Weekend Visit
Mar. 14th, 2011 09:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillOnce again I am logy and slow on a Monday.
Today I have only myself to blame--to the extent I intend to blame anyone, which is slight. This is more of a gloat about what a good time I had post than a blame post.
When I was in Atlanta in February (which took three tries to spell, this morning) Alice arranged for us to meet up with Rob and Larissa and they made noises about a housefilk. Encouraging noises. And I said that sounded like fun, and, encouraged by Alice's assurance that I would have a place to stay that I had already found my way to once, I said I would come if finances permitted, which they did. (Yeah, that 55 bucks for gas--sometimes the budget comes up with it, sometimes the budget looks gloomy and shakes its head.)
When I pulled out of the driveway Friday morning little pellets of snow were falling. Don't get me wrong--it was about 36 degrees--but it was a wet, cold miserable 36 degrees and I was wearing a fleece jacket and a warm hat. I drove south into spring. I turned the heat up or down depending on whether the sun was out. It went gradually down the dial, and the hat came off. Halfway there I stopped at a rest stop because I had to write a song (if I had packed my new Zoom where I could easily have gotten to it on the drive, I wouldn't have had a problem, but I didn't--which left me a couple of alternatives, neither one of which looked good at seventy miles an hour), and that was when the fleece jacket came off. A little farther down the road, the sleeves of the flannel shirt got rolled up. Trees covered with blossom started to appear.
I pulled up in front of Alice's (and Marie's, and Beth's) house in full spring. Alice was still at work, but Marie was home to let me in and feed me when I got hungry (kind of like one of the cats, except I got noticeably better food. I am an expensive cat and won't eat either the canned or the dry food. The other cats were jealous.)
I had brought the boat plans and we spread them out on the carpet and I bent her ear about fine points of boat design because she likes design. I enjoyed that.
Later that evening I practiced. Normally I practice music in the mornings because things I schedule in the mornings tend to get done, but between packing, going to the doctor's to bleed for my checkup, and leaving at 10 am I didn't have time, so I wanted to practice that evening instead, and Alice, Marie and Beth didn't mind. It ended up being kind of like a mini concert, actually, except not so polished. Everyone was very encouraging and appreciative, and seemed to like the new songs, which made me feel good.
I had intended to attend the start of the UFO (Utah) housefilk by Skype but found I couldn't stay up that late, so despite Alice kindly loaning me her computer for the occasion (which meant I could leave our Skype-capable laptop home for Kip to use to play Eve) I ended up bailing.
The next morning we lazed around, had breakfast, and with some trepidation I went and got my regular mandolin (Lark) to practice the countermelody I had just written for _You Stand Alone_. Now I have a pretty decent arrangement for it using crosspicking on the octave mando (Pearl--there will not be a quiz later but I may not remember to specify which name is which as I go) but I really like countermelody and had been working on writing this one for a couple of days.
Working on writing is not like working on playing. Working on writing is sitting in front of the computer, picking out the melody, writing in the chords, and then staring at the staves, picking out notes that should sound good with both the chord and the actual notes of the melody. (I don't like passing tone clashes between melody and countermelody--passing tone clashes between either and the chords are okay as long as they don't get out of hand.) Then I would have the computer play it for me, and make adjustments. Then I print it out, take it to the music room, and play it with actual voice and instrument. This is a slow and painful process but often allows me to find further adjustments to the countermelody (or, on rare occasions, to the chords or even melody) which I then go back to the computer, make, print out, lather, rinse repeat.
None of this actually gets the countermelody practiced so I can play it correctly and reliably sing the right notes at the same time.
That joy was reserved for the denizens of the house that morning. Because, well, I'm sorry but I need to practice this kind of practice too. I could go somewhere else if you like. No, no, say Alice and Beth, this is the common area, it gets used for anything people want (that is reasonable to do inside in company)--if someone is trying to do something the activity in the common area disturbs, they have other places to retreat to.
Plink plink plink, warble waver. Stop. Repeat. Stop, sigh. Plink plink plink, waver, haul voice forcibly back onto correct pitch, plink plink, no, PLINK plink, haul voice onto correct pitch again, nobody retreats. They must have a higher tolerance for this sort of thing than I do because they put up with it for about half an hour with a break in the middle for breakfast. I would have put on warm clothes and gone outside to sit among the promise of flowers next week in the yard if I hadn't had to be there to do the practicing but they were tapping away on computers and puttering in the kitchen with every evidence of being happy where they were.
