Ken Middleton playing in France. I posted a "diagram" of some of Ken's Leonard Cohen strums a while back. I have been showing this to Sheila in our little Santa Cruz Tuesday night practice group. Uketoob found it first, he posts a video a day, subscribe and enjoy his stuff too. Beautiful filming Ken.
Last night, The Tuesday Band ,I'll call it that since we haven't named ourselves yet, in Santa Cruz got together sans Rhan Wilson our fearless director and guidance conselour whom in is Oregon. We have less than two handfuls of songs that we're working on but we are constantly getting better. I always feel like I'm the weak link but I think that's because I hear the thoughts in my head only. Perhaps nobody is truly satisfied with their own performance - we are a neurotic breed. BUT we all love to play! AND playing music with good people is a blast.
Robbie and Sheila are our female vocalists. Robbie has a powerful voice and yet she tells me sometimes she even feels a bit squeamish about singing in front of others. Last night I sang my two vocal parts. In my primo-number I have to be extremely determined to growl out the song, but the second song is sung quite softly in Brazilian Portuguese; Garota de Ipanema. Then Sheila and Robbie take over and sing The Girl from Ipanema in English.
I always thought that singing should be an effortless release of sound from the body. I now think that singing is hard work. Perhaps there is a muscle memory aspect with the vocal chords much like mucle memory in the chording fingers
I got an e-mail from Mike DaSilva earlier today. He said my ukulele might be ready when I come to the club meeting tonight.
Re: feeling like you're the weak link & nobody
ReplyDeletebeing satisfied with their performance:
Ukulele Hunt in its 7/06/09 interview with
Bob Brozman quotes him, "...most uke players
are better than they think!"
I hope the attitude that if you can't play like one of the big stars (& who can?) then you
have to apologize & make self-deprecating remarks doesn't ooze its way into the uke world. People shouldn't take wonderful uke video performances as indications of what other
everyday players are doing & feel bad about their own efforts.
The Tuesday Band is a perfectly good name, don't bother to change it.
Ron:
ReplyDeleteAre you going to the Bob Brozman classes? Are you going to the Wine Festival?