25 years ago today
Friday, 19 October 2001
While walking from the “L” towards my parents’ place, I played with some melodic ideas for “In paradisum”. It was a bit complicated by my not having the lyrics handy. I also found myself singing a syncopated version of the melodic line of “From East to West” which could turn into a new song. I should try and find a collection of Gregorian chant transcriptions to see if it can be mined for melodic ideas.
Thursday, 8 November 2001
Got to hear the Christmas CD today. It’s come together quite nicely.
Finished chapter one in the Italian book in preparation for the tour next year.
Tuesday, 13 October 2026.
Forgot to write an entry Sunday after playing at Mass. We were a bit scattered and there were a few pieces that felt like they would be trainwrecks during Mass that narrowly missed or did derail, but overall, it was not too bad.
NP: “Bass Blues,” John Coltrane, Traneing In.
Sunday, 27 September 2026.
It feels like more than a month since I’ve played at St Giles, but according to my diary entry it’s not. Played really well this morning, although the closing song mysteriously got a different rhythm on guitar than it had in rehearsal which forced me into a different bassline style than I had prepped during rehearsal.
NP: “Swannee Tunnel / Steel-Driving Man,” Silkroad Ensemble & Rhiannon Giddens, American Railroad.
Friday, 25 September 2026.
Played tonight for the parish’s gay ministry annual blessing ceremony. It felt a bit less of a big deal this year than in the past. I think the first one two years ago was probably the best as it was really kind of a historic occasion being the first sanctioned blessing of gay relationships in the modern church history. Music-wise it was occasionally a trainwreck at least around endings, but overall good enough, Kind of fun to play some secular music in public once in a while.
Sunday, 23 August 2026.
St Giles FMC mass this morning. Did a reasonably good job on the bass parts, although there were a few things I felt were subpar. The communion song was too short so we had an instrumental verse which I took the melody on. The guitar player said afterwards that he liked how it sounded.
The alto sax player who’s been at the FMC masses with the men’s choir before was there and I noted he had his hand-transcribed leadsheets with the transpositions in place and I was reminded of the old days playing at St Michael’s where we never did anything in the written key and I got really good at sight-transposing things, even complex piano parts. I can still do up and down a half-step, whole-step, minor third and fourth, and I’m still certain that major thirds and tritone transpositions are still outside my wheelhouse.
Wednesday, 19 August 2026.
I’ve done a bit more work on the site but no music. This post is mostly a test to make sure that a new feature for maintaining the diary is working correctly.
Tuesday, 18 August 2026.
After a long time, I’ve finally gotten around to fixing the code on this site so that the music diary can return! I’ve been largely quiescent, although I do occasionally play bass or piano for Masses at St Giles which is my main musical activity right now, although I’ve been thinking of doing a bit more music on occasion.
Friday, 20 September 2019.
And yet another long-delayed update. Went to a singing and playing get together that happens monthly here in Oak Park. I decided to take a bass since from the pictures on the Facebook group it looked like they had plenty of guitars and I took my double bass since I didn’t want to deal with an amp.
I was a bit rusty at first and discovered that I don’t seem to have any rosin anywhere I could find it so my bow was relatively useless, but as the evening proceeded, my playing improved. I feel like once a month is probably a good level of commitment for me to do something musical at this point in my life.
Tuesday, 19 June 2012.
A long-delayed return to music diarizing. I’m currently in Tampa for the residency of my Creative Writing MFA. I brought along my banjo and found a piano so I’ve been able to get in some practice on banjo, piano and voice while I’m here. The big things I’ve been working on have been a piano and voice arrangement of “Nuages”and working out a bit more of “I Found Jesus” which now has its melody and chords a bit more defined (It’s a I-vi-IV-V in Bb).
Sunday, 14 August 2011.
Second rehearsal of the gypsy jazz group. My endurance was a great deal better, although I was a bit behind in printing up charts. I’ll have to spend some time on this before the next rehearsal. I’m feeling pretty good about my playing, although I want to be spending more time practicing.
Monday, 8 August 2011.
A new musical project. I auditioned for and was accepted by a nascent gypsy jazz group as their bass player. My finger is a bit sore from that much pizz playing after so long away from the instrument. I also found myself fatiguing well before the audition was over with my fast walking parts hard to keep up to tempo. Fortunately, a lot of manouche bass is a somewhat less demanding root-five kind of line.