Piano Class Progress and Ear Training

I haven't been posting about the piano class much because...well it just isn't very impressive. But I think it is good for beginners (though possibly moves too fast for a TRUE beginner with no music background).

I get panic attacks about finding notes on the keyboard and about reading the notes on the staff (getting my brain to read both treble and bass clef at same time and not mix them up)...and yesterday the instructor asked us to play 2nd or 3rd intervals and say by ear which was which. When I was playing them and could look at the keys while I listened this seemed easy. They sounded different. But as soon as someone else played them and I couldn't look at the keys I was afloat. Like no idea.

This, of course, is not shocking because I have had a hard time with vocal harmonies in the past. I can't hear them and I can't sing them (unless someone shows me what to sing, I practice it, and then I ignore the other person singing).  I've also never been great at tuning by ear. Only recently have I begun to hear the "warble" of an out-of-tune note...but I still can't tell if the note is sharp or flat.  I even struggle, if you play two notes, to tell you which one is the higher note and which one is the lower note...I have to play them several times and think about it pretty hard.

I'm sure this is a skill that can be learned, but that some people take to it more naturally than others. I'd be on the end of the spectrum that really struggles and would need to work REALLY hard at it and still might never be great at it. I haven't ever really worked at it...and I don't know if I have the patience and interest to work at it.

It frustrates me that people seem to think this is a natural skill and are confused when you can't do it though. It's like they think I'm lying or just not trying hard enough. It pisses me off and makes me feel really insecure.

Everyone isn't good at everything.

I was noticing in class that I'm way better at playing than many of the others. I keep the tempo and play accurately. I can play faster than many.  I also was noticing that while I was bored and noodling around because I couldn't get the interval ear training thing...that I would accidentally happen upon melodies that I recognized and could pick them out by ear. It happened like 10 times.

So it isn't that I'm tone deaf...because I can pick out melodies from memory by ear. I can match pitches by trial and error. And to some extent I know when notes are close to each other or far apart. I just can't tell the intervals. I might know that note one is low and note two needs to be a lot higher...but even though I can hear the melody in my head...I'll have to make a guess to match the second pitch. If I guess wrong I'll quickly guess again until I get it.

Learning the keyboard is definitely helpful for learning the relative position of notes. It took me forever to start to learn that on bass/guitar. On the keyboard it is right there in black and white. It's interesting.

I think the class will be useful, but not earth shattering. I don't think I care about being able to play piano...but it does present one with useful basic skill sets.

TD as Faghat 2/27/2014 at Inferno

For some reason I'm not at all clear on we dressed up like Faghat for a TD show last night. I tried my best to make an ass out of myself with my costume, but no one came to the show. Still, I played great and wasn't nervous at all.

During sound check I asked for some stuff in the monitor (I had to be proactive because nothing was offered) and went though a long stretch of "how's that?" "I'm getting nothing." "how about now" "nope". I was starting to think I was dumb or crazy...but indeed the monitor wasn't working. I gotta say that getting some extra training in sound recently (both shadowing EB and also taking that class with D a year or so ago), while it may not have made me into a sound engineer, has certainly boosted my confidence on the topic. I feel like I know the right terms to use. And I feel better about saying "no, I'm pretty sure that isn't in the monitor, it's in the house." Anyway, they thought they had it fixed but I'm not sure that they did not...but in the end my show mix, even with just the house, was pretty decent. Another boomy bass drum show tho.

I even played Faghatland right (maybe for second time ever) and managed to get structure of Dragonfly correct even without my notes (forgot to pull them out in time).

Setlist:
HSUL
Better
KUKU
Dragonfly
Hold U Under
Gotta Tell
Bodies
Whole Damn World
Going Down the Drain
It's Alright
Gun
Faghatland

Off You

Been working on "Off You".

Here's a helpful live version. Two basses and one electric guitar. She plays some of the chords in much higher positions than I was (the Cm and Dm in particular).

Piano

So starting group piano lessons tonight. I have no idea what to expect and I have no goals or agendas for the experience. I'm not sure that I've ever taken a class or lesson on an instrument when I really didn't care if I ever actually learned to play it...it was just for fun and basic background info. It's kinda weird.

I admit, though, that it has crossed my mind that if it goes well I might whip out the Casio and steal the "Motorway to Roswell" outro (at 4:07 in video below) from RS after my bass line ends. Or play the organ breakdown in Bam Thwok (at 1:23 in video below...though I kinda love CT playing it on tap guitar).

TD High Noon 1/30/2014

We opened for My God the Heat and Red Tape Diaries.  Attendance was sparse at first, but there was a decent crowd by the time we were finishing our set. It was a little snowy out.

I was having a bad day because Walter McBunn got a bad diagnosis. Left for the show stupid early around 7:30pm so I could set up slowly and in peace. There were like 3 people plus the bartender in the venue when I arrived and one of them managed to harass me. I still don't get what his deal was. He said hi to me like 3 times and I said hi back each time and then he got all bad attitude and said hi a 4th time and I was just like "I believe I've already said hi to you several times." I think he was a friend of AS and drunk.  It just sort of amazes me how, no matter how hard I try to keep to myself, annoying jerky people manage to make a scene. That said, both bartenders and the sound guy and the door guy were all super nice and I've kind of decided to go out of my way to be nice to those kinds of people and interact with them more so that in passing.

