had a strange, but fun, night last week. got an email in response to a craigslist ad. guy said his band was playing nearby on saturday and i should come and sit in. played phone tag for a few days, with the result that until saturday afternoon i had no idea who they were or where they were playing. when we finally connected, he said they tuned down a half step, so i checked harp-l archives to see how to handle that, then we agreed i'd come sit in. then he sent me a set list.
yikes! for starters, i didn't know, hadn't even heard of any of the songs on the setlist. i looked a few up on youtube, and it was mostly hard rock stuff, way outside the comfort zone. the half step detuning moved several songs to keys i had no harps for, or could only play in third (not my preference). by dinnertime i was convinced i was heading for a trainwreck. but i'd said i'd come, so i went.
turned out i had a great time. good, tight band, nice bunch of guys. great crowd. played two sets, making it up as as i went. some of it was a little weak, some ok, a couple came out great. i had fun, the crowd had fun, the band liked it and invited me back. i was really glad i came.
below is one of the songs i like a lot. i'd never heard it before we started playing, but it worked out ok. it's not great harp (trust me, i'm well aware of all i did wrong), but it's not bad. and i feel like i walked into a tricky situation and made it work, so it's something of a milestone for me. it was big confidence boost.
i don't suppose this falls in the category of "reinventing the blues", huh?
It's funny how fragmented musical listening tastes can be. Growing up watching MTV this song was all over the place. Of course, there are tons of songs like that across every genre. That's one of the reasons I like the threads when everyone just sort of posts whatever they are listening to currently. Nice job improvising. That's a fun song. I may try to get my band to work up a version.
Me, I kind of turned lemonade back into lemons tonight. We played an open mic and were playing a song I wrote. Our guitar player kept saying it needed a new part, and reluctantly I agreed to add a new chorus. Tonight was the premier of the new version. Well, I was so worried about remembering the new part and getting my vocals back into the right range after the change (there is a tough register change) that I completely forgot where I was in the lyric and had to stop and ask the guitar player where I was. That through him off and he missed the next change. I should have made a train noise followed by a crash.
It was still fun though and the other two songs went okay. Several people also commented that, train wreck aside, they liked the new verse. We remembered to mention our Facebook page and after the show our membership was up 40%. (7 FANS!!!) What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. :)
edit: Of course, I screwed up the title. Still, it was one of the classics of my youth.
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Last Edited by on Oct 10, 2011 9:33 PM
