25 years ago today
Came home a bit tired and took a longish nap. There’s some big festival happening on Wells street featuring loud and bad rock bands. This eliminates the possibility of getting some recording done at home this weekend.
Saturday, 8 September 2001
16.40: Early morning rehearsal today. Things are starting to really come together on the Christmas CD music. A glimpse into the extra musicians who will be playing with us (flutes and trumpets) and an overview of next week’s recording schedule.
Sunday, 17 August 2003
Pretty good DiC rehearsal given the long layoff, although it didn’t quite satisfy that need to play well that I’ve been feeling.
My middle finger is badly caloused after not playing bass like this for so long.
The best that Billy has sounded to date, although Beauty Sleep continues to be a mess. When we hit 21 originals, this, I think will be the first to go. It’s a good idea, but the song just doesn’t work for me.
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.
Sunday, 16 January 2011.
Got a bunch of lyrics done on “You Took My Photograph” but I’m not done. Pulling out the rhyming dictionary has helped a bit. I’m actually finding it to be more of a book to creativity than I would have guessed. I do find myself wanting to rhyme “days” with “protease.”
Saturday, 15 January 2011.
Nailed down the music for “You Took My Photograph.” I had some really nice ideas that came to me while falling asleep last night, but I lost them. I did remember some Gospel-esque chord progressions which I did manage to approximate while working on the song. There’s a nice shift between G and Bb in the tonality of the song.
Tuesday, 11 January 2011.
Nobody played their songs at this week’s songwriting class. I guess it was a case of terminal shyness. Next week, I don’t care: I’m playing my damn song. This week’s song wasn’t so good, but I have some ideas for where to go with next week’s song and I think it’s going to be pretty good, close to a keeper (especially if, as I hope, I can get some feedback on the song).