
"All good things arrive unto them that wait…………and don't die in the meantime."
Mark Twain
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