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kniteracy(For those of you on my regular friends list, this is a public post, which is why some information you already know will be repeated or consolidated.)
Well, let's see. On Sunday, 16 October, while![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
filceolaire was at nMC rehearsal with mokatiki and pola_bear, otherwise often referred to here as the ESDs, I read peteralway's journal and realised it wasn't only cadhla who did those "Iron Whatsis" thingies-- and I figured, "Hey, it's been over a year since you've written a song, Harper!" (Usual diagnosis, happiness; my diagnosis, stress and busy-ness) "I know! Why don't you do some kind of 'Iron Songwriter' thing." I actually had to be told by the good people on #filkhaven that there was apparently a cooking show called "Iron Chef," which is where cadhla got the name for her game, and everyone else, as we all always are, is merely dancing to her tune like a little cadhla-operated marionette. Hey, I can talk about her this weekend: she's busy being Toastmistress at OVFF!
So I did a potentially foolish thing: I invited people to challenge me to Iron Bard. Note that the round is closed now, so I am not taking any more suggestions. In the end, I got 26 before the round closed and three after, and I'm still considering doing those three if I get the first 26 done. It will take a long time to write 26 songs, and I sure hope I can write at least one or two good ones out of all the suggestions. Some of them were very good suggestions, some of them are going to be very difficult for me, and some of them, hm. Well, it'll be interesting to try to write them all. There seemed to be a theme of 'quests' going through for people who requested story songs, so I'm wondering if I can really write three or four of those and make them be fresh and interesting, or if I'll come up with some kind of an amalgamation, though that might not be the best use of those requests. Anyway, the challenge was public, so the songs, when they are finished, will be posted publicly as well.
Sharps, Tuesday Night
I spent a lot of time this week with the dulcimer. I practiced a dulcimer version of "The Shirt of Lace" until I really felt I had it down-pat, and then was practically chained to my desk from 9am 'til 6pm on Tuesday before Sharps and didn't get hardly a moment to practice. So there I was in that roomful of terrific and very friendly singers, toting an instrument I'd been playing for something like two days, and feeling like a complete idiot. In the end, I did it. I walked up to the front of the room, put the dulcimer down on the table, and made a really good stab at The Shirt of Lace. Well, it wasn't perfect. OK, at the time I thought it sucked pretty badly. The dulcimer was in an unfamiliar position, and I hadn't had a chance to go over things previous to Sharps. I sang well, but I did not make the dulcimer sing so well. People were nice, and they did ask me about the song afterwards, so I know they were at least listening.
I know it must seem ordinary to those of you who grew up in England or Wales, but in the US, men just don't sing like that. We're lucky if men sing at all! Choirs are always short of men. Boys all want to grow up to be rock stars or rap stars, and they could care less about learning to actually sing. So many beautiful-voiced men at this club, and not all of them are old. There's a fellow who is hooked on old music-hall songs. He knows dozens if not hundreds of them, and every Tuesday night at Sharps, he talks for maybe thirty seconds about the music hall and then launches into a song that gets every single person in the room singing along and puts a smile on every single person's face. This past Tuesday, it was "The Man on the Flying Trapeze," which I really enjoyed, because I'd never heard the song all the way through before and had no idea of the twist ending. And then, you know, this fellow goes back to his seat and knows he's done good in the world, because he made twenty or thirty people sing and smile down in the bar at Sharps. There was a new young man who sang a song about how terrible it was to be married, with his attractive girlfriend looking on and laughing. The downer of the night, I'm afraid, was a blind keyboardist who did lots of lackluster versions of English country dances and other traditional tunes. He made me grumpy from the get-go, because he arrived an hour early and sat there playing while everyone else came in, so no one could tune or do anything in the room; everyone had to leave to get anything done with their instruments, or even really to hear themselves think. And don't think for one minute I'm biased against keyboard players: I'm blessed to be in a band with the talented (and sexy)quadrivium, and callylevy is another accomplished keyboard player I'm always happy to be in the same room with. No, there's a sense of what's good timing and what's not, and this poor guy was pleasant enough, but he just really didn't have that sense. He apparently makes a living busking in the Underground, which must count for something. I know that's hard work particularly when you have to tote an electronic keyboard around with you wherever you go. The other fellow I spoke to whom I hadn't met before was a guy who's ordinarily a one-man-band but arrived without his kit that night, who wore a bit pewter pentacle around his neck and seemed nice enough. I was making smalltalk with him and he told me he was usually a one-man-band. I replied, "That's a heavy kit," not meaning anything by it, just acknowledging that he had a lot of stuff to carry around. Defensively, he replied, "Yeah, but I can make £200 on the street on a Saturday." Whoa, dude, I didn't say your kit wasn't good enough: I just said it was heavy. We left during halftime, because I was really feeling tired, and we took buses home, because the city at night looks really cool from the top of a double decker bus.
