Since solarbird and I were going to stay up all night for Longest Night on Sunday the 20th, we decided we wanted to have an evening Jam to help encourage us to stay awake. So we called Jam and had folks over for however long they felt like hanging out. That got us doragoon and Trey and technoshaman and most notably Kelsey, who’s not able to join us much due to having started college this past fall.

Molly introduced us to a musical adaptation of “The Only Son”, a Kipling poem I hadn’t been familiar with. She’s good at finding really unusual things for us to try to play!

Because of Kelsey’s presence (and hell, just because of my own) it’s no surprise that the GBS quotient in this jam was very, very high. We did “Goin’ Up” mostly because it was easy, but we also did “Old Black Rum” and “Ferryland Sealer” by Kelsey’s request, which for me meant “dead easy just twist my arm” for the former and “I still can’t quite properly perform the bridge” for the latter. It was easier trying to do it with a group, though! And I think partway through that bridge I started getting an idea about how to hit cursory guitar strums while I was focusing on the lyrics. That might work well later. Practice will be required.

We also touched on “Pirate Bill and Squidly” since it’s one we have music for and it engages solarbird for singing, which is fun. Likewise, tackling “Shout at the Desert”, one of her newest works, although her ditties are still rather challenging for our group at large.

Kelsey hadn’t ever tried “Elf Glade”, so we had to take a bit of time to walk her through that, and as I recall she mostly sat it out once she saw what I was trying to play. Props must go to technoshaman for taking on singing the callback lines, though!

It was back to GBS for the last couple things we did–”Lukey” because it was easy and a specific contrast to “Elf Glade”, and I walked Kelsey through the chords before we took it on. From there it was extremely easy to segue into “Paddy Murphy”, since the chords are dead similar. It was a total mess as we did it, in no small part because I really can’t sing it properly in A, but we at least took it out with suitable vigor as we bellowed “And every drink in the place was full the night Pat Murphy DIED! DIED! DIED!” at the end.

Because this was an evening Jam we didn’t actually have true pie–but we stayed in the area of round things to consume post-Jam, for we made pita bread pizza on our pizza stones in the oven, and it was all very tasty indeed. Evening Jams are definitely a win, especially when pizza is involved.

More jams to come in 2010!

solarbird

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!

Songs for the 10/18/09 Jam: “Getting Away With It”, “Captain Kidd”, “Chickies in the House”, “The Last Saskatchewan Pirate”, “Elf Glade”, “Dancing With Mrs. White”, “Billy Peddle”, “Mari-Mac”, “Stars”

Songs for the 11/1/09 Jam: “Come to the Labyrinth”, “Pirate Bill”, “Elf Glade”, “Chickies in the House/Duncan’s Dance”, “Goin’ Up”, “The Last Saskatchewan Pirate”, “John Waits Polka”, “The Road to Lisdoonvarna”, “Brian Boru”, “Butterfly Jig”, “Nonesuch”

Some generally fun things to note here:

“Getting Away With It” is a newer one of solarbird‘s, and is a song about super-villainy! Which is of course appropriate, given that Dara is a super-villain.

“Come to the Labyrinth” was brought into rotation by request; it’s one of s00j‘s, and turned out to be fairly easy once Dara found the chords for it online. The guitar line is dead simple–all the interest here is in the complex layering of the vocals. When the group’s at suitable strength, thankfully, we have more than adequate vocal power to pull this off. We’ll be coming back to this one, I suspect.

Y’all may notice quite a bit of instrumentals in the last couple of rotations. This has particularly appealed to doragoon, who asked me for pointers to the various bits of GBS instrumental goodness, and I am of course all over that. But we also broke out my mandolin fakebook to give Dara and Molly both a quick and dirty introduction to how to play “Nonesuch”. I really do need to remember to whip that fakebook out more often; it’s a handy resource. It’s also chock full of all kinds of instrumentals that would be fun to explore in Jam.

On a similar note we also tried to make a serious run at playing through not only “Chickies in the House”, but also its companion pieces, “Napoleon’s Rant” and “Duncan’s Dance”. My eventual goal here is of course to be able to play the whole trio through without stopping, but I think it’ll be a while before we catch up with Tricky Pixie in our ability to do that!

I can also note of course that the last Jam’s pie, in favor of the holiday season approaching, was pumpkin. And as I recall, it was pretty darned tasty.

Watch this space for further Jam goodness, and very possibly, a special Solstice edition of a Jam report! Also? Now that I can play it, I am totally going to be bringing in “Concerning Charlie Horse”!

This was the first Jam we had in some time, although not quite as long as it’s been since my last Jam Report post–because I was a lame-o and never did post a proper report for the last one. This is me attempting to do better this time, especially since this was a particularly fine Jam!

