White Ripple Community Band August 22nd, 2016

Rich says this week we have songs guaranteed to dissatisfy everyone: folks who like Song 1 are bound to dislike Song 2 and vice versa. I say, why hate one or the other when you can hate both?*

Song 1: Two Princes, by The Spin Doctors. I didn't realize until I started to play this one how weird the cadences were. The chords were C, Am, G, and F ("50s chords," as Tom pointed out), but we found while playing that the song really starts more on the A minor chord than anything else. This unexpected-ness, that little bit of novelty, it must've contributed to its popularity. That and the scatting.

Song 2: Shenandoah by the very prolific Traditional. (Almost as prolific as Anonymous.) Here's Pete Seeger singing it off his excellent Smithsonian Folkways recording American Favorite Ballads volumes 1-5. If I know any verse of an American folk song, it's probably because I heard Pete Seeger sing it to me. If you get a chance to go to Simon's Tavern in Andersonville, check out the Steven Hashimoto Quartet/Quintet/Sex-Sept-Octet on Sunday nights sometime; it surprised me to hear a jazz band cover a folk song, and they do such a beautiful job with it.

 

White Ripple Community Band (along with a whole bunch of other open-miccers) is playing at Susan and Wanda's wedding this Saturday at Tinker's Attic. We've been practicing and are looking forward to sharing in their happy day with all of our friends.



*I'm partial to Song 2 but I like both just peachy.

White Ripple Community Band August 15th, 2016: Little, Big, Yellow, Wonderful

I made a really amateurish mistake in one of the videos I posted to YouTube earlier this week; namely, I mistook up from down on the neck of the banjo. (That's probably why Romeo Katt was yelling at me.) My only excuse is that someone replaced my perfectly functioning brain with scrambled eggs this week. Scrambled eggs are delicious, but they don't exactly fire on all cylinders.

So here's a picture I made for myself demonstrating the difference. It's not exactly what you'd call drawing but it gets the basic idea across:

 

 

 

 

Song 1: Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell. In 2007, Joni changed the line from a dollar and a half just to see 'em to an arm and a leg just to see 'em to keep up with inflation.

 

 

 

Song 2: Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton. Written for Pattie Boyd. If you get a chance, check out Boyd's biography Wonderful Tonight, which is the thing to read if you want to experience swinging 60's London through the eyes of a genuine It Girl. The book includes a photo of a rather intense looking Eric Clapton in the pursuit of his best friend's wife, which is great if you're as much of a fan of awkward moments as I am.

 

 

 

Song 3: Little Brown Jug, written by Joseph Winner and played here by the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Probably the happiest song about alcoholism you'll ever hope to hear. I got so caught up in the 'ha ha ha's' and 'ho ho hee's' that I had absolutely no idea which verse we were on... which then made it awkward when Rich suddenly yelled, "Mary, you're up!" and I had no idea where we were. But I'm a fan of awkward moments, as you now know.

 



President Obama's Summer Playlist

Even the president's summer playlist is impeccable. I listened to it on last week's WHAM Ride and loved it, although I thought the Night playlist was a bit too mellow to get my blood pumping (hardly its fault, really).

Take a listen on Spotify as we wind summer to a close.

 

Part 1: Daytime

Part 2: Nighttime

 

Wonderful Tonight banjo melody notes on the banjo, take 2

Still a bit of Romeo Katt in this video, but not enough to hurt. Just don't let him sit on you-- the dude weighs something like 15 pounds. Anyway. Enjoy!

Wonderful Tonight banjo melody notes, now with cats!

I tried to make a video of myself playing the melody notes to Wonderful Tonight, but then all of a sudden my cat Romeo decided that he needed some extra attention. So here he is, in all his dorky glory. Take one...

White Ripple Community Band August 8th, 2016: The Fabulous (Frightened) Fifties

Hi folks, in our last class we took a look at one chord progression and how it was used in three different hits from the 1950s.

Here it is: the I, vim, IV, V  chord progression. In the key of C, which is the key we used in all three songs, the I chord is C. From there we count up six places-- C, D, E, F, G, A. Since it's a sixth up from the root, we know it's going to be a minor chord, so A minor it is. (More music theory stuff you can ask us about in class.) All that's left is F, our IV chord, and G, our V chord.

 

Here you are, the Fifties in four chords:

C, Am, F, G

 

 

These are the three songs we played:

 

Song 1: Earth Angel, by The Penguins. We got lots of practice with 12/8 time on this one.

 

 

 

 

Song 2: Runaround Sue, by Dion

 

 

 

 

Song 3: Why Do Fools Fall in Love, by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. I haven't heard it in ages, and I absolutely love it. Maybe it has something to do with the impossibly high vocals, I don't know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that's it! Hope to see some of you fine folks at the Second Saturday jam at the White Ripple Gallery or the Band 101 Ice Cream Social at my house this Wednesday. Have a great week!

 

p.s. One of my favorite songs from the 1950s does not have the above mentioned chord progression, but gosh it sure is pretty. 



 



White Ripple Community Band-- August 1st, 2016

Hi folks! This week we continued our study of verse and chorus (more Moose and Squirrel!) with two classic songs:

Song 1-- Another Saturday Night, by Sam Cooke. We got some good singing out of this one, with Cindy, Sherry, and Alan doing the verses and all of us coming in on the chorus.

Song 2-- Lay Down Sally by Eric Clapton. I agree with Rich when he said the title is the song. I like the third verse, but the other two are interchangeable for me, but then everything snaps into focus when we all belt out the chorus like we do.

Upcoming fun things--

White Ripple Community Band will be playing at the gallery's Second Saturday event on August 13th. Kathy Los-Rathburn is having a moving sale that day, and I'm going to miss having her watercolors to look at each month. I love the way Kathy mixes nature and industry-- she paints all facets of Chicago... and Indiana, for that matter.

Band 101 ice cream social is happening August 17th! Band 101 is our once-a-month version of what we do at the White Ripple Art Gallery, only not at the gallery, but at my house. This month the Band 101 price of admission is ice cream and/or ice cream accessories. I'll have non-dairy ice cream options (hooray for nut milk), and Rich and I will run through a set of songs we can perform at the Game/Jam/Potluck Night the following evening at the Hammond Innovation Center. Rhythm instruments are available to folks who don't have anything to play.

It's always a good time showing off what we did the night before. Hope you can make it!