As always, not many people there, and during the second hour nobody was paying much attention, but early on we had an Asian couple sitting right up front, definitely there to hear something. They just stared at me blankly when I'd ask if they had any requests from the list that they appeared to be reading, until finally the lady asked for "Rhythm of the Rain", barely understandably.
She had some odd mannerisms -- all through "The Boxer" she held her hands out and twiddled her fingers as if she were (faking at) playing the piano. And through another song, she alternately banged her fists on each other, to the beat, sending the hit-upon fist around in an 18-inch loop to come back and hit the other, sending it on its own loop. Some weird kind of drill-team move, maybe. But they must have liked us, 'cuz they bought a CD on their way out.
Later on, a college girl came in and joined in pretty well -- singing along (to herself, of course) with several of my songs. Her two friends showed up and they all requested a few tunes before they had to leave.
But, as I feared, the terrific acoustics of the place made it very clear (to me at least) every time my voice missed its mark. Fortunately, there was hardly anyone listening, so I wasn't too embarrassed. I probably *shoulda* been, but I'm too far beyond that anymore.
I did get to play my new "Nature Boy" in a quiet mellow setting. Works much better than last week at Spectrum. I don't know how easy it is to play along with, since it's all vague-rooted spacey jazz chords, but Warren seemed to like it in general.
We made $12 to split, which was pretty good considering how few people were there. Obviously, it's not a very lucrative place to play, but it's good to play someplace where I can actually hear myself, once in a while. As opposed to Spectrum where I'm so drowned out by the fountain noise that even *I* don't know if I'm singly badly or not. I guess it's good to have the camouflage while my voice is trashed, but it's a lot less artistically satisfying if I'm actually doing well.
3 comments:
Despite the occasional not-quite-there note, your voice was sounding pretty good to me. I though that 'Over the Rainbow', 'I'm Yours', and 'Nature Boy' were standout takes, leaving me wanting to hear them again right away. You've built some wild changes into that latter song, all of which sound like they belong there. It was only slightly confusing to play along, and very satisfying...
Looking forward to the next outing -- same time, same place.
I think the essential quality of my voice is pretty much entirely back. It's just the high notes that I used to be able to reach, but can't anymore that bug me. It's discouraging to aim at a note and not hit it -- that's never happened to me before.
But it seems like its coming slowly back, so hopefully I'll be back to where I was pretty soon.
I don't think of my chords for "Nature Boy" as very "wild" -- seems to me like they're just the necessary backing for the spacey spooky melody. Maybe it just doesn't sound weird to me because I made it up myself and had so little prior knowledge of the song. I don't usually fall in love with and work out songs that I've only just heard for the first time...
Aiming at high notes and missing is pretty much standard practice for me, but it must be very disconcerting if you're not accustomed to it. I think the gig was happening, anyhow, because, as you note, your voice is generally back on the tra...ck.
'Wild' was probably overstating it for the chord progression. I'm probably responding more to the song itself, which seems to possess a mysterious 'supernatural' quality... 'enchanted', I should say...
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