Next Band Meetup / Future Concerts

[Briallan]

Our next regularly scheduled band meetup is this coming Sunday November 3. One reasonable thing to do for this and future band meetups would be to play some songs we are thinking of doing for concerts. Which leads to the issue of when our next concert will be and what music we will play.

There are a couple ways we could do this

1 - take turns organizing concerts. Organizer chooses songs, though subject to friendly critical review and suggestions by the rest of the band

2 - we  (that is, any band members who wants to participate) jointly plan concerts; we could do things like vote which songs we want to play, or each band member gets to choose 1, or 2 or whatever; might be overly burdensome to have to formally 'vote' on songs

3- we decide on themes (e.g., Beatles songs, video game songs) for each concert and jointly select music for that theme (much like we did for Halloween concert)

I have no strong preference for any particular method, and I'm sure there are other ways or organizing concerts I haven't thought of. I just think that if we have an actual plan before we meet up on Sunday,  we will be more likely to use our time wisely when we do meet.

[Siltharan]

The first method would probably work easiest so far, as we only have 3 or 4 "composers" working on various genres/types of music. Perhaps as the numbers in the band build, we might be able to work on something like #3 where we could get others more involved in song creation that might not be as addicted to it as we are. ;)

[Briallan]

OK, assuming for now that we go with plan 1, above, the other issue is what we do at meetups. I think it makes sense to basically continue on as we did at the last band meetup – playing new songs at the meetup and seeing if we agree that they are performance-ready. Once we have “enough” performance-ready work, we can do concerts at any time, selecting songs from that body of work. We could put all those songs on a separate dropbox, so that we only have to download from a single location before concerts – and this would also help us keep track of which songs we’d agreed were ready to play.

“Performance-ready” would mean generally that we agree that things sounds OK when we play it (e.g., melody isn’t too soft to hear, instruments appear to be appropriate to the parts they are playing). So the point of the band meetup is largely for the arranger to get feedback from the other band members. A second issue is that the song is actually do-able considering who’s in the band (for example, if it requires 5 flutes, and we don’t have 5 people who can play the flute, we can’t do that song without some changes).

So, what this would require is that band members who want to submit songs would the provide on the thread for the next meetup a list of songs and their location (usually, their dropbox, or maybe some other publicly-available site for songs not arranged by the band member themselves) sometime sufficiently ahead of the band meetup so that those attending can download them and refresh their songbooks. We would play as many songs as we can during the meetup, and any overflow we would get to next week. If we actually had a concert being planned for the upcoming week, we would give preference to any untested songs the planner wanted to use at that concert.

The person planning the concert plan could, at his/her option, organize it at the meetups, on the forums, or both, as appropriate. At the last meetup, we actually decided at the meetup who would play which parts, but if we keep Dend’s google spreadsheet (of who can play what instrument) up to date, then the concert planner could actually assign parts based on that spreadsheet.

Does this sound OK? Am I over-organizing this? J

 

[Siltharan]

Haha. I kind of like the ad-hoc nature of our planning, though more organization might help. I just don't want things to seem too complicated for others looking to join in. Do we even have any idea as to our next concert's theme, or will that be decided at the meeting? I have so many video game songs I could probably put on a full-length philharmonic type concert with them (i.e. hours :P)

[Briallan]

Yeah, I totally agree that it should not be too complicated -- though my goal is that the "organization" part will only affect the people who like to arrange music and plan concerts, and it will make it, if anything, easier for the people who just want to show up and play (e.g., the idea of having to download from only a single dropbox before concerts)

Anyway, this is just my mind spinning around as usual. I'm fine with ad-hoc planning if that's more fun for people.

As for next concert, I'm OK with a video-game theme -- I can have 3 or 4 game songs ready to test-play before Sunday's band meetup. If anyone has song preferences for next concert, you can either reply on this thread, or express your preferences at the next band meetup.

[Siltharan]

I just realized I don't have the Google docs spreadsheet that someone (Dendroc? I forget) made. I was going to think about songs and assignments for tomorrow and post a list.

[Ice Weasel]

Yep, Dend did the set list from the Halloween concert, with parts identified:

http://bit.ly/1iDzTp7

 Second page (tab on the bottom) is who can play what.

 

[Siltharan]

Thanks, Krohk. The second sheet in the file is what I was looking for, so I can try to put together assignments ahead of time. :)

[Siltharan]

If we go with the VG music theme, I'm curious as to whether we should limit to one game or series. I probably have enough songs for a small (4-6 song) concert on Final Fantasy 3 alone. Same (eventually, when I work on them more) for FF7. I don't want the concerts to become prohibitively long, but I suppose I could pick and choose this time around, then perhaps hold a larger more focused concert later on.

