Thursday, March 31, 2016

White Ripple Community Band March 28th, 2016

Rich was away this week visiting his folks, so it was just little ol' me in charge last night. It'll take him years to undo the damage.

Song 1: Wagon Wheel, covered by just about everybody. Here's Darius Rucker putting in his two cents.



Aside: I love how this song stirs up such passionate feeling. People either love it or hate it. Most musicians hate it because it's been done to death... and yet the same five songs break out in any jam, whether it's Soldier's Joy, June Apple or Sweet Home Chicago. I am puzzled as to why it's so beloved but I don't mind it, that's because I'm saving my hatred for Achy Breaky Heart. God, I hated that song-- they played it every 15 minutes at the restaurant I worked at in college. And then he went and spawned Miley and gave us another decade of misery.


Song 2: Good Time Tonight by Big Bill Broonzy. I was first introduced to this song by the excellent Pickin' Bubs out of Chicago-- Monday's version is closer to the Big Bill version.


As you saw, I had quite a time getting my versions straight! But we got to learn a fun tune while we tried the blues chord progression again, this time in the key of D.

Next week is the closest we'll ever come to mandatory, as it's the last class before our free concert at the Hammond Public Library. Class members, have your song suggestions ready so we can construct a set list! See you Monday.

Monday, March 28, 2016

White Ripple Community Band March 21st, 2016

Last week we covered What I Say by Ray Charles, a great example of blues in the key of A:

 
 
 
We talked a bit about chord progressions in the last blog entry so you can visit that if you're curious. In the key of A, A is the I chord, or our home base. D is the IV chord, or 4 steps up from A. E is the V chord, or five steps above A, our home base I chord.

Basic blues chord progression
I     I      I     I
IV  IV   I     I
V   IV    I    I

Once you know the progression and you know the I chord-- Viola! -- you just unlocked the secret to about eight gazillion blues songs. It's not the only blues chord progression-- there are fancier ones with more bells and whistles-- but this is the blues at its heart and it sounds great. We're going to talk about adding a few more frills to the blues in tonight's class.

And then after class, Angela Leimer stopped by the gallery to take our picture. We're going to do a free concert at the Hammond Public Library as part of National Library Week (that's why the books). The concert will in the library's Community Room on Monday, April 11th. The show starts at 7 p.m. Bring your friends! 

        
Angela is available for hire for all your photography needs-- message her on Facebook if you wish to hire her, and please do. We are posing in front of Dawn Diamantopoulos's paintings. She is the featured artist through April at the White Ripple Gallery. I hope you get a chance to see her work, either during the gallery's open hours or at their monthly Second Saturday event.


Wednesday, March 16, 2016

White Ripple Community Band March 14th, 2016

aka: Fun times with the I, VII, IV chord progression

Monday night we practiced three songs in three different keys that use the same chord progression.

Sweet Home Alabama in A

Rock'n Me in E

Fortunate Son in D

Rich created a handy-dandy cheat sheet charting the chord progressions for the three different songs.

So if A is our I chord, our "home base," then seven steps above A is G, our VII chord. One step below A is also G. Four up from A is D, our IV chord. Five below A is also D, and so on. The cool thing is, once you know the chord progression, that you can change keys to better match your voice.
Monday was so fun. I got to be between a clarinet and a violin doing some sweet resonant note groove thing during Rock'n Me, which, once you get into, is the sort of thing you don't want to get out of.

And we've got our first concert outside the gallery! We're going to play the Hammond Public Library on Monday, April 11th to celebrate National Library Week. More invites and promotion is a-comin'...

Saturday, March 12, 2016

That was the week that was-- WRCB and Songwriting

Hi folks, I came down with the sniffles last week so I don't remember much of the past seven days. Here are the highlights:

White Ripple Community Band covered Sloop John B on Monday. Long associated with The Beach Boys as a way to sell Pet Sounds to a reluctant record company, Sloop John B is actually a traditional song from the Bahamas. We worked on rhythm, chords, and melody within the E scale.




In Songwriting, we covered the evolution of a tune Rich wrote called "The Weakling Blues" and all the little changes that are made along the way. The beauty of a song is, it's your tune! If you're not a Beach Boy and not beholden to a record company to make Pet Sounds more palatable, you get to make all the changes you want.

Lastly, Mark shared with us his song "I've Gotten Rid of the Blues," from the song prompt of the same name a few weeks back. There was lots of singing and toe-tapping to wrap up the first session of 2016.

Next session's songwriting class starts Wednesday, March 16th at 7:30 p.m. There's still time to sign up through South Shore Art's website or by calling 219-836-1839 ext. 103.

Friday, March 4, 2016

Songwriting Class March 2nd, 2015

So last night Rich gave us an assignment: a movie producer walks in and says to you, the lyricist, "Quick, I need a song for my movie. It's called Paradise Ballroom and I need it in five minutes. Go!"

Much scribbling and cursing and crossing out later, all six of us had at least the verse. Tom had written the whole darn song! Mark's immediate mental picture was of the hotel in The Shining, and after that I couldn't get mazes out of my mind.

And you know, all of us, no matter what we'd written, all of us had done a better job than Graham Edge and Adrian Gurvitz, the original Paradise Ballroom lyricists. It was a bit of a mess.



So we don't spend a lot of time in class saying "this sucks," but there is a value in discussing why the best-intentioned song falls flat. It's hard to save your song when you have a line like this in the first verse:

Cause it's a pity if you're lettin' someone come and steal your wife
and he thinks she's still pretty


And speaking of wife stealing, we switched from bad songs to breakup songs and discussed Someday by Mariah Carey and Someday You'll Want Me to Want You, sung here by Patsy Cline, the queen of broken hearts. That led us to ask: what's your favorite breakup song? I Set Fire to the Rain, You Oughta Know and Free Fallin immediately came to mind.

For homework we're going to write a breakup song, the more painful the better. See you Wednesday!


(p.s. This is my favorite breakup song. Weird Al, call me.)
 
 


Wednesday, March 2, 2016

White Ripple Community Band February 29th, 2016

WRCB is always good, but Monday night, wow-- must've been the bongos. There's something about a hectic work day that makes playing music together all the sweeter.

Last time I teased a bit about the melody being in the scale. A scale is a set of musical notes arranged according to pitch. Monday we played songs in two different keys: C and G. Songs in the key of C use a C scale. Songs in the key of G use a G scale.

C scale: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C (octave)

G scale: G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G (octave)

The scale is where you will find your melody notes and really, you can start on any C or G and walk up or down your instrument until you hit the octave (except for saws, you can just slice them in half), but for simplicity's sake I mapped out suggested scales for guitar, banjo, and ukulele.

Here is the C scale.

Here is the G scale.

First we tried out our fancy C scale on last week's song, Jamaica Farewell. Here are the song's melody notes. Try practicing the C scale, then the Jamaica Farewell notes in relation to the scale.

(A small aside: people who can bust out the melody notes during a solo break are treated like gods and get all the chocolate and cute people they can fit on each arm. Just so you know. I can't do it, but I gaze at Mount Olympus, sigh wistfully and plot strategy.)

Next, we revisited a song from an earlier session, Clem Snide's Find Love in the key of G. I wrote more about the post here and it includes a sound clip.

Lastly, we ditched melody and scales and went to town on Hank William's I Saw the Light. That was so much fun! I find that I want to practice melodies and scales the more I get into music, and yet at the same time I feel really fortunate that my first music lessons as an adult didn't start with scales or else I would've died of sheer boredom. Starting with the song's chords, then unpacking that song, figuring out how it ticks and adding your own spin to it, that's been the key to keeping my interest.