Rebound

baz

Silver Member
...sorry to disapoint those of you who thought this might be a post on sticking technique.

However, in keeping with my long established band/girlfriend analogy, last night I jammed for the first time since my former band went splitto.

There are a couple of guys that I work with who all have various degrees of musical proficiency. One guy in particular is a well respected and seasoned guitar player, singer songwriter with a strong y'allternative country bent. We had been kicking around this idea about getting together to jam for over a year, and last night was our first go.

As far as first dates go, this one went very well. There were three of us, two guitars (acoustics with pick ups), and myself on drums. There is no question that Dale is the leader, as he is the more polished, experienced and musical savy of us all. There will be some other guitar, bass, and hopefully keyboard players gravitating through this new mix. My evil plan is to use this to generate a little more interest and encourage some of the other closet musicians to come out and jam. If we can generate enough of am interest I am hoping that we can weasle some support from the company and turn this into an employee team building exersize.

I am probably getting ahead of myself, but I am very encouraged by our first go. My main goal in this is to take a more active role with the vocals. The songs we did last night were all grey ponytail standards, so I was pretty comfortable adding my ooooo waa ooohs and my wah wah whoahs. I can sing more naturally than I can play, but I am no Slim Whitman by any means. Trying to sing and play is like learning how to do both all over again. Some of the DNA tunes were easier to sing to, and from what I could hear, we blended pretty well at times. At other times, we sounded like a polite argument.

As I said earlier, I am very positive about this. The drumming will not be overly complicated, as the songs are pretty simple and drum friendly. The challenge will be in singing and playing together. I found so far that I have to learn to change my breathing, especially when transitioning in or out of a fill when a "Knock Knock Knockin on Heavens Dooooooah" is required. I bought a head mike so I don't have to sword fight with a mike stand or get my moustache tangled in the windscreen.

Looks like our Mondays are back on.

Barry
 
Great Baz, Another whirlwind soap opera??

I find that its best to have my mic sort of above the usual postion I would have it if I was just singing or playing something other than the drums.

I find it helps to open up my body position so it means my playing doesnt suffer, plus I'm also not looking down and cramping my drumming area- if you understand what I mean?
 
Do a better job with thread titles next time.

...my first choice was "Whiney self indulgent introspective popcorn fart".

But then I would have to move it to general interest.

Barry
 
Great Baz, Another whirlwind soap opera??

I find that its best to have my mic sort of above the usual postion I would have it if I was just singing or playing something other than the drums.

I find it helps to open up my body position so it means my playing doesnt suffer, plus I'm also not looking down and cramping my drumming area- if you understand what I mean?

...Thanks Synergy

I like the head mike. It is not a wireless but the hanging chord does not get in my way. I had tried using a boom stand before, but I could never find a comfortable position for it. My problem with the head mike is that my melon is too big. The mike looks like the moon orbiting Pluto. The closest I can get the mike is cold sore close, so I have to sing like Popeye.

As far as the spap opera goes, a big part of the fun of playing, or going to a clinic or concert is coming on here and writing about it. I know most people on here don't really give a poop about my musical dysfunction, but I do enjoy writing about it so you all have to suffer as a result.

Barry
 
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whatever the story is, i'm glad you're back in the game. i was under the impression that you were no longer playing and never wanted to look at a pair of sticks again.
 
Sweet, Dear Diary continues! Good luck and have fun, no pressure.
 
Carefull jonescrusher, you are being sucked into the vortex we call Baz...you posted twice on a thread you wanted to avoid.
 
Carefull jonescrusher, you are being sucked into the vortex we call Baz...you posted twice on a thread you wanted to avoid.

...ditto.

moustache moustache moustache

Barry
 
whatever the story is, i'm glad you're back in the game. i was under the impression that you were no longer playing and never wanted to look at a pair of sticks again.

...Thanks Dairyman.

