Recruiting for a 6-piece rock band!

[Briallan]

We have discussed forming “a band” of Courserrim folks for several weeks now. One issue for “a band” is that you need to match the musical arrangements to the size and instrument mix of the band that is performing that music.

My vision for the future is that the Courserrim who are interested in the music scene will play a variety of music in various size groups, which might include folk/traditional music, classical music, rock music, whatever. I’m planning on doing some arrangements of traditional music (e.g., 18^th and 19^th Century), though I haven’t gotten very far with that yet. Siltharan has been arranging video-game music, though I don’t think he has yet determined the final set of parts/instruments he plans on using.

However, what I have been doing in the meantime is some arrangements of rock-oriented music for a 6-piece band, and I think that it’s far enough along to start performing it. My dropbox site has examples of the type of stuff I would expect to be playing for the first few concerts (most is already arranged for a 6-piece band, but there are a few arrangements for 5 or 7 instruments). If you are interested in seeing what the sound is like, you can play these arrangements with Digero's ABC player.

I'm thinking that the prime time for band activities would be in the range of 9PM to 1030PM server time (East Coast US time), since from my experience, this seems to be time of day that would work for the largest number of people. However, if you want to participate, but this is bad time for you, let me know, and maybe we can adjust the schedule.

I would expect a “concert” to consist of:

1. a  run-though of a set of 6-7 songs at some private location in the Bree homesteads, to make sure everyone is present with the right instruments, and knows which parts to play, followed by
2. the actual performance of that set at some location in Bree (e.g., the Prancing Pony, the Crafting Hall, etc)

I would expect the run-through and performance to take about 1½ hours from start to finish. Earlier concerts might take longer, since we will probably need to work out issues, and later concerts would take less time. The particular days we would do concerts would depend on the availability of band members, once we form the band.

Consequently, I am looking for people who would be interested in doing this sort of activity on several occasions over the next month or so – after that, we can decide what to do next. I need characters to fill each of the following six positions:

• drummer – you would  play drum on all songs; you need drum skill and a drum; if you are not a minstrel, you can get trained in the drum by a minstrel lf you are level 10 or higher.
• theorbo player – you would play theorbo on all songs; you need theorbo skill and a theorbo; if you are not a minstrel, you can get trained in the drum by a minstrel lf you are level 15 or higher
• Lute, flute, and clarinet or horn player – you would need the skill in the lute, the flute and ONE of the other two instruments. Note that EVERYONE has skill in lute and in either clarinet or horn at level 1, so if you are not a minstrel, you would only need to acquire the flute skill by getting training from a minstrel. You can play the flute at level 1.
• 3 multi-instrumentalists – you would play most or all instruments at some point; you need to be trained in (and have) all instruments EXCEPT cowbell and moor cowbell. Most likely, such people would be minstrels of level 25 or higher (you need to be lvl 25 since that’s the minimum level to play bagpipe)

If you don’t meet one of the above criteria, but would like to play in this band, please let me know, since I might consider adding additional parts as long as I can get the six core positions filled.

If we can get multiple people for some positions, that would be great; we could rotate personnel, and it would make it easier to schedule concert dates.

If you are interested, please do one of the following:

• Reply on this thread
• PM me (via this Guildlaunch site)
• Mail me at crtrvn@gmail.com
• Chat with me at the upcoming band meetup this Sunday (it's on the Calendar)

 

[Siltharan]

Briallan,

Thanks for typing this up for us. Here are my thoughts regarding the "concerts": The first step of a run-through will be helpful in dealing with new band members, but if we make a list of characters and their available instruments, we could probably swap out song sets relatively easily. I'm sure a database may be helpful in the future to assist with that. That way, if we're through our first couple concerts with mostly the same members, we won't have to do much pre-planning. I think it would be best to work with concert setlists in the forum ahead of time, if we get sure RSVPs and backups (once we grow large enough), too.

[Briallan]

Yeah, I've spent a lot time thinking about stuff like that, too! I agree with most or maybe all of your points, but I'll just add a few more of my thoughts:

Over the past few days, I've been struggling between the ideas of "screw the planning, let's just go out and play music" and "if we don't organize this down to the last detail, it'll end up a complete mess."

My first thought was I could use a spreadsheet to keep track of who played what on which song, but then you get into the issues of, well, it's not just what part but what instrument, so a database is really what you need. But then what if the arranger renumbers or adds song parts and the database is now out of date -- would the ABC and its metadata have to be in the database, so that you can keep the ABC in sync with the data about who plays what part on that song?

I'm afraid that even if we organize the hell out of it, we will still have situations like "oh, I've always played part 3 on that song and I didn't think to check to see if that had changed," or someone who had definitely said they would be at the concert just unfortunately forgot about it.

So I think we need some sort of pre-concert run-through, or we will have too many occasions where the concert doesn't go as planned. However, the run-through wouldn't necessarily have to play all the songs from start to end -- by the time all the instruments come in on a song, the concert organizer should know if everyone is there and is playing the right part with the right instrument, so we might be able to do a run-through of a 7-song set in maybe 5-10 minutes -- it would be a lot quicker than the concert itself.

[Siltharan]

Another thing I discovered last night: If you make changes to a Dropbox folder after posting a link to it, the link still points to the folder as it was -at the time it was shared-. So if we make changes to our folders, we need to update links, too.

And yes, I do think only a few minutes would be necessary to achieve concert readiness, once everyone agrees on parts and whatnot. :)

[Briallan]

Ah, didn't know that either. From now on, when I add stuff to my dropbox, I'll update the link in the initial post of the Songlist thread.

[Aldynwe]

AHA! I can finally join the band and actually be able to do something! Can I play the theorbo? I'm a guardian, so I'm not sure if Aldy can learn it, but that's definitely my first choice. 

[Siltharan]

Aldy,

We'd love to have you! All classes can learn instruments, you just have to find a minstrel able to teach you after their mentoring cooldown has expired.

Siltharan

[Aldynwe]

Awesome. Next time I'm on, I can come over here and ask around. Unless, of course, we can still use the coursera chat box in-game. Is the ABC file thing the same on Macs as it is on PCs?

[Ice Weasel]

I don't know how current this is, but here is a link to Mac Music Client stuff on LOTRO-Wiki: http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Mac_Client_-_Music_work-around

A friend who uses a Macbook says this article is great, in general: http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Mac_Client_File_Locations

 

[Briallan]

Also, Aldy, the coursera chat channel is definitely still in use, so I would try there first when hunting for a minstrel to train you.

There is also a music forum topic for matching minstrels with people seeking instrument training, so you might try posting there as well: http://courserrim.guildlaunch.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9756649&gid=345552