Top Vicki quotes from Harmony Arrangement review
5. Car horns
4. Chinese 7th Chord
3. Sounds like The W------ (redacted by Rosie)
2. Woof.
1. Try coming in on notes that exist.
Harmony is a harsh mistress :-)
5. Car horns
4. Chinese 7th Chord
3. Sounds like The W------ (redacted by Rosie)
2. Woof.
1. Try coming in on notes that exist.
Harmony is a harsh mistress :-)
Howdy Folks.
Our gig at the Jannali Inn brought to an end our residency there for the time being and we went out in style.
Last weekend's Bondi Royal set was a bit of a challenge as we have added 3 new songs into the set, so we went to some lengths to ease the stress this week, with the help of Nabil and Robert on Sound (thanks guys) and some work on the setlist.
In order to keep the guitar changes to a minimum we had to go through quite the mathematical calculation.
Top row is non standard songs, followed by Mandolin (2 tunings), Guitar 1 (6 possible tuning states), guitar 2 (2 tuning states) and Guitar 3, (3 more tuning states). Each change from state to state represents a potential interruption to the flow (ie: dancing) whilst re-tuning, capo-ing and/or amp changes are made. BTW those cards aren't singular, they're small stacks :-) After all, we've passed 5 albums and counting...
EDITORS NOTE: Massive props to Rosie for his DB of SC songs. Word to your data.
When a certain guitarist, who shall remain Mr Wizard, said 'isn't this all a bit complex' I pointed out the following:
1. I usually over engineer my solutions. It's part of my quirky charm.
2. Why do people question complex answers to complex problems (sigh...)...I mean, ever tried launching a Rocket? Now that'd be hard. We're just using an algorithm to manage guitar changes. Nothing to it.
So now that we've defined Guitar Change states, we can then factor in Key, Rhythm, style of song, tempo, feel, vibe, dance-ability and so on. A piece of cake.
How'd it work out? Well, during the first set, someone came and stuck $40 in the cup of peanuts I had on my harp case :-) That's a first. Where's my organ grinder?
Anyway, the upshot was that this method of set reorganisation totally worked. In fact, it worked too well. We started powering through the set so fast we had to stick additional songs in there.
The other result was that the dancing started early and went through the whole night. My favourite was the lass who is obviously a Kick boxer because some of those moves looked pretty darn deadly.
The three new songs we've brought into the set were once again, well received. In particular I am getting a kick out of Twice Shy Girl, but Travelling Song is going over well and Give me something I want has a sheer knuckleheaded infectiousness that's hard to pass up.
Thank you very much to the wonderful folks down South for hosting us for the past four months., we look forward to returning after football season :-)
No not that Wizard.
Not Mr Wizard, but in fact, a Wizard-ess! We're very fortunate that one of Australias most talented musical directors (imho) is going to do some work with us on harmony arrangements and singy thingy's.
I'm almost looking forward to the lesson more than our gig this week :-)
Tall Timbers has been bugging me for a while, as we don't always have the wonderful Jo Fitzgerald there to sing along with us, so I figure the harmony has to be reconfigured for Four Blokes.
To hear the result, you'll have to come to a future gig :-)
Part #73 in my continuing fascination with packing our gear into unlikely forms of transport, I present the humble 'Echo', which to my amazement was capable of fitting half of our PA, including, very impressively, the bass bin.
Wow.
Who needs a van, we just need a fleet of Echos!
Our monthly session at Jannali is on again this Thursday! Hurrah!
7:30 pm, jannali inn, jannali.
Howdy folks.
Big night last night, the pub was packed...with Blokes.
Yep, Blokes there to watch the Footy.
Installing a 5 piece band into a pub is a maneuver worthy of examination. Gently edging drinking blokes out of the way so you can set up the mixing desk can be fraught with peril. 'Jeez mate, how much space do you want, the whole bloody pub?' asked one helpful chap.
No mate, just enough space to put the mixing desk down. By the end of the night the fellow returned to say that he understood why we needed so much gear, as he put it, 'cos you guys are _____ing awesome'
Good to know we converted a try too :-)
Wisely, we took a break around 70 minutes into the big game so that we could all enjoy the cliff hanger ending and when Australia won, well you know what had to happen then. Yep, they danced.
If you have never seen the Slightly Inebriated Male Australian (Rugby) Fan dance, you've missed a sociological phenomenon; it is a sight to behold.
In our own minds, we are as suave as John Travolta a la Saturday night fever, sometimes we are River Dance Gods of Irish Jiggery.
They swung, they teetered, they turned baseball caps back to front and back again, one guy lost his pants. He was pants-slouching and only a quick left hand saved him from ejection by the bouncers. Close Trouser call.
Yep. Dancing. Enthusiastic dancing.
We played 3 new songs last night.
Give Me Something I Want was so appealing they sang along. A chorus of 'Give me something I want' was heard throughout the pub. It's a Bloke song after all.
Twice Shy Girl, our biggest risk, went over very well. Yay. Mr Rix, joining us on Bass, confided to me later that he had thought playing it was a big risk. As did Rosie.
However, Theo is afraid of nothing, Mr Wizard was game and I was keen to try it out. Only as the song started did I start to think..'hmm..maybe Rosie was right'. Nope. It was great. yay us.
Travelling Song went down very well, the guide track for it is currently in repeat on my playlist.
Good times.
The only problem I had last night was in deploying a new lighting console I had decided to try.
No, the fog wasn't the problem. Theo is in charge of that.
I tried a new lighting rig with a DMX controller and found it a little more fiddly than I was hoping. Big thanks to Alan for coming along to help me test out the idea.
ARGH!!!!
The DMX controls on the Colour Washes were some obscure non standard setup that was contradictory to the manual, three different lighting suppliers couldn't work it out so we opted to try some LED Parcans, which communicated predictably with the controller, but the controller itself was one of those idiosyncratic units that did things a certain way and you better get used to it buddy and I didn't quite grasp its operation.
Lights were going on and off, the strobe almost gave Theo a Fit, one light stopped responding altogether. I eventually gave up and hustled the controller unit over to Alan. Man's gotta know his limitations.
HA! I'm about to try out yet another over engineered solution next gig. Standby for more explosions!
A shout out to Raelynn for her first time in the Stormcellar, to Lee and Alan for the help ion managing the gear and al the folks who joined us last night.