Holiday Music Concert(s)

[Siltharan]

Didn't know whether it had been uploaded yet, but I just made an arrangement for Auld Lang Syne, following Bri's lead. :)

[Briallan]

Cool, yeah good to have that -- it would be sort of fun to play something for new year, but not sure how many songs there are that people in general would recognize as new year's songs besides auld lang syne

[Ice Weasel]

I now have six Yule Tunic and Trousers, and lots of dyes.

I'll mail one of these to all principals.  What colors would you like?

Not bad as a white default, it "santas up" a bit in red; Frankly it looks decent in most colors: Gold, Olive, Dark Green, Burgundy, Rose, Violet, etc.

Let me know what color you want.  I'll mail the dyes today or tonight. 

[Briallan]

Cool, maybe we could wear these for some impromptu concerts too! alternating dark green and red would be one way -- or we could do a variety of colors to look like xmas tree ornaments! I think either approach would be fun, but I don't have strong opinions either way.

[Ice Weasel]

Here is a master image, every color of dye in the game, as seen on that tunic. Take a gander, and let me know (really soon, please!) what color you want. Thanks!

 

 

 

[Briallan]

OK, in absence of any strong sentiments expressed up to this point, I propose we go with Christmas colors of alternating red and forest green. Please send me 2 of each (to cover my 4 alts). Krokhur, please mail it out those colors to Raven and Hobbs (Hobbs needs 2 dyes since he'll need both alts for Sunday), and select one color for yourself.

I should have the music data for Sunday all prepared by later tonite (now that I've got all my shopping done ...phew!).

[Briallan]

Below is my proposed set for our traditional-themed Yuletide concert Dec. 22 9PM. Based on our discussion on Wednesday, I expect the following band members to be present: Raventrick, Krokhur, Hobbelion, Hobbedoc, Briallan and Ringolion. Siggarek and Brytford will be on standby for emergencies:

Coventry carol 2	1:17
Holly and Ivy	2:26
Remember O Thou Man	1:53
Adeste Fideles	2:33
Carol of the Bells	1:14
Riu Riu Chiu	2:03
God Rest you Merry Gentlemen	1:15
O Come O Come Emmanuel	2:04
What Child Is This	3:36
O Holy Night	2:54
Hallelujah Chorus	3:40
We Wish You a Merry Christmas	1:05
Wassail4	2:15

We probably will not play all these songs. The list of who is playing what parts is in the usual place (File Library of the Gallery). Please check to make sure you can play all the parts you are assigned to and have all the instruments you need!

Here is a link to the ABC files for the concert.

[Ice Weasel]

Bri, the link didn't survive in the last post. It's blue, and bold, but no link present. 

I'm finding GuildLaunch to be a bit finicky with my posts. I think it may be a plugin to Chrome causing the trouble, but I'm not sure.

Anyway... same Dropbox Yuetide folder?

 

[Briallan]

No the link is to a special folder created only for this concert (not to my yuletide folder) -- this way I can number the songs according to expected play order.

I fixed the link in the above post - I think it may have gotten trashed when I edited the post :(

[Ice Weasel]

Cool... working. Thanks!

I'll have an extra tunic and some extra dyes with me tonight if anyone needs.

[Mirubea]

Agh! Got home from a crazy day of family activities, right at 9 to see the concert, and there's a patch I didn't anticipate.  So here I sit at 9:15 already, still at 50% downloaded. Probably going to miss the whole dang thing. So sorry!!!

[Hobbelion]

You managed to make half of it Mirubea. You've been one of our greatest supporters so we always thank you for coming.

 

As always Bri put this together and did a lot of the work and deserves a lot of credit. However, I think there's a room for improvement and hopefully we can work on some of these in 2014.

- We weren't really as prepared as we should be at the start. I share some of the blame as I was eating dinner and trying to get Hobbedoc and Hobbelion clothed etc. We should had a raid set up when we were all together waiting at the fountain. Perhaps one person at the start of the concert should be responsible for setting up the raid at the start while one of us focus on promotion such as Ales and Tales channel, Regional and even introducing the concert.

