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Lofting Continued / Folksingers Anonymous
Nov. 17th, 2010 05:57 pmFurther Adventures in Lofting
I went off to Carson Newman and worked on the Rob Roy plans again today. I got all 11 of the stations for which they give offsets finished, but still need to do the stems.
( Boat Design! You know you want to read about boat design! )
Folksingers Anonymous
The reason I didn't finish drawing the stems today is that I had to go home and get my instrument and go to Folksingers Anonymous, which is the folksong meeting at Carson Newman. We meet every two weeks, normally on Thursdays but Wednesday has worked out better the last couple of times. There are about five or six of us who are regulars, and I've been having a *lot* of fun. I really enjoy playing and singing with people and I inevitably end up playing till my fingers are sore and singing till I'm hoarse. We use the _Rise Up Singing_ songbook and just take turns picking things we like and then everyone tries to play along. Last time I asked if anyone knew "Brandy Tree" which is in the "Dreams and Fantasies" section--nobody did, so when I went home I dug out my _Rise Up Singing_ CDs and ripped it, put it on my iPod and learned it over the next couple of weeks, and this time I played it for one of my songs. Everybody seemed to like it so we'll see if it becomes a regular or not.
Also, which was really kind of cool, when we were sitting around tuning at the start, I started quietly playing "Soldier's Joy" (which is an instrumental.) And Larry started playing along. Except he was Playing Along, if you understand the difference; this was plainly an accompaniment he'd worked up, complete with bass runs and stuff. Then Ernest started playing along and we just had a grand old time. I was worried that I would get self conscious and quit being able to play (which, like --way to make yourself self-conscious, right? But what can you do except try not to brood on it?) but I only fell off the melody once and hopped right back on on the next line. They didn't try to push me to play it fast (which believe me, I appreciate, since it's a pretty common thing with this kind of music to get into dominance games about who can play it faster and games you can never win just aren't much fun.) We played through it a couple of times and stopped and June said "that really is dance music" and Ernest asked me to play it again, so we did. That's one of the few times in my life I've got to play that kind of music with other people. It was great. I wouldn't want to do it to the exclusion of music with, you know, words, but it was great.
We're getting pretty good on some of the stuff we play every time, like "Hard Times Come Again No More." I'm trying to figure out how to do some equivalent of fingerpicking on the mandolin since strumming can only go so far, but I think I need to work on it more. We played for nearly 2 hours, then I hung out and talked with a couple of the Carson Newman people for some time afterward. They suggested I should think about building an instrument case from my leftover strips. I'm giving it some thought; Pearl deserves a better case than the cardboard one she has.
I went off to Carson Newman and worked on the Rob Roy plans again today. I got all 11 of the stations for which they give offsets finished, but still need to do the stems.
( Boat Design! You know you want to read about boat design! )Folksingers Anonymous
The reason I didn't finish drawing the stems today is that I had to go home and get my instrument and go to Folksingers Anonymous, which is the folksong meeting at Carson Newman. We meet every two weeks, normally on Thursdays but Wednesday has worked out better the last couple of times. There are about five or six of us who are regulars, and I've been having a *lot* of fun. I really enjoy playing and singing with people and I inevitably end up playing till my fingers are sore and singing till I'm hoarse. We use the _Rise Up Singing_ songbook and just take turns picking things we like and then everyone tries to play along. Last time I asked if anyone knew "Brandy Tree" which is in the "Dreams and Fantasies" section--nobody did, so when I went home I dug out my _Rise Up Singing_ CDs and ripped it, put it on my iPod and learned it over the next couple of weeks, and this time I played it for one of my songs. Everybody seemed to like it so we'll see if it becomes a regular or not.
Also, which was really kind of cool, when we were sitting around tuning at the start, I started quietly playing "Soldier's Joy" (which is an instrumental.) And Larry started playing along. Except he was Playing Along, if you understand the difference; this was plainly an accompaniment he'd worked up, complete with bass runs and stuff. Then Ernest started playing along and we just had a grand old time. I was worried that I would get self conscious and quit being able to play (which, like --way to make yourself self-conscious, right? But what can you do except try not to brood on it?) but I only fell off the melody once and hopped right back on on the next line. They didn't try to push me to play it fast (which believe me, I appreciate, since it's a pretty common thing with this kind of music to get into dominance games about who can play it faster and games you can never win just aren't much fun.) We played through it a couple of times and stopped and June said "that really is dance music" and Ernest asked me to play it again, so we did. That's one of the few times in my life I've got to play that kind of music with other people. It was great. I wouldn't want to do it to the exclusion of music with, you know, words, but it was great.
We're getting pretty good on some of the stuff we play every time, like "Hard Times Come Again No More." I'm trying to figure out how to do some equivalent of fingerpicking on the mandolin since strumming can only go so far, but I think I need to work on it more. We played for nearly 2 hours, then I hung out and talked with a couple of the Carson Newman people for some time afterward. They suggested I should think about building an instrument case from my leftover strips. I'm giving it some thought; Pearl deserves a better case than the cardboard one she has.
