New band is being pretty nice to me. It's a very instinct-driven kind of playing. Very different from copying covers...and even different than trying to write set parts. It is very likely that I'll never play the same thing twice on any of the tunes. And I think that's probably ok. Half the time I don't even know what song we're playing...I just feel my way through and try to pay attention to what everyone else is doing for cues on feel, dynamics, and starts/stops.
After a full day of immersion in Radar Love (listened to it maybe 20 times and played it maybe 5 all the way through, with additional work on smaller sections) things are progressing quite nicely. I can make it through the entire song now, though I trip a little at the start of the tom breakdown. I think either I'm speeding up there or the recording changes tempo. I'm modifying most of the song to simplify it, of course, but I can make it through. It will be doable for Dec 12th and the main concern will be how the interaction with the other musicians goes. I'll still spend every day until then refining the tune, of course...trying to get closer to the recorded part and improving, in particular, the speed on my triplets and the bass drum part (which I'm playing mostly 1 & 3 on now, but it varied from that quite a bit on the recording). This would be a nice tune to master and then video tape.
I'm pleased with the progress so far, and much, much less freaked out about the recital. It'll be fine.
When I focus, things come along fairly quickly. And once they are in hand, they seem easy after that. I have to remember that. Focus.
No comments:
Post a Comment