walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Oct 7, 2016 22:57:17 GMT
My mate just pointed out that we used to see everyone from Val Doonican to Marianne Faithful using idiot boards, and it was better that they did that than leave us vamping for a verse while the pianist tried to make it all sound intentional. Well, he used to see them doing it. I was too busy sitting with my stomach in knots and with my eyes darting between music stand and leader as I tried not to mess up.
And he just told me that one of our bandmates who worked on a show with Streisand said she had everything on autocue: lyrics, timings, even apparent off the cuff remarks. Hey, if it's good enough for Babs...
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Oct 7, 2016 16:09:31 GMT
My local club has made an attempt to bring income bigger and younger names and occasionally they get a big influx of young people. But I don't think that format works any more. The top folk club acts are not cheap to go and see. I can go and see many of the same people at places without raffles and crappy old residents. Keith makes a very good point about the way clubs used to encourage and foster new talent. There are still some places around like that. Near me the Open Mic is a biota a mixed blessing. There are some people that put time into it and it works well — they focus on people doing longer spots who they know are OK. They maybe mix this with shorter spots earlier on for newbies. However, the others! There is a growing line of people running Open Mics for money near me. Some guy with a PA getting paid by a pub to bring people in and doing three or four pubs a week. I have nothing in principle against this but I'd be happier if they really put some time and thought into it. I occasionally play at one of these where I will often have 30 minutes or so. But I have to sit through the old bastards with music stands (they are usually old), people playing keyboards with synthetic drums and singing Goodness knows what) and too many other horrible things to even share. We do need people to think about the format and put some love into it. And some thought. Do we need all these PAs? Apart from the occasional sessions I organise, I can think of only one place near me that has it right. This is a Little Theatre that runs a session in the bar. There is amplification but only background stuff that lifts things a little. The mics are ambient and can hardly be noticed. There is a mix of thos playing for the first time and old lags;there are young and old. Trouble is this only runs 3 times a year! I'm with Chris. Ban the damn music stands. Oh Dear. I hadn't realised that I was one of the prime causes of the demise of Folk Clubs. Looks like I better just stay at home and play to the dog..... Or only venture out when there are proper people playing who are younger than me, don't suffer from memory loss and haven't become crappy old residents. Must re-check those air fares to Austria.... I sympathise. I understand the use of music stands as folk music in particular can involve feats of memory, and a dropped verse can break the narrative. My late partner would tape crib sheets of first lines and full verses of songs (including my own over-long efforts) to the top of her guitar to jog her memory. I'd even be happy to see someone playing from notation at a session. There's nothing unprofessional about playing from charts: that's what I spent much of my time doing when I was a full-time pro and always do on the occasional agency gigs I do now.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Oct 6, 2016 11:00:39 GMT
There may be a revival of old style folk clubs in the future, but my experience suggests that the dying-off of old codgers like me will help.
The clubs local to me are almost exclusively populated and run by grey groaners, and the cliquish nature of them is worse than it's ever been. I see youngsters come in sometimes and wonder what they make of the long between-numbers conversations between the compere and his mate on the front row, the complete lack of professionalism that falls well below charming and amounts to chaos, the same songs being performed twice or more on the same night and so on. Oh, and dare I mention the bloody awful floor singers who are endured rather than enjoyed every week? Why don't they understand that they're terrible and simply can't entertain anyone? I do.
The youngsters rarely go back, and I'm not sure why I do, unless there's some fixed migratory pattern I can't break out of.
I suppose and hope that there are better and more exciting clubs out there, but the ones I know are where old denim goes to decay. Fortunately folk music is so strong that no one can actually break it, so there is hope.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Sept 26, 2016 10:13:05 GMT
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Jun 28, 2016 14:09:53 GMT
I like my G Track USB mic, which happens to come with a functional version of the very good Sonar DAW for free. You can plug your guitar right in, if you want, though I prefer to rely on the air, and it does delay-free monitoring over headphones. Amazon linkI had an inadvertent demonstration of how good the G Track was recently when recording two songs for a project in the Duck. The G Track had been left at a friend's house, so I recorded the first on a Tascam DP 004. The result was OK, but a bit reedy and noisy. The second, recorded on G Track, has great clarity and presence - only the performance was crap! By the by, if you register Sonar it entitles you to upgrades to the full product, which occasionally goes on sale at a low price.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on Jun 10, 2016 12:41:41 GMT
All I know is that there seems to be a law of physics which holds that my capo will go awry during the last verse of every recording. Gravity also has it in for me.
