Rehearsal Number 6

Last night was our sixth band rehearsal. Boy, sometimes it just feels like swimming through jello.

First we tried to take a photo for use in flyers and such. I may post the results here later - or I may just skip it. We wanted orange shirts - purple was the only color I could get in the right combination of sizes. We didn't have a camera-person handy so I set up the video camera on a tripod and we stood outside on an overcast evening while I ran back and forth adjusting the camera and posing in the shot. Well, the photos we got this way are grainy and shadowy - we all have very dark eye sockets so it looks like night of the living dead children's musicians. Well, photoshop helped a bit, and if I use them small enough, well... I wish I had a budget for photography - maybe next time.

So that ate up a good chunk of time, and after everyone filled up on Lisa's banana muffins (yum yum!) we worked on "The Great Green Squishy Mean Bibliovore." This one seemed to take forever to come together. It's a very complicated arrangement, which I never realized before, playing it on my own. We've been through it once with the group, but hadn't sweated the details until now. It just took time. But we got it - it sounds great!

Then we had time for only two more - "Hanging Out With Heroes at the Library" and "Love This Baby." On "Love This Baby" Bob is playing Mandolin and John is playing bass. The mandolin on there sounds really great and it'll lend some color and contrast.

After grinding through six songs last time it was a bit frustrating getting to only three. Meanwhile the number of rehearsals left keeps dwindling!

But we're very close. Bob only has three more songs to learn, and then we can start just playing through the set over and over to reinforce everything. Most of the arrangements are pretty well set. Tell me to just quit fretting and keep practicing!