Sunday, December 24, 2006

Notorious non-percussionist bangs on stuff, film @ 11

There's been a percussion theme to the past few days.

I've been working on "Test Pilot's Lament", one of the songs I'm about to record. In it, percussion on an autoharp will take the place of rhythm guitar. The wooden handle of the autoharp's tuning crank turned out to be great for hitting several strings at a time and I'm practicing this. For a notorious non-percussionist, even a sequence of even eighth notes can be a challenge so I'm working on it with a metronome.

Also last evening I accompanied Celeste to the Musical Nightmare Before Christmas at the Starry Plough, organized by Suki and Lucio (whom I overheard referred to by someone in the crowd who I guess couldn't remember or pronounce his last name, as "Lucio Megatron"). There was lots to listen to including Lumper/Splitter's emergency guitar surgery and a solo set by notorious non-metronome Moe! Staiano. I was close enough that I was hit by flying shrapnel. It was awesome.

The memory of that experience came with me to my classical flute gig this morning, in which I was directed to play finger cymbals and claves in a couple of pieces instead of the flute. During rehearsal I made sure to play them in ways I wasn't supposed to, in honor of Moe!. But I play often enough with those classical people that they now expect me to act out in new music ways and it's hard to shock them anymore.

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