I noticed today has no picture. That won't do, so here is a meaningless picture. The lighter colored railway ties on the right side are precast concrete.
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Another day off and a productive one. I did a supply run for Fred around noon and then over to see what gives with Dicken’s computer. It seems to be the usual conflict between AOL and Zone Alarm. AOL is the closest thing to a legal virus that you can put on your computer, and you know what Zone Alarm does with viruses. Jerry the Irishman was over for a visit. Dickens and I discussed the merits of tagging everything in the shop with a higher price.
While there, we completely checked over the eBay accounts. That company has funny ways of doing business. It has become like dealing with a town council. What started off to be a public benefit has become a whole series of finicky little nuisances whose main purpose is to make sure you do things their way. I had to reset a series of passwords and account information to get the Paypal reactivated since we only have one credit card. I’ve informed him unless you have a supply of articles that can sell for over $50 each, eBay is not worth it.
It took six months, but I’ve narrowed down an automatic way to fit small video files into the Hotmail 10 MB limit without compressing. (Later, I used Movie Maker, which has a setting for that.) Until the file is rendered, it was formerly almost impossible to tell what the final size would be. Now, almost instant video files are possible from ASF formats. That means Wallace, Mitch and Marion got a two minute video of me playing bass this morning.
I drove over to Mr. Brian’s for rehearsal. I always watch to see how prepared people are for this and he was barely ready at all. I almost left when it turned out he had no MP3 player or computer that could read doc files. I stayed for two hours and we ran over a good third of the tunes we’ll need. He truly likes the selection of songs I came up with. It was an interesting evening overall because of the ground covered.
By that I mean his reaction to his first exposure to professional band management. You do not get any amount of this jamming with the G, whose influence and bad habits are a huge factor in this case. Mr. Brian of course had exposure to the non-musical aspects of band work but I could see he had little idea of the extent to which these matters could be analyzed and structured, something I am good at. He was little short of wide-eyed as I showed him various tricks of the trade and defined grey areas that focus on audience appeal and stage presentation.
This is just the beginning for him but I needed to bolster his confidence and enthusiasm for the mission, another thing you don’t get from the G. As I thought it would happen, within a half-hour, sore wrist or not, he had to go grab his guitar and try some of this stuff. He is still over-playing and using chops but I see the subtleties of good rhythm guitar are not too far below the surface. He was visibly astonished at the effect of us playing the different simple musical roles I’d described.
It is not that I do anything amazing, it is more the big picture effect he is now seeing built up from an array of smaller details everybody knows but never thinks about much. For example, he certainly now knows the value of planning every song. I’ll give you a few things to consider so as to get a clearer idea of how I work these things.
What is the mixture of slow songs to fast songs that you play? Why?
What chord pattern do you use for 9/10ths of all lead breaks? Why?
How do you balance the intensity of the music you choose?
What methods do you use to remote count in the band?
What do you look for in the first tune you choose for each set?
What do you instantly change when people start dancing? Why?
How do strumming methods change for duo work? Why?
This will all be the more interesting if we find a house gig, because I am an expert at keeping the same regular crowd from getting bored with the same band every weekend. He was stunned by how channelized almost everything I put on the stage is geared toward audience interaction and the payoff is in that tip jar. So far, he is also in agreement with all, including things he had never considered. I would rate it as a very progressive rehearsal.
Even that is not evident because I do not call it a practice, or a jam. Those things take too long. Two months from now we are to be playing and that is why we are rehearsing. By the way, happy 54th birthday, Eatmore.
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