Folkmob, Wednesday Night
Wednesday night at Eltham, I redeemed myself on the dulcimer and did a fine fair job of sewing up the Shirt of Lace, after calming my nerves with an a capella Barbara Allen. Yeah, I know it's a chestnut, but I love singing it, particularly to one of the Appalachian tunes I ferreted out of John Jacob Niles last year. It was the usual crowd at the Tudor Barn, with some beautiful guitar work by David, who is just an all-around good man. We missed Sue, who was away but I don't know why. We got to sit next to Deb and her partner, who has many delightful piercings and a really nice personality. I like them both. I gave her a card and told her to email me about dulcimer stuff; I hope she does. She apparently plays dulcimer as well, which is nice, as if they're commuting to Eltham every week they must live somewhere doable and we could possibly get together to geek sometime. Let's see. Mr. Slow and Toothy from the last singaround did a bemusing cover of George Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today," which I didn't recognise until after the flute solo (!) by the impressive musician who brought flutes and guitars and a harmonica. And there was a lady there who desperately wanted to be Janis Ian only with Joan Baez's material, who did a "rocked-up" version of "Mattie Groves" that involved standing up while playing a straight-strum accompaniment, moving her leg around, and adding a "Yeah!" chorus every other verse or so. Don't get me wrong-- it wasn't bad. It was just ... odd. I'd love to see what she could do with some more adventurous guitar parts, because what she's doing now always sounds kind of bleak and forced because of the way she plays the guitar. OK, and because of the scowl on her face, too. Yeah. Yes, I really do know how hard it is to play out in front of an audience, and I appreciate that, but where there's room for improvement, there's room for improvement. Speaking of how hard it is to play out, I nearly applauded the fellow who does all those sweet songs and always reads from music and plays good but samey versions of things, because there was a point Wednesday night where people simply couldn't be heard over the talking. He had the guts to stand up and remind people that this was a folk club and not a pub, and it takes a lot of guts to come here and play, particularly if you're not used to it, and people needed to hush while other people were singing. Amen.
The rest of the week in folk music? You mean there's more?
Well, there's always more, isn't there? In this case, it involves not getting to the library at all this week at work: the load was just too heavy and there was too much to do for me to justify doing any of my own research-- anyway, I have all these songs to write for other people, so I probably should get my nose out of Cecil Sharp's bound notes anyway, yeah?
On Friday, I restrung the dulcimer with the D'addario strings, but although they are much more flexible and easy to play than the old ones, I'm not crazy about the sound. I'm considering going out and looking for some brass or phosphor bronze strings to see if I can get a sweeter tone out of the dulcimer. I've been playing with chord shapes and learning a difficult-for-me arrangement of "Dance to Your Daddy," which is one of my favourite tunes.
On the songwriting front, there hasn't been a lot of movement, but I don't have a lot of time to myself, so I knew this was not going to happen quickly. I suspect I'm going to copy/paste the challenges into a Word document, email it to a webmail address, and print the challenges from work, so I'll have hard copies to tuck into my paper songbook, which will give me something to refer to. I knowcadhla is not reading LJ this weekend, but I'm curious as to whether she writes down poetry challenges somewhere or keeps them on a PDA or something.
And that's the week in Folk Music. :) And now it's time for me to retire to my nightly happy ending.
