Enoch’s Thoughts

October 4, 2010

Downbeat takeoff, idea festival

Filed under: Uncategorized — etblog @ 8:53 pm

Downbeat takeoff

Yesterday I sat in as substitute bass player for a First church in a nearby town. The leader was a competent young man, obviously trained not only in music, but also in the mechanics of leading a band for a worship service. There were 10 pieces in the band, plus background vocals and a choir, a rather large weekly undertaking. It’s been a while since I played in that context, and a couple of things surprised me. The first was the level of organization. They use a planning web site which includes a complete timetable and an event list for the entire program. The song titles in the list were actually links to a content collection. The collection included an mp3 of the song, and PDF files of all of the arrangements for all parts – keys, guitars, drums and percussion, horns, background vocals, lead sheet, and a complete conductor’s score. No more scratching guitar chords out on a legal pad, or arranging on the fly.

The second thing that amazed me was the level of technology on stage. I sat near the leader’s left hand, with my own digital monitor console to the left, a Bass Floor Pod between my feet, headphones on my head, and an electronic pad displaying the music on a stand in front of me. I was surrounded by sliders, knobs, buttons, and glowing red lights everywhere. There were wireless mikes and in-ear monitors, remote controls and heads-up displays. I felt like a pilot trying to fly a bass guitar.

It all went surprisingly well. I think we made some pretty good music, and I never had to make an emergency landing, although I did have to depend on the autopilot a couple of times.

Idea Festival Redux

In 2004 I attended the third bi-annual Idea Festival in Lexington, KY. It was a fun and intellectually stimulating trip. When I returned, I captured my 100+ pages of notes in a web site that still occasionally comes in handy for personal inspiration. Last Tuesday night my friend Trey loaned me a book he had bought after reading about it on my site. The book is called Extraordinary Knowing, and I’m pretty sure I will have more to say about it when I finish reading. Meanwhile, Trey’s loaning it to me reminded me of the Festival, so I thought I would mention it here. My notes from the festival are at http://iideaco.com/if2004. I was experimenting with web page formatting at the time, so it’s a bit of an odd format. But I think there’s still some cool stuff there for the patient seeker. For a little hint about the book Trey loaned me, see the Saturday entry labeled “The Unconscious, the Uncanny and Coincidence !!”

And if you are at all interested in music, recording, the Beatles, or EMI, don’t miss the George Martin notes. In between the blather of my usual loquacious style are some interesting and fun facts.

I have often been tempted to return to the Idea Festival, which is now held in Louisville. Turns out I just missed this year’s – it ended October 2. Maybe in 2012. Anybody game?

A different gig

It’s now late Monday night, and I meant to finish this posting this morning, but various and sundry events took priority. I just got home from a gig that was the antithesis of the Sunday morning gig. Three-fifths of One Tree Hill played at the Peachtree-Pine homeless shelter this evening. (We were missing Bryan and Coby on lead guitar and drums, respectively.) We’ve played there three or four times over the years, and it’s always hard for me to warm up to this gig. The load-in is uncomfortable, there are about 300 homeless guys just sitting around, and lots of (rightfully) suspicious security-type people there managing to maintain order. Sometimes (like tonight) a church will bring food for the guys; other times they just sit. It’s culturally uncomfortable, and the normal difficulties of trying to set up a sound system were amplified (no pun intended) by the darkness, both literal and metaphorical.

But once we got set up and started playing it was a blessed experience, and that is not a term I use lightly. Unlike most of our audiences, the guys had helped us unload the trailer and schlep in the gear, watched us plug in all the wires, go through sound check, troubleshoot the feedback, and then they sat and listened to Patrick’s story and our music. So they have a pretty good picture of the effort we exert to be there. And they seemed to really appreciate it. They clapped, sometimes shouted encouragement, and many of them came up afterwards to thank us.

I always leave tired but energized. Night all.

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