First and foremost, we had a brand new person joining us. Her name is Kelsey, and she met solarbird when Dara was out busking–and immediately recognized “Captain Kidd”, and specifically the GBS arrangement thereof. She and Dara got to talking, and I told Dara to invite her to Jam, since as I have always maintained, “there’s always room for more”. Especially when it comes to fellow Great Big Sea fans. And we had a bit of an audience as well since ravyngyngvar had arrived the day before to visit this week; he doesn’t play, but he hung out and listened and took a few bits of pictures and video, which were all good.

Since Kelsey had specifically expressed interest in “Ferryland Sealer”, one of the very first GBS songs I ever fell in love with, we tackled that one first. I had chords for this left over from looking it up during the Three Good Measures days, and fortunately Kelsey had the same chords I did. We had quite a bit of confusion about how to handle the bridge, but worked it through well enough, and hopefully we’ll be able to get it tighter on further attempts.

Having mamishka back (hurray!) meant it was pretty much inevitable that we take a crack at “Mari-Mac”. Props must be given to Kelsey here for being able to follow along with a quick verbal walkthrough on how to play the song. Meems as always did a fine job on it, although man she plays it fast!

Kelsey then offered us a song we’d never done before by a group we’d never tried to tackle before: “Cap in Hand”, by the Proclaimers. Of whom I hadn’t ever actually heard, at least by name–but once they were identified as the group who’d done “500 Miles”, I totally remembered that song. “Cap in Hand” was unfamiliar to all of the rest of us, but we found a video for it on YouTube quickly enough, and that got us the general structure of the song. Kelsey gave us the general idea of how it sounded as well, singing as she played. We’ll want more work on this one, though.

After that it was around to “Skullcrusher Mountain”, since doragoon had gotten into talking about how Jonathan Coulton always has complicated guitar chords, and that was the song I had immediately handy. The bridge is still very, very difficult and barre-chord-y, though! We’ll definitely want more work on this one too.

It was a bit of a relief to head around to “Goin’ Up” after that, one must say! And fun to let solarbird drive the arrangement, since she’s tinkered heavily with it for when she goes out busking. I took a stab at doing a bit of piccolo with this since we were guitar/stringed-instrument heavy, but that’s another thing that’ll need some working.

Next came yet another song we’d never played with before, one by stealthcello: “Dryad’s Promise”, a lovely little thing that’s been recorded by Tricky Pixie. I had chords and lyrics from Betsy herself and we did come up with the recording to listen to off of Dara’s computer. Since this was another very new song, though, we didn’t get all that far with it. The fun here I think will be if we get multiple voices going on the words so we can get some harmony going. I tried a bit of it with Meems, but yeah, very new stuff.

We actually called Pie after this song, and it was a dual-Pie situation–because not only had Dara gotten a cherry pie, but Molly also showed up with a homemade pie-like object that basically tasted like a giant Reese’s cup and oh god so tasty. Very fudge-like in texture, very chocolatey, very tasty. Molly does do wonderfully with the baking and pretty much assured us that on any Jam when she expects to show up, it can be assumed she’ll be showing up with baked goods of some sort. Which is good to know!

But even after Pie, we went into overtime as Dara and I (and Kelsey, a bit) were stricken with the urge to whip through “Captain Kidd”. Which was a nice thing to go out on!

Much of the jamming group was unable to make it this time around, but we did have kendaer and doragoon and Trey, who came armed with two guitars and a drum and a fiddle and a bunch of flutes and some tasty cake and pie between ‘em, which all just goes to show that a small group can have just as entertaining a Jam as a large one.

We also took the opportunity to branch out a bit into stuff we hadn’t played with before–partly to give JT a chance to practice his chords, but also just a chance to actually jam a bit, which was nice. So we hung out on the Heather Alexander/Alexander James Adams duet “By and By” for a bit, which had a very simple chord pattern and melody. Not too many words to have to memorize, either. Which is good, because it’s not actually documented in the Heather Alexander songbook and Alexander/Adams lyrics are thin on the ground, or at least, thin on the Internet. So it required us to play by ear. This is good practice.

I also even broke out my flutes for some of the improv on this song, since it felt like it needed something, and three guitars and Dara on strings as well were a little much especially given that Molly was the only one who knew the words. She offered me one of her G flutes, although I have one of my own, and of course I have Jade which talks G and E minor just fine. We also had a bit of discussion as to whether to kick the song up into A, and that warranted me having to break out the piccolo since I don’t have any flutes that talk A major.

(This also led into a nice side discussion of flutes and what minor flutes are good for. In Dara’s and my experience, the answer to this question is, playing songs in the relative major yet having enough range on the flute to go down a few notes under the octave if you need to.)

