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.

White Ripple Community Band, February 15th (aka The World's Longest Blog Post)

First off, I want to thank all WRC band members, current and former, for playing and singing and raising a sweet ruckus at last week's Second Saturday event, where there was wine tasting, Valentine photos and surrealism. What more could a community band ask for?

Monday's class was on President's Day, but we had nothing presidential on tap as it was also the day after Valentine's Day. We decided to do one sweet, one conflicted, and one just downright sad love song. Here goes...

Song #1: Your Love, written by Dixie Jones and performed by Common Thread. Just a wonderful, straight-up, no-holds-barred, you-are-the-bee's-knees-on-sliced-bread kind of love song. It's on the CD A Bushel and Peck, and it's got a sweet mix of traditional and original tunes, performed by people who really care about music. It's ten bucks well spent, and the song deserves to be heard more.

Guitar folks had an option for their Your Love solo break. Take the D shape, shown here...

...and move it up two frets.

(Up meaning towards body of the guitar.)

Doing that, and only striking the top three strings of the guitar, gives you an E chord. Move that shape up five more frets, strike only the top three strings, and you have an A chord.

In conclusion:

D shape, second fret = D

D shape, fourth fret = E

D shape, ninth fret = A

And... viola! A,D, and E are the three chords you need to play Your Love. That A is a wee bit high, but it's nice to be able to play all the chords in the song without changing the shape of your fingers.

Song #2: If I'm Still in Love With You by Hank Williams. Linda Ronstadt's version is just beautiful.

This time the challenge was thrown down to the banjo players.

Strike the third string with your thumb:  3

Strike the second string with your index finger:  2

Strike the first string with your middle finger:  1

Strike the second string with your index finger:  2

3, 2, 1, 2. Do that over and over again until it's nice and smooth like banjo butter. (Ew.) Keep the same roll pattern and hold down C and D chords. You're picking while the rest of the band is strumming. It sounded really nice Monday night!

And finally...

Song #3: You Are My Sunshine by Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell. I copied the lyrics and chords from Rise Up Singing, which was in D, a key that managed to be exquisitely uncomfortable for all involved. Here is the song redone in G.

That's all for the world's longest blog post! Hopefully I'll see some of you fine folks at Hammond's 219 Day tomorrow, should be a good time. If not, Monday it is!