- Which leads to the next thought: we should delegate more. Bri, I know you've been doing a lot particularly in the setting up of the concerts, the promotion, etc. I can take over some of the activities such as setting up the raid, making sure that people are playing the right instruments and playing the synched song. I am always happy to let someone else do it, but it would be better if we shared some of the work.

- I would like to experiment more with synching while playing a song particularly if we have the same instruments. That would save some time and we could use that time during the songs more wisely and would be a bit quicker. Some songs had quite a bit of dead space.

- In future concerts, we should have Hobbelion and Hobbedoc rotate instruments more. Hobbelion can do everything except for Pibgorn (he learned it, but not old enough to play) and drums so he's almost a Minstrel... almost. I tend to sync up the songs quite quickly even when changing instruments.  Krokhur shouldn't change that many instruments since he videotapes and we should keep it simple for him. Same for you Bri and your alts since it seems to be harder for you. If there's a song where only one alt is needed, let's use Hobbedoc. Another option to be is to alternate your alts. So let's say Ringo has Drums in one song and needs to switch to Horn. Why not make Bryt Horn for the next song while Ringo stay at drums? Even if you need to change instruments, you can do it while Ringo is playing and sync Bryt up then. That way you can quickly sync up.

- Also maybe we should start having standard positions. Obviously, Hobbedoc, Krokhur, and Den are always in the front, but the back we should have Bri, Hobbelion, Raven, and Silth in the middle, and the alts to the side of mains. in the same position most of the time. We don't always have the full crew so it will vary from concert to concert, but if we agree that maybe Bri or Silth is in the middle, then Raven and Bri next to the middle then me always next to Bri. Krok should be in the middle (if three) or to the right or left (if two) since the videotaping and Den and Hobbedoc would be on the sides.  Perhaps we should devise a standing chart for the amount of people that show up accordingly.

So I think that's it. Some of these weren't unique to this concert alone, but we have done better in the past and I would like us to be much more efficient in our playing as it would give us more time to play more songs as well.

[Briallan]

I agree with your points Hobbs.

It was my fault too that we were late -- I thought I was all set and was fishing and only realized when we were getting close to concert that one of my boxes had locked up, so two of my alts were missing, so I had to restart which is the big reason we started 5 minutes late -- so I should have been more careful.

Also, yeah I probably tried to do too much, which is why we raided up late -- I kind of thought other people were busy and I was on break and I didn't mind doing it but yeah I agree. So having different people having responsibility for different parts of the show is probably a good idea. I like the idea that there is one person who checks to make sure everyone has the right instrument and is playing the right part and only then do we sync -- and maybe that's the person who should actually hit sync.

One more issue is (I've been thinking about this a lot) -- I think that if we do screw up the start, maybe we should just stop and restart instead of just going ahead and playing the song as is. I would rather the audience think we are clumsy on occasion than think that we play crappy songs, and the songs really sound - well maybe not crappy --  but certainly not as good they could if they have missing parts. We played 2 songs like that tonite and one was maybe our best song -- I should have stopped everyone and just said to restart -- and I was totally surprised that people in the audience were talking about how much they liked the Handel when it was missing 2 parts out of 6! If we screw up the start, I would personally rather just make a joke about the music getting lost or the string coming lose on the therbo and then restarting than play thru the song with missing parts.

I didn't know that you could sync the next song while playing -- that's cool if we can do that. I also agree with your points about the instrument rotation and the positioning. This is stuff we could work on at our next band meetup and next concert preparation whenever that is. As far as me being slow to sync up, I've realized that the problem has consistently been that Ringo's songbook stops working and I need to reload it -- and she is always running on the laptop. I think Santa might be getting me a new laptop to replace my ancient one (isn't Christmas a wonderful idea? I'm so glad I was a good girl this year!), but your point is still good that we should look at what works and what doesn't work so well and try to learn from it.

Certainly things that are unforeseen can go wrong (like a client instance or even your whole box going down). But I like your points that we can learn from things that go wrong and there is some fairly easy stuff we can do to make it better for the audience.

We have half a dozen or so people in the band, and I'm sure each of us has a slightly different perspective on what makes being in the band fun. Personally, I want to give the audience a good experience, play for lots of people, and play music that I think is high quality. I think we are pretty close on the last. I think we have had good audience reactions so far, but I agree that we can fairly easily do things that would make it better for them. The better the audience likes our stuff the more likely we will end up playing for lots of people.

