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I have been suffering from burnout. Trying to get a regular musical thing going in third country has not been easy. Most French audiences want more songs in French than I can currently manage; I have less time to practice; there are fewer places to gig; French muscial culture is more professionally oriented than ether the US or the UK, etc. So I hung up my spurs for a year.
This year, I’m trying again. I have a good friend, Fred Liebert, who plays excellent bass whether its electric or bull fiddle, and another newer friend, Barbara who plays violin (not fiddle – yet). They are both busy as professional players and music teachers, but have agreed to try doing a trio with me. It’ll be a group effort, not just a solo thing with sidemen.
I’m dropping any pretense at an effort to bring in an audience by singing any French songs. It’ll be music from anglophone countries exclusively. But this will include fiddle tunes, rock instrumentals, Jazz, and even a little light classical – if I can manage it.
So far (after one meeting) our repertoire is St. James Infirmary, Nights in Whate Satin, Little Sunflower (Freddie Hubbard), and Contemplation (McCoy Tyner).
Given that I’ll be holding down the middle, I’ve decided positively to pick up the guitar and play it a lot more.
I busted out my SCGC custom (42 Bluegrass D) a couple weeks ago, changed the strings, and started strumming.
[“Busted out” as in ‘broke it out of jail,’ I suppose. 😉 ] I wanted just to get my hands and body used to guitar again, but I was instantly reminded why I bought this guitar in the first place 22 years ago. [That long?] So rich and full. And a pleasure to hear and play. Makes me wonder why I stopped.I have been ‘storing’ it in its case in the living room since. [Claudine hasn’t complained yet. She’s awesome. … And her Martin D-16 is standing in its case in the office. 🙂 ]
I played for a couple hours yesterday. I went through some of my repertoire and some songs I used to play yeeeeaaars ago. I enjoyed making that Adirondack spruce top move.
I don’t think I’ll ever be as good on guitar as I am on mandolin, but I have yet to gig with a guitar player whose rhythm playing I prefer to my own. So, needs must. Happily so.
We’ll see how this goes, I suppose.
Stay safe everyone!
Daniel
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mmm.
OK well first meeting/jam/rehearsal is in Cuissy et Geny, about 30 miles into the back country at Fred’s house on Thursday the 3rd of October. All three of us will be there and we have about 3 hours to decide what to do. 🙂[Here’s what I think about in the car on the way to Fred’s house quite a bit…
[Cuissy et Geny is just the other side (south of us) of the 3 year front line between French and German forces during WW1. The line fell on a road called Le Chemin des Dames, named in the 1600’s for King Louis’s two daughters who used the road to travel betwen Paris and Reims visit one of their mothers on a regular basis. The site was also a battlefield in the Napoleonic wars in 1814 between a resurgent Napoleon and a Prussian led coalition. Napoleon won the battle, but lost the next one a few weeks later here in Laon. (He just didn’t have enough men, and the Prussians didn’t fall for the ruse when Napoloen had one of his generals attack the Prussian position from the east -several kilometers away from the main conflict on the south side of the Laon plateau.)
[I pass through all of this on my way there. It’s maybe like living in Gettysburg…]
I haven’t backed off the guitar at all. I’ve been picking it up as often as possible, and oddly I got out my Gary Vessel mandolin today too. I was just as nice to revisit as the dread.
But I’ll tell you, said the preacher to the choir, the SCGC sounds just so amazing. I’ve been doing Jimmy Page material like “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”. And this guitar just says, “hit me harder!” It’s so satisfying to really push this beast. The strings are only two weeks old, and it’s getting time to change them. 🙂
Oh, and if anyone is interested in negotiating a price for my Rainsong OM-1000… It’ll be going on the block. 😉
Salut! from L’Aisne,
Daniel -
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