Alice said it was just the kind of thing she does when she practices singing and that it was a reminder to her that 1) other people have to do it too, and when it looks like they don't its because they did it out of sight and 2)what you need to do and how you need to persist to become good at it. Which I thought was a nice way to put it and made me feel encouraged. I may not be pleasant to listen to but I am setting a good example plus encouraging people.
Then we got ready to face the day which involved the usual late moving process of taking everything that had been tucked away in the garage, moving it all outside into the sunshine to sort and rearrange, making plans for various items, putting more storage on the walls while we could get to the walls, and putting stuff away in the new storage or in the house. Since the weather was expected to continue fine we didn't have to put it all away the same day, which was good.
And I will say, it was a pleasure to work with Marie on putting up shelves and pegboard--she was highly competent, perfectly willing to include other people's ideas, aware of where I was and what I was doing while I was helping to hold things up to be screwed into the wall, or hold things down to be cut, not offended or mad when I misunderstood what she wanted, and just generally an all-around pleasure to work with. I'm not sure if this is a product of being a generally people-aware person, or of long practice at working in pairs and crews to accomplish stuff, but it was a pleasure.
Towards afternoon we got tired. Quite reasonably. So we persuaded each other out of the obsessive project-focus, and spent a while drinking water and standing around staring at what was left and reminding each other not to pick anything up (down side of keeping each other going is that it's hard to stop, when someone else is working, which makes it hard for the crew to stop.)
You know, it was really nice just working in a crew where nobody would be offended if you try to care for them. Like when you say "say, how long has it been since you had a drink of water?" or "you look like you're starting to get frustrated--can I help with that?" and nobody takes it as a slight on their competence. And it's nice to be around people where, when somebody says "we should probably eat soon" somebody else just goes in and starts making sandwiches, and pokes her head out to say "is meat and cheese okay with everyone?" or "Cat, what kind of condiments do you want?"
Just a very cool work party in general.
Also Marie has a spare workbench going begging, which she was willing to give Martin (whose workshop burned down, you may recall) which could work either for Martin or for his grandson (both benches were destroyed in the fire) and which I'm pretty sure I could put on the canoe rack, with a lot of rope and patience. And yes, Martin is interested (I checked because he might already have gotten one.)
It is good when "what goes around comes around" applies to good things.
And then we took a nap. Followed by a quick dinner and by heading out to the filk.
Housefilk
One of the disadvantages of getting more serious about filk is that both the amount of stuff I want to take with me and the amount of floor I take up at housefilks has increased noticeably. In this case I was also bringing Feather (my Tacoma Papoose guitar) to give to Rob, since he had expressed an interest in owning one. I wanted her to live somewhere where she would be loved and played, and had to face the fact that that place was not my house. I just have all I can do keeping up with my other instruments. So in addition to Lark and Pearl (who really needs a better case, which is on my project list, but which I can't cope with until after I finish either the canoe or the album) I was carrying Feather, two books of music, a music stand, the octave mandolin stand, my Zoom mp3 recorder and its kibble, and (I discovered later) four mimmoths.
Whuf. Fortunately I didn't have to carry it very far--just stagger from the parking lot to Larissa and Rob's door. Feather got handed off to Rob, who was very appreciative, and I started unpacking and extending and opening and converting--like a series of transformers, actually--and turned the area around one seat into a Cat fort.
Mary had already set up her own fort at the end of the room, with Rob next to her, Dave and Signe (Dave in a minor outpost that didn't, in my opinion, quite rise to the level of fort, though it was close) Harry (? I may have the name wrong, in which case I apologize) and Dave Rood next, someone whose name I'm afraid I missed, and Larissa at the end, Joyce next to me on one side (part of the time and Myra part of the time), and Alice next to me on the other. I am pretty sure I have overlooked someone or someones, for which I apologize. Names are not my strong point.
It was great. I had more fun than I have had at many a filk circle at a con. I had bunches of new songs and old songs that had been performed maybe two times, that had better arrangements, and I got to sing *lots* and I apologize if I stepped on anyone's toes. I got to hear lots of songs I hadn't heard before too, and some I had and really liked. And Joyce and Dave did some of the Echo's Children songs (blush) which was very flattering. I really enjoyed one of Dave Rood's songs about "Spring leaves are pretty" but the autumn leaves are why the spring prepares. I haven't figured out yet if I recorded that or not. Mary improvised along on one of my oldies that hadn't been heard much "Somebody Is Waiting To Eat My Soul." That was really great, and I'm hoping I can persuade her (and logistics can work out) to maybe help me out with that track on the upcoming album.