(Jerry "Cap'n Trips" Garcia was introduced to LSD at Rick Shubb's house, for better or worse. Not many people know that.)
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on May 25, 2016 10:17:06 GMT
Thanks Keith. I think I must have got lucky with my fingers because I've never had a problem with narrow nuts. (Go on, you know you want to.)
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on May 25, 2016 9:53:28 GMT
...a Pilgrim Redwood mandolin by Vintage. I played one last year and realised it would fill a gap between my two main mandolins, a Kentucky A style with a pleasant but rather glassy sound and a Moondog F style which I keep set up for jazz. All solid spruce and maple, supposedly has a "burr walnut" finish, but looks nothing like it does in Vintage's photos - I like the look all the same. There was no set up and I had to restring because the strings on it had obviously seen service as fence wire on a dairy farm in the 1930s. Here's a brief sample from my first go. Pilgrim mandolinIt's a bit stiff and needs a bit more adjustment, but I think we're going to get on. I've already given it an affectionate nickname: "The new one."
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on May 20, 2016 8:03:00 GMT
It's all about what suits the song or tune and, and to some extent the size of the venue. Electrics are subtle beasts with a much wider palette of expression available to them than acoustics even at low volumes, as I can testify having spent my fully pro years blending in with reeds and a horn. That said, there are times when it is absolutely necessary to crank it up and cut loose. To use a classic example, if you're going to play Johnny B. Goode then you're failing the song if you don't announce it hard and loud and play the guitar like a-ringin' a bell between verses. And there are times when you and the audience want to hear your guitar roar, boom and wail and feel it coming up through your feet and tying your intestines in knots.
The neighbours are out, so I now have to put Neil Young's Weld on at a suitably high volume. I will return later if I survive.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on May 20, 2016 7:33:35 GMT
I use D'addario Mountain Dulcimer sets on mine. I usually go for Martin strings for most instruments, but there's a "sing" in the D'addario's that helps drive a dulcimer.
As for tunings, DAA and DAD are the two most popular major ones, with DAD being slightly more friendly for chording; for minor playing I confess I've never got past DAC.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on May 19, 2016 8:13:00 GMT
As regards whether it's "right" or not arranging pieces for instruments other than those they were written for is a very subjective process, and it also depends on the limitations of the instrument being arranged for. If the version you've ordered sound good to you, if it's the one you think you'll enjoy playing, then it's the right one.
Bet it won't take you as long as two years to get it down, by the way. I tend to find that stretching that little bit further on than what I take to be my capabilities consolidates what I already know and makes me learn faster.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on May 18, 2016 7:53:11 GMT
Hello walkingdecay . I'd like to have a go at this, especially after your encouraging words for people who worry about not being 'good enough'. I have someone in mind who has been a great inspiration to me, and would like to attempt one of that person's simpler tunes. Better get started today, as I'm a very slow learner. That's great news, Miss C. Honestly, all contributions are very welcome. There's no yardstick of "good enough" - just representation of where your music came from and where it happens to be now.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on May 18, 2016 7:47:31 GMT
A brilliant idea Pete...although we won't be able to contribute anything new for a while...maybe be able to dredge up something that hasn't been posted recently though. Looking forward to it Andrew. I really enjoy hearing the music you folks make, old or new.
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on May 18, 2016 7:40:42 GMT
Good stuff walkingdecay ! Pete, how about you start the thread in PD Projects now? Just an announcement of the commencement with a summary of the "rules" as in your post just now would be fine. Keith Sorry I didn't respond to this yesterday, Keith. I wandered off to do whatever it was I can't remember doing yesterday - probably staring into space and remembering something that happened fifty years ago in the finest of detail. Anyway, the project is up and open to contributions now. The music and musicians that inspired me project
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walkingdecay
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Post by walkingdecay on May 17, 2016 7:44:27 GMT
Looks like "Music and musicians that inspired me" is the one then. I'd better start cutting my shortlist down to an actual shortlist. As it stands there are about thirty artists on it.
If there are any forum members who aren't yet familiar with the concept of the projects, they invite contributions of recordings you make within a single theme. The thread to post them on will be in the special Projects section of the Plucky Duck.
I'll urge forum members of any and all skill levels to have a go at this. It's a chance to pay tribute to the people who inspire you to play and have a bit of fun getting your music out there. If you're worried that your effort may "not be good enough" in any way remember that this isn't one of those nasty, condescending forums, but one of the friendliest places on the internet.
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