I probably shouldn't even bother to post this because I have nothing
new to report. I'm still on that damned 800-mile plateau with the
bass line for the new song. If I've gained any ground it's
been a couple inches or so forward at the most. One thing I will
say, I have the part committed to memory. Now if I could only
successfully play the whole G.D. thing without a myriad of
unacceptable imperfections, let alone finally nailing the two big
challenge spots. I kind of half-hoped last night that I'd be at the
point where I felt good enough about it to at least give officially
recording that thing a shot; but, no.
FIFTH STREET BREWPUB GIVES BACK ‐ DAYTON THEATRE GUILD NIGHT:
Hey Dayton area folk! Come support the Guild at Fifth Street Brewpub.
Share some great spirits (liquid and soul-energy). Eat some great
food. Maybe win something in a DTG raffle.
How it works:
10% of your meals & drinks go directly to benefit the theatre,
helping to keep the arts alive in our community. There will also be
raffles of Guild items and we will reap 100% of those proceeds.
Where:
Fifth Street Brewpub
1600 E Fifth St.
Dayton, OH
When:
Thursday, April 17
Starting at 5:00 pm
Mark your calendars, bring your friends, and let's eat some great
food, raise a glass (and some funds) for a great cause!
NO MOVEMENT:
It'd be great to report that I've gained some real ground on the
fuckin' damned challenge sections of that bass line, but, well,
you know: blah blah blah blah blah. I'm at a goddamn standstill on
the son-of-a-bitchin' surface of that son-of-a-bitchin' 800-mile
plateau! Usually I don't use my street language words here, but today
‐‐ fuck it. I'm more than a little frustrated, you see.
Stagnant zero-progress this past Tuesday, Thursday,
and last night!
Directed by Marjorie Strader
Produced by K.L.Storer
Chancers is a fast and furious comedy, set in Ireland, about
the lengths we will go to when our backs are against the wall. Aiden
and Dee are on the verge of losing it all. They've had to rent out
their home to a fellow from Dublin (who was previously Dee's boyfriend),
and move with their two young sons into the back of their nearly
bankrupt convenience store. And now Dee is out at a job interview
(which doesn't go well). Aiden never thought their situation would
come to this. But salvation may have arrived in the form of local
battleaxe, Gertie Graham. She literally has their ticket out of the
poorhouse ‐‐ they just need to get their hands on it without
her knowing. Chancers premiered to great acclaim at the Viking Theatre,
Dublin, in 2013, before touring the following year.
STILL TRUDGING ALONG ON THAT
MUMBLE-MUMBLE BASS LINE!:
The last few days I haven't pulled the bass out or otherwise worked
on any music, whatsoever. Last Wednesday was the last time I had my
Embassy Pro
strapped around me and ONCE AGAIN
woodshed-rehearsed that confounded bass line that's been a major
pain in my ass for far too long. If there was progress, it was
infinitesimal, but at least there was not regression. So, at the
very least, I held my ground.
Above is a DV movie from Wednesday with the full bass line all through
the song. There's no audio, but if there was, one would hear that
the trouble spots, especially the first one, don't sound as
successful as they may appear to visually. But one can easily see
in the DV movie that much of the bass line is pretty simple, easy
stuff.
GREAT FINAL PERFORMANCE:
I was in the audience yesterday for the final performance of
Chancers,
by Robert Massey,
at The Guild. As
much as it was posible for me, I took my
producer's
hat off and was basically there as an audience member.
I must say the cast was way on top of their game. Of course, as
producer I'd seen all the
tech week
rehearsals and a couple
full run rehearsals
previous to those, and the cast was doing great in all of them and
was getting better with each, but yesterday was the best I'd seen.
They were absolutely on fire!
It's the same, frustrating, aggravating, repeating story: I'm just
not gaining much ground toward playing the whole bass part with the
level of proficiency needed to lay the track down ‐‐ or,
to play it live, if that were ever to come up.
Woodshedding last Thursday night.
Tuning last night.
Woodshedding last night.
A GRAND TIME WAS HAD BY ALL!:
The Guild
fund-raising night last Thursday, April 17th, sponsored by and at
the Fifth Street Brewpub
was a most successful evening. We had a good representation from the
board and quite a few of our regular audience members were in
attendance. We spread the word to other patrons of the Brewpub that
night, and I believe we recruited some new audience members, not just
for DTG but for Dayton theatre in general.
I hit the actual gym yesterday after
work.
My last visit was June, last year, nine months ago. Thing is, I've
had two recent blood tests, and though most of the numbers have been
at least acceptable, my
HDL, aka: good cholesterol,
is a tad bit lower than it oughta be. I've also not been exercising
near enough for months now, which is, oh, um, maybe highly
likely why my HDL numbers ain't what they should be. So, yeah,
I have a doctor's appointment soon, and this is going to be a
topic of discussion. I have another appointment with another doctor
a few weeks later, and it'll be a rehash of the same discourse.
My gym membership actually expired a little while ago and I wasn't
able to renew until this week. But that wouldn't have stopped me from
taking more hikes than I did, or using my free weights at home,
which I barely did. So, I'm probably going to get a "talking
to," twice in the near future. And, for the record, as I've
written before, I find the topic of physical exercise germaine to
this blog because if I'm dead, there's no acting, singing, instrument
playing, writing of any kind, or any other artistic/creative endeavors....