In a fit of intelligence, I had left my mp3 recorder set to record .wav files, which I don't usually do because they're bigger, but which I had done because I wanted to record something I was going to work on in Garage Band. And the upshot of that was that about two hours in, the chip choked and went "Uncle!" And I thought I didn't have a spare chip with me so I sighed and turned it off (and then when I got home found that I *did* have a spare chip with me, but oh well.) So I have recordings of some of it--including my new new song) but lost the last half. Sigh.
Dynamic-wise we went through periods of song-song-story-song and periods of chatting. People were obviously seizing this opportunity to catch up with each other--filk is about more than music. But filk is also about music and so a time or two I (or someone else) dragged it back to singing.
I stayed later than I probably should have, since my ride was falling asleep in the corner, but finally had to pack up and go. I found the mimmoths clustered around somebody's iPhone--hopefully they didn't find any credit card information on it. If a mimmoth shows up in the mail, you'll know.
Sunday I got a little better at playing the countermelody on "You Stand Alone" and then we did more sorting and put everything back in the garage and I admired some of Marie's bicycles, and I showed the Zoom H4n off to Marie a little bit and then sorted through the recordings from the previous night enough to find "Oak And Ash And Rowan And Thorn." At which point I killed two birds with one stone by showing Alice a little bit about how to use Garage Band to trim, change volume, and export vocal recordings to iTunes while also getting the housefilk recording of the song fit to put on my LJ as an initial copy.
And then we went to look at a fascinating Atlanta furniture store, and an even more fascinating woodworking tools store. And then I really had to pack up and come home, well supplied with diet mountain dew and sandwiches for the journey.
It was a lovely visit. I really look forward to coming again. I hope I can make more of the Atlanta housefilks, which are plainly of a quality previously only suspected.
Today I have only myself to blame--to the extent I intend to blame anyone, which is slight. This is more of a gloat about what a good time I had post than a blame post.
When I was in Atlanta in February (which took three tries to spell, this morning) Alice arranged for us to meet up with Rob and Larissa and they made noises about a housefilk. Encouraging noises. And I said that sounded like fun, and, encouraged by Alice's assurance that I would have a place to stay that I had already found my way to once, I said I would come if finances permitted, which they did. (Yeah, that 55 bucks for gas--sometimes the budget comes up with it, sometimes the budget looks gloomy and shakes its head.)
When I pulled out of the driveway Friday morning little pellets of snow were falling. Don't get me wrong--it was about 36 degrees--but it was a wet, cold miserable 36 degrees and I was wearing a fleece jacket and a warm hat. I drove south into spring. I turned the heat up or down depending on whether the sun was out. It went gradually down the dial, and the hat came off. Halfway there I stopped at a rest stop because I had to write a song (if I had packed my new Zoom where I could easily have gotten to it on the drive, I wouldn't have had a problem, but I didn't--which left me a couple of alternatives, neither one of which looked good at seventy miles an hour), and that was when the fleece jacket came off. A little farther down the road, the sleeves of the flannel shirt got rolled up. Trees covered with blossom started to appear.
I pulled up in front of Alice's (and Marie's, and Beth's) house in full spring. Alice was still at work, but Marie was home to let me in and feed me when I got hungry (kind of like one of the cats, except I got noticeably better food. I am an expensive cat and won't eat either the canned or the dry food. The other cats were jealous.)
I had brought the boat plans and we spread them out on the carpet and I bent her ear about fine points of boat design because she likes design. I enjoyed that.
Later that evening I practiced. Normally I practice music in the mornings because things I schedule in the mornings tend to get done, but between packing, going to the doctor's to bleed for my checkup, and leaving at 10 am I didn't have time, so I wanted to practice that evening instead, and Alice, Marie and Beth didn't mind. It ended up being kind of like a mini concert, actually, except not so polished. Everyone was very encouraging and appreciative, and seemed to like the new songs, which made me feel good.
I had intended to attend the start of the UFO (Utah) housefilk by Skype but found I couldn't stay up that late, so despite Alice kindly loaning me her computer for the occasion (which meant I could leave our Skype-capable laptop home for Kip to use to play Eve) I ended up bailing.
The next morning we lazed around, had breakfast, and with some trepidation I went and got my regular mandolin (Lark) to practice the countermelody I had just written for _You Stand Alone_. Now I have a pretty decent arrangement for it using crosspicking on the octave mando (Pearl--there will not be a quiz later but I may not remember to specify which name is which as I go) but I really like countermelody and had been working on writing this one for a couple of days.
Working on writing is not like working on playing. Working on writing is sitting in front of the computer, picking out the melody, writing in the chords, and then staring at the staves, picking out notes that should sound good with both the chord and the actual notes of the melody. (I don't like passing tone clashes between melody and countermelody--passing tone clashes between either and the chords are okay as long as they don't get out of hand.) Then I would have the computer play it for me, and make adjustments. Then I print it out, take it to the music room, and play it with actual voice and instrument. This is a slow and painful process but often allows me to find further adjustments to the countermelody (or, on rare occasions, to the chords or even melody) which I then go back to the computer, make, print out, lather, rinse repeat.