I never intended to give it up completely. My thinking was if I am not happy doing what I am doing, what would I rather be doing and how can I make it happen. What I want to do is play simple catchy 60s and 70s pop tunes that are familiar enough that I can play and sing without hurting myself. Making it happen was really a forgone conclusion as this new thing has long been on and off the radar. It took over a year for the planets to align themselves, but long story short, here we are.

I have another group of like minded folkadelic fifty year olds that I am working on getting with for more exciting wrists and brushes bad harmony and sometimes lead evenings. These are friends that I have jammed with before, and I am hoping we can meet once or twice a month.

All in all, things are looking very positive.

Barry
 
Sweet, Dear Diary continues! Good luck and have fun, no pressure.

...and thank you once again TFITT.

This new thing is with people that I work with. We all have various degrees of musical ability and experience, plus we are all around the fifty ish range. Musically we are pretty much on the same page.

As far as opportunity goes, I can see more potential with these guys than I could with my old band.

Barry

Barry
 
...ding ding, round two.

Last night was our second go. Gary and Dale showed up as did Chris, our second lead guitar player/singer. It is almost scary having two real strong singer guitar players, but this blessing will strengthen our grey pony tail bent, and open us up to a broader range of pop simplicity.

I know Chris in a hi there bye there passing at work kind-0-way, but last night was our first jam. This guy is good. He has a Maritime twang, but I was not able to tell if it was Cape Bretton or Newfoundland. Either way, for babies in the Maritimes, "what key is this in" are the first words many of them utter. It will be a real blast to play with somebody that can out drink a Russian yet still wake up to take his daughter to her six AM hockey practice.

Once again, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I am feeling pretty good about this group. I have been referred to people, answered adds looking for drummers, joined a Church,and signed up for a weekend warrior program all in the hopes of finding a group of like minded old farts that came into their musical passions as a quarter inch from the lip of their bucket. I am stunned at how many good quality musicians there are here where I work. I should not be surprised though as there are thousands of people on site. We are still balls to the wall busy, but stability is in sight. As we wind down, more people will be looking to spend an evening or so to unleash their inner Clapton.

What I did find funny was how I never worried about my drumming all night, but I was getting a little pissed because my harmonies were ......not very strong.

Thanks once again for the encouragement.

Barry
 
Hey Baz- not sure if this will be of any help but my band has 3 singing guitarist's!

When I started to back them up on vocals I found it was best to keep my input short and sweet.

More often then I care to remember I would harmonizing when they changed their note or stopped or continued on more then I was expecting.... damn guitar players lol!!

So at the begining I kept my vocals to short sweet notes that complemented the song etc.

Over time I have learnt the types of notes that my singers tend to draw out or need with backing etc-

Ultimately whoever is the lead singer at the time is the one that governs what happens. It can sound quite silly sometimes when its obvious that the singer has stopped but the backing vocals are still continuing.

Of course there are always exceptions- but its a good rule of thumb to follow

Glad your enjoying it again
 
Hey Baz- not sure if this will be of any help but my band has 3 singing guitarist's!

When I started to back them up on vocals I found it was best to keep my input short and sweet.

More often then I care to remember I would harmonizing when they changed their note or stopped or continued on more then I was expecting.... damn guitar players lol!!

So at the begining I kept my vocals to short sweet notes that complemented the song etc.

Over time I have learnt the types of notes that my singers tend to draw out or need with backing etc-

Ultimately whoever is the lead singer at the time is the one that governs what happens. It can sound quite silly sometimes when its obvious that the singer has stopped but the backing vocals are still continuing.

Of course there are always exceptions- but its a good rule of thumb to follow

Glad your enjoying it again

...Thank you Synergy. This is helpfull advice.

I am just trying to sing what I can where I can. So many of these oldies are quite heavy on the harmonies, and I have a hard time fighting my DNA. I hear these songs through fourty or so years of listening to them on AM radio, stereo stereo, vinyl, cassette, CD and in some cases eight track. For the old eight track tunes, I have to remember to leave out the "KATCHUNK" from when the track would change in the middle of a song.

There are songs that I want to do but I will have to sing them if I want to play them. Learning to play and sing together has given me a new goal to work towards.

Barry
 
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