If you’ve been following along then you know that this last weekend was another Blues Jam. This time at a different venue. A place called Moochie’s. Since we’d just had a jam the Sunday before, you might think that I could or would be able to sit back and coast. Hardly.
There was still plenty of practicing to do. I want to build up a catalog of songs that I can sing and play for these jams. Right now, I don’t have many songs and people are going to get tired of hearing them and playing them. So my mission, or homework, after every jam is to find at least one new song to learn. I try for a song a week, so if there is a full month in between jams, I’m trying to learn 4 new songs. Sometimes, I learn them and at the last minute realize that I really can’t sing one of them that well. So I’ve learned to play the song but I won’t plan on singing it.
With that in mind, you can imagine that this week in between the two Blues Jams was
spent pretty much with my fingers wrapped around the neck of one guitar or another when I wasn’t working or kicking. I found two new songs and was able to learn one well enough that it was our kick off song on Sunday. Yep. I’m quite proud of the choice. It was a lot of fun and so far may be my favorite one we’ve done. We did ‘Never Make Your Move Too Soon.’ It’s a great song and I’ve listened to it for years. Though, not by who you’d expect. For the version I worked on I referenced a B.B. King recording. And then we did an all B.B. King set to kick off the Blues Jam. It was fun.
I think that’s something that people who don’t play music out live probably don’t think about. The effort that goes into putting on a good performance. Sure, you hear about ‘band practice’. But what about just learning your part. I often get to play with Nick, who is also a co-worker, and we discuss songs we want to learn or work on. And then, we go off and learn our parts. If we get a chance, we get to practice together before a jam. Often, we don’t. So, we have to have learned our bit well enough that we can fit in with each other if we get to play together. We also have to practice our skills in general so that we can fit in with whomever we get to play with. That way, when someone calls for a song in a particular key and rhythm then we can get in there and do our bit as part of the group.
In addition to that, there’s choosing the material. It’s not always as easy as you might think. Especially if you sing. Sure, everyone wants to hear this song or that song. And everyone would like to be able to sing and play those songs. But it doesn’t always work out that you can. An example, I can sing and play rhythm for ‘Further On Up the Road’. I can sing it and it’s ok. Nick, really likes the song, and worked on it, and he does a really great job on the vocals and lead guitar. I learned ‘Before You Accuse Me’. I learned to sing it and play the rhythm. And I have not sung it. Because, I realized that for whatever reason, I just can’t get that one down right now.
And then sometimes, you want to do a song really bad and you work at it and work at it and it just doesn’t seem to want to happen. That has happened lately. There’s this one song, I really like, it should work out and could be a lot of fun. We figured out the key, then Nick figured out the chord progression. And I set about trying to get the vocal down but it was just a bit pitchy. I finally thought to change the key. Since we’re really only playing the I, IV, and V chords for it changing the key isn’t too hard. So I dropped it and suddenly, I could sing it. We’ve been working on it for 2 or 3 weeks now and I still haven’t been ready to do it. And then, I figured out, we had the rhythm all wrong. We’ve been trying to fit it into this chunk-a chunk-a sound and it turns out to be a shuffle. It was hidden. It was buried in the other guitar parts, and more importantly, it was hidden in the vocal.
Watching someone or a group, get up on stage and play music looks, and sounds so easy. It takes more than most realize. And that’s just the practice. That’s just the getting down the skills to even be able to do it. That doesn’t include getting the guts to get up there. For some, that takes even more. And you know, even with all that in mind, it’s still the most fun when it all comes together. When the song goes off just right, whether there’s anyone else there to hear it or not. It’s so worth all that effort in practice, in choosing a song, it getting up there, in showing everyone how to play something on the fly, or learning how to play something on the fly. When you get to that last note and you know, you can feel how it went. Oh Yeah. It may have taken more than you expected to get there, it is so worth it when you do.
Enjoy some pictures from the first set of the Charlotte Blues Jam on Sunday. I’ll be getting video up this week as well so you can check out our B.B. King set.