Anyway, I played for shit. I mean, not my worst show but by no means my best. I was distracted and I'm not well practiced (though I ran set 3 times the week before the show, so was well-prepared ENOUGH). Messed a bunch of stuff up. I wore ear plugs and the mix was a little weird...my bass drum was SO LOUD in the monitor even after he turned it down. It wasn't even that it was loud, it was just so boomy...I could feel the vibrations and it was so fuzzy and ill-defined. It kind of drowned out everything else. Like everything else was perfectly balanced and then there was this BOOM over the entire thing. It was weird. Anyway, threw me off a little bit. I also was thinking too much, almost freaked myself out a few times ("what if I loose the beat here? Ah! Stop thinking, stop thinking, stop thinking..."). Missed some transitions (I need to count the verse in KUKU), rolls were shitty (though not the worst ever), was hitting the rim alot on snare. The boys said they didn't notice. It's good to know that my mistakes are my own, though, and can't be contributed to alcohol. I do miss the relaxing brain rest effect though. I wasn't nervous last night...just really, really AWARE. Too much so.

Had dinner, and then a slice of pizza with one of my free drink tix (gave the rest to the boys) around 8pm.

Setlist:
Some Delirium
Goin Down the Drain
Hold U Under
Gun in Your Grave
At the Door
Gotta Tell U
Jack
HSUL
KUKU
Vacuum Man

CJ, 1/25/2014 Mickey's

We played two sets. German Art Students opened.

I got distracted by an unwanted work text right before load in, and in a strange way I think it killed my nerves and replaced them with anger. Consequently, I played one of the better shows of my life and wasn't freaked out really at all (even though this was only my 3rd sober show & the 1st cj one). I also played with no notes at all for the first time ever, though I had lyrics sitting on my amp for White and Gigantic for if I totally brain farted (didn't need them). Think I finally figured out the right tone/volume balance for the red bass (with and without pick). It sounded good. Used my mic stand bottle holder for water and that was awesome.

The band played pretty well. Tuning was an issue due to cold. CT nearly knocked his amp off the bench during Vamos...which sounded awesome but was a little scary.

It was a medium-small crowd due to low temps, snow, and lots of other stuff happening the same night, but they were enthusiastic. A dude with an "EP-1" t-shirt chatted me up after the show for a long ass time. We definitely have people who are "fans" now that we don't know but who come to all the shows and say moonie-eyed things to us after the gig. I probably had at least 6 people say something to me. It's weird...but I made a point of saying an enthusiastic (un-qualified) "thanks" to each and every one.

Set One:
Caribou
Bone Machine
Break My Body
I Bleed
Allison
U Mass
Ed
La La Love
Holiday
Into the White
Blown Away
Dead
Monkey
Velvety
#13
Cactus
Lovely Day
Here Comes
Vamos

Set Two:
Debaser
Isla
CJ
Broken Face
Down to the Well
Manta Ray
Dig for Fire
Wave (fast)
Letter to Memphis
Bird Dream
Subbacultcha
River E
Hey
Gigantic
Winterlong
Nimrod
Where
Tame
Something Against You
Gouge Away

The Next Level

I've been trying to think of ways to take my playing "to the next level." I've been trying to memorize more difficult songs (it is slow going) as part of this effort. But this week I started trying not to look at my left hand when playing bass. I didn't realize how much I look at it. It's hard to play and not look at it. There's a sweet spot between looking at the music too much (solved my memorizing) and looking at your hand too much (ok sometimes, but best not to be a crutch). I find that in certain live performance situations you can't see the dots on your fingerboard...and you can't see your notes or sheet music. So getting away as much as possible from either thing is a big confidence booster. Plus, if you aren't focusing on those things you can focus on other stuff...like phrasing or dynamics or right hand technique. I'm splitting my time on bass now between playing with a pick (Pixies) and playing without (ska). It has been a real challenge to learn how to stop strings from vibrating when playing with a pick and also to cross strings and also to decide "picking direction" (like bowing or sticking...when to do up strokes and when to do down and when to alternate).  Anyway...there's a lot going on lately.

I've also been starting to go back and listen to the original versions of songs that I've been playing for years now to find things that I missed the first time around. Extra vocal harmonies or inflections...grace notes...or things I just flat out got wrong the first time around. That's slow going too...but rewarding to add something new to a song I've been playing forever. Cases in point:

Added a slide pickup from 9th fret to 4th fret right before the last chorus (just after the bridge) in Rascal King (2:38 to 2:41 in video below)


Added backing vocals on the chorus in No 13 Baby (starts 0:34 in video below)


Working to add the breath noise between the first and second verses in Subbacultcha (hard to hear but at 0:38-0:41 in video below)