More Musical Activity
Feb. 12th, 2012 08:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillI have been going to off-and-on bi-weekly folksong gatherings where we get together and sing from _Rise Up Singing_. One of the people there has been J. who plays the cello and sometimes sings along. He also came to my concert at the library in December, and afterwards expressed an interest in getting together to work on music.
Well, December was pretty busy, and so was January, but at the most recent Rise Up Singing we agreed he would come to my house yesterday. The weather was a bit iffy (snow in the forecast) but held off doing anything nasty, and he showed up with his ukelele promptly at the appointed hour. I was kind of sad to miss out on the cello, but didn't want to press him to bring something so hard to transport, and ukes can be fun too.
What he was really interested in doing was talking about songwriting. He played a couple of his songs for me, and he has a real gift for melody, in my perhaps-unqualified opinion. He is still working on lyrics, I think, though he chooses subjects I think are interesting and not over-covered by mainstream songs.
He expressed an interest in writing parts for and playing on some of my songs so I pulled out "That Kind Of Mouse" and we worked out uke chords for it, and I gave him the latest copy (with the voice and mando parts and the chords written on in pencil) to take home so he could work on a cello line, since that was what he thought would go well, and he says that as long as he's not carpooling, bringing the cello is fairly easy. I am very excited at the prospect of working with a cello player.
I also gave him a copy of the song I wrote for the library and said I wasn't completely happy with the tune I had come up with. He agreed to try to come up with something, and asked if I wanted something completely new, or based on what we had so far. We talked about it, and agreed that I would have sheet music for what I had done so far ready the next time we got together, and if the completely new approach didn't work out, we'd take the start from what I've got approach. So we'll see how that goes. I'm quite happy with the lyrics of the library song (and in the course of that talked about which parts I was happy with, and why, and how I try to place the best parts at the ends of the verses and chorus) but I think it deserves a melody more suited to it than what I've got, and if J. can come up with something, I would be grateful.
He has also expressed an interest in filk. We talked a little about what kind of songs fit in (nearly anything) and what kind of attitudes are involved, and I mentioned the Atlanta and Columbus cons and the housefilks in Atlanta I sometimes go to.
At which point he surprised me by saying something like "I don't know if my parents will let me, but I would love to go."
It turns out that he's not a college sophomore or junior as I had guessed (I met him at the college; he seemed to fit in, and he didn't seem young enough to be a freshman.) He's seventeen. So I said something like "well, obviously I wouldn't encourage you to do something your parents weren't comfortable with." Because, frankly, I'm pretty sure my parents would have had second thoughts about me going to a big city four hours away with someone I'd only met a couple of times when *I* was seventeen, and my parents were not particularly sheltered or nervous types.
But I will be looking forward to our next visit, in three weeks or so, to see how it goes with the cello, and hopefully to work on some of his songs also. And a couple of years is not that long a time, and if he's still interested in filk at that point, cool.
Well, December was pretty busy, and so was January, but at the most recent Rise Up Singing we agreed he would come to my house yesterday. The weather was a bit iffy (snow in the forecast) but held off doing anything nasty, and he showed up with his ukelele promptly at the appointed hour. I was kind of sad to miss out on the cello, but didn't want to press him to bring something so hard to transport, and ukes can be fun too.
What he was really interested in doing was talking about songwriting. He played a couple of his songs for me, and he has a real gift for melody, in my perhaps-unqualified opinion. He is still working on lyrics, I think, though he chooses subjects I think are interesting and not over-covered by mainstream songs.
He expressed an interest in writing parts for and playing on some of my songs so I pulled out "That Kind Of Mouse" and we worked out uke chords for it, and I gave him the latest copy (with the voice and mando parts and the chords written on in pencil) to take home so he could work on a cello line, since that was what he thought would go well, and he says that as long as he's not carpooling, bringing the cello is fairly easy. I am very excited at the prospect of working with a cello player.
I also gave him a copy of the song I wrote for the library and said I wasn't completely happy with the tune I had come up with. He agreed to try to come up with something, and asked if I wanted something completely new, or based on what we had so far. We talked about it, and agreed that I would have sheet music for what I had done so far ready the next time we got together, and if the completely new approach didn't work out, we'd take the start from what I've got approach. So we'll see how that goes. I'm quite happy with the lyrics of the library song (and in the course of that talked about which parts I was happy with, and why, and how I try to place the best parts at the ends of the verses and chorus) but I think it deserves a melody more suited to it than what I've got, and if J. can come up with something, I would be grateful.
He has also expressed an interest in filk. We talked a little about what kind of songs fit in (nearly anything) and what kind of attitudes are involved, and I mentioned the Atlanta and Columbus cons and the housefilks in Atlanta I sometimes go to.
At which point he surprised me by saying something like "I don't know if my parents will let me, but I would love to go."
It turns out that he's not a college sophomore or junior as I had guessed (I met him at the college; he seemed to fit in, and he didn't seem young enough to be a freshman.) He's seventeen. So I said something like "well, obviously I wouldn't encourage you to do something your parents weren't comfortable with." Because, frankly, I'm pretty sure my parents would have had second thoughts about me going to a big city four hours away with someone I'd only met a couple of times when *I* was seventeen, and my parents were not particularly sheltered or nervous types.
But I will be looking forward to our next visit, in three weeks or so, to see how it goes with the cello, and hopefully to work on some of his songs also. And a couple of years is not that long a time, and if he's still interested in filk at that point, cool.