Well, let's see. On Sunday, 16 October, while
filceolaire was at nMC rehearsal with mokatiki and pola_bear, otherwise often referred to here as the ESDs, I read peteralway's journal and realised it wasn't only cadhla who did those "Iron Whatsis" thingies-- and I figured, "Hey, it's been over a year since you've written a song, Harper!" (Usual diagnosis, happiness; my diagnosis, stress and busy-ness) "I know! Why don't you do some kind of 'Iron Songwriter' thing." I actually had to be told by the good people on #filkhaven that there was apparently a cooking show called "Iron Chef," which is where cadhla got the name for her game, and everyone else, as we all always are, is merely dancing to her tune like a little cadhla-operated marionette. Hey, I can talk about her this weekend: she's busy being Toastmistress at OVFF!So I did a potentially foolish thing: I invited people to challenge me to Iron Bard. Note that the round is closed now, so I am not taking any more suggestions. In the end, I got 26 before the round closed and three after, and I'm still considering doing those three if I get the first 26 done. It will take a long time to write 26 songs, and I sure hope I can write at least one or two good ones out of all the suggestions. Some of them were very good suggestions, some of them are going to be very difficult for me, and some of them, hm. Well, it'll be interesting to try to write them all. There seemed to be a theme of 'quests' going through for people who requested story songs, so I'm wondering if I can really write three or four of those and make them be fresh and interesting, or if I'll come up with some kind of an amalgamation, though that might not be the best use of those requests. Anyway, the challenge was public, so the songs, when they are finished, will be posted publicly as well.
Sharps, Tuesday Night
I spent a lot of time this week with the dulcimer. I practiced a dulcimer version of "The Shirt of Lace" until I really felt I had it down-pat, and then was practically chained to my desk from 9am 'til 6pm on Tuesday before Sharps and didn't get hardly a moment to practice. So there I was in that roomful of terrific and very friendly singers, toting an instrument I'd been playing for something like two days, and feeling like a complete idiot. In the end, I did it. I walked up to the front of the room, put the dulcimer down on the table, and made a really good stab at The Shirt of Lace. Well, it wasn't perfect. OK, at the time I thought it sucked pretty badly. The dulcimer was in an unfamiliar position, and I hadn't had a chance to go over things previous to Sharps. I sang well, but I did not make the dulcimer sing so well. People were nice, and they did ask me about the song afterwards, so I know they were at least listening.
I know it must seem ordinary to those of you who grew up in England or Wales, but in the US, men just don't sing like that. We're lucky if men sing at all! Choirs are always short of men. Boys all want to grow up to be rock stars or rap stars, and they could care less about learning to actually sing. So many beautiful-voiced men at this club, and not all of them are old. There's a fellow who is hooked on old music-hall songs. He knows dozens if not hundreds of them, and every Tuesday night at Sharps, he talks for maybe thirty seconds about the music hall and then launches into a song that gets every single person in the room singing along and puts a smile on every single person's face. This past Tuesday, it was "The Man on the Flying Trapeze," which I really enjoyed, because I'd never heard the song all the way through before and had no idea of the twist ending. And then, you know, this fellow goes back to his seat and knows he's done good in the world, because he made twenty or thirty people sing and smile down in the bar at Sharps. There was a new young man who sang a song about how terrible it was to be married, with his attractive girlfriend looking on and laughing. The downer of the night, I'm afraid, was a blind keyboardist who did lots of lackluster versions of English country dances and other traditional tunes. He made me grumpy from the get-go, because he arrived an hour early and sat there playing while everyone else came in, so no one could tune or do anything in the room; everyone had to leave to get anything done with their instruments, or even really to hear themselves think. And don't think for one minute I'm biased against keyboard players: I'm blessed to be in a band with the talented (and sexy)
