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It’s been soooo long since I blogged, but I really haven’t had the time in the last few weeks.
Some time ago we had a drummer standing in for ours as he had a wrist injury. The stand-in drummer had started his own band early last year, so I gave him the old, "If you ever need a keyboard player…"
I need to start earning a bit more money, and it’s either find a second band or get a "proper job" (as my dad always put it) of some description. Obviously playing music is what I love and what I am good at, so even if it was a rubbish band it would still be better than working in an office again. So anyway, our stand-in drummer put it to his band, one or two I think were sceptical, but they eventually decided to give it a try and invited me over for an audition. I had to learn 6 songs in a week. Now I’m sure guitarists, drummers and bass players could easily do that in a day, but it can be quite time consuming programming sounds on the keyboard, at least it can the way I do it. I like to recreate the record as comprehensively as possible, and have in the past had to create such sounds as Russian zither, Tibetan bells, Mongolian nose-flute, as well as the more regular piano, organ, strings, brass, percussion, various types of guitar, and so on and so on. I’ve even sampled my dad’s trumpet, and my mum singing "Ahhh" (have used her Ahhh’s on two songs now). It’s great fun, it really is, but it has to be done properly. Preset sounds on synthesisers are never quite "right", never the same as the brass section on the particular song you are doing, or whatever. Anyway, I digress…
After a week of doing nothing else but fiddling with sounds, working out chords, melodies and counterpoint, and trying to remember it all, I was reasonably happy with everything, which was good, because the day had come…
They loved me. I’d seen the band once before and they really did sound better with some keyboards filling it all out, and they all said so, one or two quite surprised I think. They are much more rock orientated than my current band, but have been using a sequencer (rather feebly) so do plenty of songs that require lots of lovely sounds, as well as lots of songs in which I have to imitate a rock guitarist. Fortunately my keyboard is pretty good at that, it even has a valve, just like a proper guitar amp.
I thought they’d give me a month or two before gigging with them, as they are already up and running "adequately" without keyboards, but they liked me so much they want me to do their next gig… on Saturday. Gulp!
So I’ve had two weeks to learn 28 songs, including the six I did for the audition.
My head is spinning with power chords, screaming vocals, and weird and wonderful keyboard sounds. I have breathed, eaten and slept, and not slept, nothing but rock music for a fortnight. I am exhausted. But I’m sure it’ll be worth it, and I certainly don’t want to go onstage unprepared and make a fool of myself. I know it won’t be perfect, probably for a few gigs, but it will be close. We had one rehearsal last night, didn’t even have time to do all the songs, but I think it’ll be alright on the night. I have two more days now to tweak sounds (and have taken on another song to learn) and get it all imprinted into my brain. I am so tired, but so focused. It’s mad, but great.
I’m going to need a holiday after all this, which has worked out quite well because me and Gillian had just booked another jaunt to Jamaica when I got offered the job. Can’t believe my last blog was about my last trip, and in my next blog here I am telling you that I’m going back. Well, it’s extravagant I know, it’ll be the last for a while I’m sure, and it WAS very lovely and worth every penny. Ohhh, bring on the beach.
But first I’ve got 6 weeks of being an official Rock Chick.
Lock up your boyfriends!
xx
