Jam Report #97–12/6/09: Very Tiny Jam Edition

In which we have only four, count ’em, four of us present for music; in which we break in a GBS song we haven’t done before; and in which we break in a new song of solarbird‘s as well. Songs: “Concerning Charlie Horse”, “Captain Kidd”, “Come to the Labyrinth”, “America in Amber”.

So yeah, this was a teeny tiny Jam. Aside from myself and solarbird, only technoshaman and cflute were in attendance. But it was all good, since we had a tiny but effective little Jam.

First up we broke in Great Big Sea’s “Concerning Charlie Horse”, since Dara had asked me for the chords to both of the “horses falling into ice” songs off The Hard and the Easy! I was rather pleased with myself for figuring out the chords to the whole thing, especially on the bridge when it modulates. The recording goes from F up to G, and that took a bit of thought to try to nail down what chords I could play to handle changing between those two keys. Turned out I could do it either capoing on the third fret and going from D to E, or capoing on 5 and going from C to D–at least if I want to play along with the recording. Singing, it’s more like no capo for the D->E chords. I am however waffling between those and playing with the capo on 2 and still singing in D->E, since I like that key shift better for my vocals.

Callie and Glenn were unfamiliar with the song, so I played it for ’em to give them an idea of how the bridge went. This also let us hear the banjo bits and get an idea of how Dara and I can strum those. Dara’s instrument’s actually a little better for that sound than mine is, though I seem to have the tight little strums down a bit better for now. She’ll probably pass me on that soon enough. ;)

Next up we went through “Captain Kidd” a time or two just for giggles, and because it’s really a “three and really mostly only two with occasional three chords, no braining” sort of song. Dara’s used to playing it with her busking arrangement now, though, so that gave us a couple of stumble points. But it was all good.

Callie wanted s00j‘s “Come to the Labyrinth” then, so we did a couple of takes of that with Dara singing lead since I don’t know the vocals well enough to strum at the same time yet. This is definitely a song that wants multiple vocalists, though. Me, I’ll just have to listen to the recording a few times to get down the proper pattern of all the chords.

Last but not least, Dara broke out one of her new NaNoteWriMo songs, “America in Amber”. This one amused me just because I can actually easily play all the chords in it, which is not normal for songs Dara writes! We took a couple of passes through this one as well, and Callie and Glenn both liked it, so yay.

By then though Callie had to scoot for another engagement, so we called Pie. This Jam’s flavor: apple, and I’d made a point of getting a small one, but even so we still had about half left.

Next time we’re going to go for a special evening Jam on the 20th. See y’all then!