None of this actually gets the countermelody practiced so I can play it correctly and reliably sing the right notes at the same time.
That joy was reserved for the denizens of the house that morning. Because, well, I'm sorry but I need to practice this kind of practice too. I could go somewhere else if you like. No, no, say Alice and Beth, this is the common area, it gets used for anything people want (that is reasonable to do inside in company)--if someone is trying to do something the activity in the common area disturbs, they have other places to retreat to.
Plink plink plink, warble waver. Stop. Repeat. Stop, sigh. Plink plink plink, waver, haul voice forcibly back onto correct pitch, plink plink, no, PLINK plink, haul voice onto correct pitch again, nobody retreats. They must have a higher tolerance for this sort of thing than I do because they put up with it for about half an hour with a break in the middle for breakfast. I would have put on warm clothes and gone outside to sit among the promise of flowers next week in the yard if I hadn't had to be there to do the practicing but they were tapping away on computers and puttering in the kitchen with every evidence of being happy where they were.
Alice said it was just the kind of thing she does when she practices singing and that it was a reminder to her that 1) other people have to do it too, and when it looks like they don't its because they did it out of sight and 2)what you need to do and how you need to persist to become good at it. Which I thought was a nice way to put it and made me feel encouraged. I may not be pleasant to listen to but I am setting a good example plus encouraging people.
Then we got ready to face the day which involved the usual late moving process of taking everything that had been tucked away in the garage, moving it all outside into the sunshine to sort and rearrange, making plans for various items, putting more storage on the walls while we could get to the walls, and putting stuff away in the new storage or in the house. Since the weather was expected to continue fine we didn't have to put it all away the same day, which was good.
And I will say, it was a pleasure to work with Marie on putting up shelves and pegboard--she was highly competent, perfectly willing to include other people's ideas, aware of where I was and what I was doing while I was helping to hold things up to be screwed into the wall, or hold things down to be cut, not offended or mad when I misunderstood what she wanted, and just generally an all-around pleasure to work with. I'm not sure if this is a product of being a generally people-aware person, or of long practice at working in pairs and crews to accomplish stuff, but it was a pleasure.
Towards afternoon we got tired. Quite reasonably. So we persuaded each other out of the obsessive project-focus, and spent a while drinking water and standing around staring at what was left and reminding each other not to pick anything up (down side of keeping each other going is that it's hard to stop, when someone else is working, which makes it hard for the crew to stop.)
You know, it was really nice just working in a crew where nobody would be offended if you try to care for them. Like when you say "say, how long has it been since you had a drink of water?" or "you look like you're starting to get frustrated--can I help with that?" and nobody takes it as a slight on their competence. And it's nice to be around people where, when somebody says "we should probably eat soon" somebody else just goes in and starts making sandwiches, and pokes her head out to say "is meat and cheese okay with everyone?" or "Cat, what kind of condiments do you want?"
Just a very cool work party in general.
Also Marie has a spare workbench going begging, which she was willing to give Martin (whose workshop burned down, you may recall) which could work either for Martin or for his grandson (both benches were destroyed in the fire) and which I'm pretty sure I could put on the canoe rack, with a lot of rope and patience. And yes, Martin is interested (I checked because he might already have gotten one.)
It is good when "what goes around comes around" applies to good things.
And then we took a nap. Followed by a quick dinner and by heading out to the filk.
Housefilk
One of the disadvantages of getting more serious about filk is that both the amount of stuff I want to take with me and the amount of floor I take up at housefilks has increased noticeably. In this case I was also bringing Feather (my Tacoma Papoose guitar) to give to Rob, since he had expressed an interest in owning one. I wanted her to live somewhere where she would be loved and played, and had to face the fact that that place was not my house. I just have all I can do keeping up with my other instruments. So in addition to Lark and Pearl (who really needs a better case, which is on my project list, but which I can't cope with until after I finish either the canoe or the album) I was carrying Feather, two books of music, a music stand, the octave mandolin stand, my Zoom mp3 recorder and its kibble, and (I discovered later) four mimmoths.
Whuf. Fortunately I didn't have to carry it very far--just stagger from the parking lot to Larissa and Rob's door. Feather got handed off to Rob, who was very appreciative, and I started unpacking and extending and opening and converting--like a series of transformers, actually--and turned the area around one seat into a Cat fort.