quadrivium, and callylevy is another accomplished keyboard player I'm always happy to be in the same room with. No, there's a sense of what's good timing and what's not, and this poor guy was pleasant enough, but he just really didn't have that sense. He apparently makes a living busking in the Underground, which must count for something. I know that's hard work particularly when you have to tote an electronic keyboard around with you wherever you go. The other fellow I spoke to whom I hadn't met before was a guy who's ordinarily a one-man-band but arrived without his kit that night, who wore a bit pewter pentacle around his neck and seemed nice enough. I was making smalltalk with him and he told me he was usually a one-man-band. I replied, "That's a heavy kit," not meaning anything by it, just acknowledging that he had a lot of stuff to carry around. Defensively, he replied, "Yeah, but I can make £200 on the street on a Saturday." Whoa, dude, I didn't say your kit wasn't good enough: I just said it was heavy. We left during halftime, because I was really feeling tired, and we took buses home, because the city at night looks really cool from the top of a double decker bus.Folkmob, Wednesday Night
Wednesday night at Eltham, I redeemed myself on the dulcimer and did a fine fair job of sewing up the Shirt of Lace, after calming my nerves with an a capella Barbara Allen. Yeah, I know it's a chestnut, but I love singing it, particularly to one of the Appalachian tunes I ferreted out of John Jacob Niles last year. It was the usual crowd at the Tudor Barn, with some beautiful guitar work by David, who is just an all-around good man. We missed Sue, who was away but I don't know why. We got to sit next to Deb and her partner, who has many delightful piercings and a really nice personality. I like them both. I gave her a card and told her to email me about dulcimer stuff; I hope she does. She apparently plays dulcimer as well, which is nice, as if they're commuting to Eltham every week they must live somewhere doable and we could possibly get together to geek sometime. Let's see. Mr. Slow and Toothy from the last singaround did a bemusing cover of George Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today," which I didn't recognise until after the flute solo (!) by the impressive musician who brought flutes and guitars and a harmonica. And there was a lady there who desperately wanted to be Janis Ian only with Joan Baez's material, who did a "rocked-up" version of "Mattie Groves" that involved standing up while playing a straight-strum accompaniment, moving her leg around, and adding a "Yeah!" chorus every other verse or so. Don't get me wrong-- it wasn't bad. It was just ... odd. I'd love to see what she could do with some more adventurous guitar parts, because what she's doing now always sounds kind of bleak and forced because of the way she plays the guitar. OK, and because of the scowl on her face, too. Yeah. Yes, I really do know how hard it is to play out in front of an audience, and I appreciate that, but where there's room for improvement, there's room for improvement. Speaking of how hard it is to play out, I nearly applauded the fellow who does all those sweet songs and always reads from music and plays good but samey versions of things, because there was a point Wednesday night where people simply couldn't be heard over the talking. He had the guts to stand up and remind people that this was a folk club and not a pub, and it takes a lot of guts to come here and play, particularly if you're not used to it, and people needed to hush while other people were singing. Amen.
The rest of the week in folk music? You mean there's more?
Well, there's always more, isn't there? In this case, it involves not getting to the library at all this week at work: the load was just too heavy and there was too much to do for me to justify doing any of my own research-- anyway, I have all these songs to write for other people, so I probably should get my nose out of Cecil Sharp's bound notes anyway, yeah?
On Friday, I restrung the dulcimer with the D'addario strings, but although they are much more flexible and easy to play than the old ones, I'm not crazy about the sound. I'm considering going out and looking for some brass or phosphor bronze strings to see if I can get a sweeter tone out of the dulcimer. I've been playing with chord shapes and learning a difficult-for-me arrangement of "Dance to Your Daddy," which is one of my favourite tunes.
On the songwriting front, there hasn't been a lot of movement, but I don't have a lot of time to myself, so I knew this was not going to happen quickly. I suspect I'm going to copy/paste the challenges into a Word document, email it to a webmail address, and print the challenges from work, so I'll have hard copies to tuck into my paper songbook, which will give me something to refer to. I know
cadhla is not reading LJ this weekend, but I'm curious as to whether she writes down poetry challenges somewhere or keeps them on a PDA or something. And that's the week in Folk Music. :) And now it's time for me to retire to my nightly happy ending.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-24 01:00 am (UTC)And don't think for one minute I'm biased against keyboard players: I am sure that
I'm delighted to hear how much you are loving dulcimer! Maybe it will rub off and my poor neglected wolf will lure me back to it...one can only hope.
Hugs!
no subject
Date: 2005-10-29 03:24 pm (UTC)