My initial thoughts, all from my Dropbox (see Songlist thread for link):

ff3battle.abc - Possibly, just a battle theme so it would just keep on repeating, no good "end" (at least in this ABC) - Redownload

ff3celesopera.abc - Same one we tried out in our initial meeting, but slightly changed - Redownload

ff3terra.abc - New file

ff3kefka.abc - Redownload

Those are my 4 best that I just ran through, could probably remove the battle clip and make it 3. :)

Set list (I tried to keep instruments relatively steady to avoid having to change. Tell me if I missed something!)

ff3celesopera

1 Lute- Brytford/Hobbelion

2 Harp- Dendroc

3 Theorbo- Siltharan

5 Clarinet- Briallan

15 Clarinet 2- Raventrick

6 Horn- Krohkur

 

ff3terra

1 Lute- Raventrick

3 Theorbo- Siltharan

4 Flute- Krohkur

6 Horn- Hobbelion/Brytford

7 Bagpipe- Dendroc

8 Drums- Briallan

 

ff3kefka

1 Lute- Hobbelion/Brytford

4 Flute- Krohkur

5 Clarinet- Raventrick

6 Horn- Siltharan

7 Bagpipe- Dendroc

8 Drums- Briallan

[Briallan]

I think it's a very interesting question you raise about audience expectations, and I think about it a lot!

I have quite limited info as to what LOTRO audience expectations are (we've had one concert, and I've watched maybe a half dozen put on by other bands). The only conclusion I've come to so far is that they like to be entertained :) My GUESS would be that connoisseurs (had to look THAT word up) of Final Fantasy series (had to look that up too) might appreciate the distinction of putting together a set based only on that game, but that most people would only care whether they liked the music or not.

Having said that, my instincts are often not correct -- when I selected Ghostbusters for the Halloween concert, I had never heard of it before (I selected it based on the title) and I was really surprised that everybody recognized it.

One thing I did think of is that, while we typically ignore fact that the music style we are playing isn't really consistent with the LOTR universe, it might be fun to do some concerts that are totally RP-friendly* (that is, play only music that seems like it might be heard in Middle Earth).

Anyway, maybe someone like Krohkur might have a more nuanced viewed of audience expectations.

* - would make an exception for playing Freebird on request at ANY concert, since that's sort of the joke :) More on Freebird in the next post...

[Briallan]

Here is my list of songs for test play tonite at the band meetup (we may not get to all of them depending on what other people have). They are all in the Test folder in my dropbox.

Assuming that we will do a video game theme at some point, all these songs are from various editions of Dance Dance Revolution except where noted. We can discuss future concerts plans tonite.

Breakdown

Butterfly

Butterfly2 (same song as above, different midi, different tempo)

Moonlight Shadow Techno (uptempo DDR version of the more familiar version)

My Summer Love

Odoru Pompokurin

Smoke on the Water (apparently they licensed this for the video game; probably doesn't really fit in as part of a "video game set," but it's an awesome song  -- we can discuss it further :)

Still Alive (not from DDR, but requested by Siltharan...)

Freebird (not from DDR, of course -- I found a midi where the piano converts more cleanly in Maestro than the previous midi I had)

[Briallan]

AGENDA for Band Meetup

November 3, Sunday 9PM EST

(see calendar for location and your local time for this event)

Welcome New Members

The Band is still (always?) recruiting! Most of our arrangements are for 5-6 parts, and we sort of struggle to field sufficient musicians at meetups/concerts. Anyone who has an interest in possibly playing in the band is welcome to come to the band meetup tonite. We use the Songbook plugin to play songs, so band members will be available in-game before and during the meetup to help you if you have any questions about that.

Play songs

Earlier in this thread, Siltharan and I have identified some songs we would like to test. Hobbs, I think you had some you wanted to do as well? Krohkur, Dend, anything for tonite?

Discuss next concert

Siltharan has tentatively proposed doing a video-game themed concert at some point in the near future. Any thoughts on additional themes, and possible concerts dates?

[Ice Weasel]

Not really in keeping with the video game theme, but if there's time (and musicians) I'd love to try my Stevie Wonder tunes (in the Jazz_Blues folder of my dropbox). Two are 6 part, one is 8 parts. Instrumentation might be a problem, like one takes two bagpipes and two theorbos... Stevie does things with overlapping rythms that just don't sound right unless you layer the instruments.  Anyway, only if there is some time left, I'd like to try:

don't_you_worry.ABC (Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing) (Lute, Harp, Theorbo, Horn, Bagpipe, Drums)

higher_ground.ABC (Higher Ground) (Lute, Theorbo, Theorbo 2, Bagpipe, Bagpipe 2, Drum)

Superstition.ABC (Superstition) (Lute, Theorbo, Theorbo 2, Flute, Clarinet, Horn, Bagpipe, Drums) 

I also have a Mentoring available, and since the skills were on sale, I can now teach ANYTHING. ;-)

 

[Briallan]

Well, the video-game theme is just a proposal by Siltharan and myself, and we don't have a concert date so there is no time pressure, so there should be no problem getting to your material tonite.

We do have multiple pipers and multiple theorbo players, but I don't know if we have 8 musicians yet. I will bring along Brytford as usual to boost our numbers, so .. we'll have to see who shows up :)

[Dendrolis]

Of course, as I mentioned I won't be able to make it tonight.  Some friends asked me to step into their regular raid group for a week in wow since they lost a healer, so I've agreed for this week.  I noticed Kro put the link up to the google docs file I made. It was only an initial idea format, so anyone should feel free to create their own, or to continue using that one.  Anyone with the link is able to edit it since I didn't want to ask for everyone's google account info to give you all access individually.