Mary had already set up her own fort at the end of the room, with Rob next to her, Dave and Signe (Dave in a minor outpost that didn't, in my opinion, quite rise to the level of fort, though it was close) Harry (? I may have the name wrong, in which case I apologize) and Dave Rood next, someone whose name I'm afraid I missed, and Larissa at the end, Joyce next to me on one side (part of the time and Myra part of the time), and Alice next to me on the other. I am pretty sure I have overlooked someone or someones, for which I apologize. Names are not my strong point.
It was great. I had more fun than I have had at many a filk circle at a con. I had bunches of new songs and old songs that had been performed maybe two times, that had better arrangements, and I got to sing *lots* and I apologize if I stepped on anyone's toes. I got to hear lots of songs I hadn't heard before too, and some I had and really liked. And Joyce and Dave did some of the Echo's Children songs (blush) which was very flattering. I really enjoyed one of Dave Rood's songs about "Spring leaves are pretty" but the autumn leaves are why the spring prepares. I haven't figured out yet if I recorded that or not. Mary improvised along on one of my oldies that hadn't been heard much "Somebody Is Waiting To Eat My Soul." That was really great, and I'm hoping I can persuade her (and logistics can work out) to maybe help me out with that track on the upcoming album.
In a fit of intelligence, I had left my mp3 recorder set to record .wav files, which I don't usually do because they're bigger, but which I had done because I wanted to record something I was going to work on in Garage Band. And the upshot of that was that about two hours in, the chip choked and went "Uncle!" And I thought I didn't have a spare chip with me so I sighed and turned it off (and then when I got home found that I *did* have a spare chip with me, but oh well.) So I have recordings of some of it--including my new new song) but lost the last half. Sigh.
Dynamic-wise we went through periods of song-song-story-song and periods of chatting. People were obviously seizing this opportunity to catch up with each other--filk is about more than music. But filk is also about music and so a time or two I (or someone else) dragged it back to singing.
I stayed later than I probably should have, since my ride was falling asleep in the corner, but finally had to pack up and go. I found the mimmoths clustered around somebody's iPhone--hopefully they didn't find any credit card information on it. If a mimmoth shows up in the mail, you'll know.
Sunday I got a little better at playing the countermelody on "You Stand Alone" and then we did more sorting and put everything back in the garage and I admired some of Marie's bicycles, and I showed the Zoom H4n off to Marie a little bit and then sorted through the recordings from the previous night enough to find "Oak And Ash And Rowan And Thorn." At which point I killed two birds with one stone by showing Alice a little bit about how to use Garage Band to trim, change volume, and export vocal recordings to iTunes while also getting the housefilk recording of the song fit to put on my LJ as an initial copy.
And then we went to look at a fascinating Atlanta furniture store, and an even more fascinating woodworking tools store. And then I really had to pack up and come home, well supplied with diet mountain dew and sandwiches for the journey.
It was a lovely visit. I really look forward to coming again. I hope I can make more of the Atlanta housefilks, which are plainly of a quality previously only suspected.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-03-14 06:44 pm (UTC)The choice of words made me smile, but I'm afraid I can't actually parse what you mean by kibble in this case.
one of my oldies that hadn't been heard much "Somebody Is Waiting To Eat My Soul."
Now I'm really curious.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-14 06:57 pm (UTC)Yes, I've had it for months and I'm still carrying the user manual. It's a complicated little beast. I don't need the manual for recording things like housefilks but I still need it for multitrack recording, which I was intending to practice at Alice's house but didn't get to.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 04:13 am (UTC)bleh? I've mostly heard good things about Zooms, but having some weird non-standard interface to standard memory sounds bad.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 12:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-14 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 12:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 12:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 12:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 02:00 am (UTC)Really enjoyed being in a circle with you.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 12:10 pm (UTC)And if I haven't mentioned it, your trumpet work was very impressive too. :-)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 08:44 am (UTC)What are the specs on the SD cards? I recently got two but it turned out I needed microSD so I have two 4GB SD cards going spare and could ship them if they're within spec.
Yay for progress on the album! I look forward to hearing it in the fullness of time.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-15 12:20 pm (UTC)4GB
Panasonic RP-SDR04G
RP-SDM04G
Transcend TS4GSDHC6
TS4GSDHC150
Kingston SD2/4GB
SD4/4GB
SD6/4GB
SanDisk SDSDBR-4096-(A10/E10/P35)
TOSHIBA SD-HC004GT4
GREEN HOUSE GH-SDHC4G6M
PQI QSDH6-4G
IODATA SDHC-4G
HAGIWARA SYS-COM HPC-SDH4GT4C
Lexar Media SD4GB-231