BTW Krohkur and I went to the Les Beaux Chapeaux concert after ours and had a long talk with one of their key members, and we've been invited to make a guest appearance at an upcoming concert of theirs when we can manage it -- theirs was quite well-attended too -- a lot of people I recognized as people who had attended our concert as well.

So I would say bottom line is things are going pretty well considering we are a new band, and things that we make mistakes on we can learn from and fix.

[Gilhilde]

Finally got to hear the band, and I was so impressed. You guys are a class act and clearly have very high standards. Having heard quite a few bands and played in the KWL band, I don't think you realize how well you are doing. Really great job! It makes me proud to be an officer in this kinship. I kind of regret not joining the band, except, ugh, I have too much to do, lol.

 

[Ice Weasel]

I agree we can be a bit tighter... but don't get too tight, please or I will have trouble on the vidcaps! LOL... 

I know the vidcaps aren't a priority, but I've got four YouTube videos up now, two more "in the can" being edited, and plans for some special short vids. I'm exploring how to create a channel just for The Remediators, so people can subscribe to get the new ones. I think they are fun, plus they provide a nice historical document as the Kin grows and ages. 

On the pre-Queue thing: Here is what I need to do.  I start the VidCap just a minute or so before official start time, to keep down the file size when editing. I get Kroh set up with his instruments, get Songbook open and set, open my LOTROpad notebook where I've pasted my playing assignments. As everyone sets up, I watch the messages "x is ready to play abc" and take the time to frame up the first shot. When I see "Synchronized Play will begin" or whatever that last is, I have to hit "F12" to make my UI vanish. Sometimes I pan around to get better angles, but I'm no Peter Jackson. When the song is done, I wait 3 seconds or so to frame an exit shot, then use "F12" to bring up my UI. I then check my assignment, use Songbook to go to the next song, load my part (swapping instruments as needed), do the ">|" bit, and when the Sync Play ready to start message comes again, it's "F12" quickly to dump UI, etc. Rinse/Repeat for the concert. (I only in the last few concerts realized I could use that message to time my "F12" UI dump, so earlier videos get some of my UI, chat windows and all... >.< )

Anyway, my point is... it can be frantic, and I really need the 5 to 10 seconds with my UI up between songs. Too tight, and I'm going to do a "Bad Krokur" somewhere, probably accidentally playing the wrong song or something. 

I think location is something we need to keep looking at. I missed 98% of the Regional Chat last night about music near the Pony (hidden UI/chat windows), and while if it's one person crying foul that usually is just someone wanting some attention, I feel bad if we really do mess with other people's games when playing there.  Granted, that is the #1, bar none, spot in Middle-Earth for bands and soloists to perform, but... I did finally learn why no one uses the marvelous stage there. Apparently, the benches make it impossible to dance there, and you've seen that LOTRO audiences love to dance. This might be a pet project for me....

I am working on my Motown Middle-Earth concert... boiling down all the songs to a set list, matching instruments, etc. More on that between Christmas and New Years, I think. I'll give Bri a break with that one, at least, and maybe another Jazz/Big Band thing later. I will say that as Concert Mistress, she does a superlative job. 

As for special videos, I'd like us to do one of Bri's arrangement of Hallelujah Chorus, and my House of the Courserrim as special singles. I may be able to lift the Hallelujah Chorus out of last night's concert, I haven't looked at the raw capture yet. I know that the House of Courserrim will need to be re-shot. 

I do want to echo what Glihilde said here... The Remediators are certainly doing well, and have developed the skills beyond where a lot of bands that have been around a long time are.  As I mentioned to Bri last night, I think we have a point of pride, as well, that our material is all our own; we transcribe everything we play from original MIDI, and I'm not certain that is true for any other band... most of them play a lot of stuff from the ABC websites. Not that that's bad, just something that we ought to feel special about.

Also, Gilhilde, why not join the band?  Even if you are busy, we always have room for a guest artist at a concert. We agreed when we started that some people had more time than others, and even if you just appear for some concerts, everyone is welcome!

Okay, I've written a book. Time to stop before Volume II.