In a simpler vein I opted to take us over to “Captain Kidd” next. This was a weird experience with me being pretty much the only voice driving the thing, and without much drumming, either; my voice was a bit of a mess, too. Bweh. Sorely missed on both takes: cflute on the flute during the bridge, and mamishka keeping time.

We sort of leaned over into “Goin’ Up” next, not out of any deliberate planning on my part, but mostly because Dara was showing Molly the bridge she’d made up for it. So we rolled with it. I still can’t sing it properly in G, but I was feeling too lazy to capo.

“Elf Glade” however is a sure cure for laziness. Now that I have these new strings of Awesomeness on Rags, I’m still working on learning the new nuances of his voice–and I’m not entirely sure yet if I want to play farther down the strings on this song or not. This is less of a question of voice and more of a question of starting to get used to the muscle movements I’ve already learned, and playing further down the strings messes that up. I’ll have to experiment more.

We also tried capoing “Elf Glade” up to fret 1 this time around, partly because that’s how Meg Davis recorded it, and therefore that’s how JT and I both have it lodged in our brains. This is what makes me wonder about whether to keep playing further down the strings, though. With the capo on, if I do that, I start losing depth of sound.

Molly led us over into trying something we’d never thought of trying before: “’39″ by Queen, which was a trad-flavored ditty of theirs I’d never heard before. This was interesting and different and required Googling not only for tabs, but also for a YouTube performance of the song since neither Dara nor JT nor I had heard the song. It was neat just to work with some of the chord sequences, even though there’s a big ol’ vocal improv bit in the middle that sounded quite complicated chord-wise and which was not covered by the tabs I found. One of the less batshit set of tabs did have this one seven-chord progression that I want to work with a bit more, and which went like this: G, Bm, Em, D6, C, Bm, Am. The chords themselves? Simple. The fun part? How they were hit very quickly in sequence. Made for a nice little descending-y sort of progression.

Challenging song for our blood, though. We’ll have to check this one out again when we’re feeling adventurous.

Speaking of challenging chord progressions, next we played with Dara’s “Outbirds” for a bit. Not an up song, this, but like she does, Dara loaded that thing with a bunch of unusual chords, tightly packed together. I don’t have to break out G minor and Gm7 very often. It’s good for me when I do.

After that, though, we had to close with something perkier. And since I’d threatened to inflict “Banned from Argo” on the group, I went off to run off copies of the lyrics. I came back to find the others had taken a side turn into “Stars”, which is also significantly perkier than “Outbirds”, but significantly harder to play than “Banned from Argo”.

Closing with arguably the most infamous filk song there is was fun. I hadn’t actually heard the thing in full form in ages; I have it on old filk tapes of course, but what with the shift in popular music listening off of cassettes and CD players and onto MP3 players and iPods, I haven’t actually listened to any of my cassettes in years. And the ones old enough to have “Banned from Argo” on them also haven’t been digitally released.

And yet, oddly enough, the words were still pretty much emblazoned in my brain, as was the melody. JT was solid on them too, of course. But I printed out words for folks nonetheless, so that we could also scribble chords on them. Because here’s the thing: I could find lyrics for this thing, both original and parody, all over the net. Actual chords, not so much.

But thankfully the tune is fairly easy, and Molly and I had no trouble reconstructing the chords by ear. We settled on the key of C as easiest for the majority of us to play, although C is not a JT-friendly key; Molly offered the good advice though that he consider capoing up to the 5th fret and playing the G chords from there.

“Banned from Argo” is of course very, very silly. For those of you who aren’t actually versed in the history of filk, it’s a bawdy Trek-themed song, all about the crew of the Enterprise on shore leave. When I first came into the periphery of filk in the late ’80′s, the song had already been played so much at filk circles that it was infamous by then and Leslie Fish, the woman who wrote it, refused to perform it. The problem here for me was of course that I was coming in too late; I thought the song was hysterical and was sad to not hear it very much.

So yeah. Fun to do it, and I’m looking forward to doing it in a larger group. Definitely needs the full roar of all our voices on the choruses.

Last but very much not least we had both pie and bundt cake, the latter of which was homemade by Molly’s own hands. Let it be said: ZOMG THAT WAS TASTY. Dara had to implore her to take the rest of it home, explaining that if she did not, we would be faceplanting onto it and let’s face it, that would just be messy.

Still, though, if people are going to show up with homemade baked goods at these things, I’m totally willing to bend the traditional Pie rule. ‘Cause I mean, damn. JT’s apple pie was tasty and all but it had a high bar to jump with that bundt cake up against it. Dara and I wound up having some of each, and then we had to have a very, very tiny supper!

Next Jam: we don’t know yet! The rest of May is full of important weekend events, not the least of which will be Folklife, so we’re not jamming again until some time in June. Watch this space for updates. And tasty baked goods. Because mmmmm cake.