THAT SCREAMING YOU HEARD; & MUSIC FOR SOME DV MOVIE ACTION
Christ this plateau I'm stranded on is becoming a very old,
old, pain in the ass. And last night, not only did I gain not one
fraction of a measuremnt on that damned bass line, I played it lousier
than I have in a while. It was deffinitely an off night. That
screaming you heard coming from south-west Ohio? That was mine....
Meanwhile, I'll shortly take a break from trying to master the bass
line that should have been mastered already to compose some music
for a sizzle reel
for our upcoming Guild
production of
Stephen Adly Guirgis'sBetween Riverside and Crazy.
I have an idea that I believe is fitting for the show. It's likely
that I'll also use the same music for the
promo trailer
I'll put togther in about a month. It's also about 99% probable this
new composition will be for the 2025 Music Adventure, as well. For
the DV movies it'll be instrumental, but there'll ultimately be lyrics
and a vocal.
MY NEXT STAGE GIG!:
I've just been offered a role in a
two-hander
for a festival coming up in a couple months. I was sent the script
and it's a sweet little story, and since I haven't been on stage
since last June, I accepted it. There will not be an abundance of
rehearsals,
so it'll only somewhat slow down the
2025 Music Adventure
rather than put it on any sort of real hiatus. More details to
follow.
MAYBE ‐ MAYBE ‐ I HAVE THAT DAMNED BASS LINE
LAID DOWN.....MAYBE
Woodshedding on the acoustic, Monday evening.
RECORDING! last night.
In what I'll have to admit is a case of running out of patience,
last night I made what is probably the first attempt to lay the
bass line for the new song I'm working on. I did twelve takes, many
of them only partial, before I got one that may be a final
take. I haven't yet migrated the new bass track into the song's
Logic Pro X
project, and I only listened to it once last night. It certainly is
not a perfectly pure performance and I am likely to decide, upon
further listens, to go back for takes #13-plus.
My original plan was to rehearse the bass part until I could
consistently play it well before I attempted to record it, but, I am
getting impatient. These weeks of working on the damn trouble spots
has gotten terribly frustrating. On the other hand, I'm not fond of
the idea of settling, and I really don't like the idea of going in
and "fixing" any part of it in postproduction.
Before last night's recording session, I did do some more
woodshedding, Monday evening, pulling out my
Giannini
acoustic bass so I didn't have to use headphones to hear myself
‐‐ for those who don't know, I live in an apartment:
(one man's ceiling...). Both the acoustic and my
Embassy Pro,
which I am actually using for the song, are strung with
roundwound strings,
which kept Monday's woodshedding in the right neighborhood, plus, I
could rehearse the song and watch TV at the same time, and not
bother my neighbors.
If I do more takes of the bass line, which I'm thinking the
odds favor, it's going to, from this point forward, be the
recording of all attempts to play the line. I really feel such a
need to move on, with the song and with the whole "adventure."
Before I set up for another round of attempting that aggravating
bass line, last night, I listened to the take laid down the night
before: take #12. There are still some inequities in the performance,
some things that could be just a little bit better, but, for the
moment, I'm going to leave it as "the good take." Though
I still reserve the right to revisit it later and change my mind
and rerecord it.
I listened to the playback in a basic
mono mix
on the
Tascam 24-Track recorder.
Having decided the take might work, I then migrated that
bass-line stem
into my Logic Pro X
to replace the demo version of the line that was already in the LPX
project for the song.
Also, in recent listens to the mix I've made of the song's basic
rhythm section, I decided the drumming at the end needed some
punch-up. I went into
GarageBand
and jazzed up the ending of the drumkit part for the song and added
the revised version into the LPX project; but, I did not replace
the drumkit part already there, rather I added in the punched-up
version. Then I
remixed
a new basic rhythm section demo.
I do still need a demo of the rhythm section to listen to
while I get back to working on the lyrics. It doesn't hurt to
contemplate the rest of the instrumentation while listening, either.
Plus, though some of the final mix is probably in place already,
there is the opportunity to evaluate the mix that is already there
for tweaking whatever sounds like it needs it.
Listening, last night, to playback of the
take-12 bass line from the previous night.
Migrating the new bass line from the 24-track
onto my laptop.
Remixing the basic rhythm track with the
new bass line and additional drumkit work.
As you five regulars will know, I've had recent plans for a third
new song for this musical project that is first planned to play
double-duty as the music for a
promo trailer
for the upcoming DTG
2024/2025 season-closing production of
Between Riverside and Crazy,
by Stephen Adly Guirgis.
The fundamental, general idea for the song has been in my head for
a couple weeks, with definite influence from the
"Motown sound"
permeating my concept.
Sunday, the 4th, I started to work on the music for the song by
creating a basic drumkit part in
GarageBand
to workshop the song. Then after I came up with the basic structure
of the song, I took that rhythm-palat drum part and tweaked it to
variations for the various sections of the song *(see next
paragraph). I then migrated the GarageBand rendering into
Logic Pro
so I could better prep the drumkit track for import onto my
Tascam 24-Track recorder;
which included making sure I had a 48 khz
WAV file
to migrate into the 24-track recording project. I migrated the drumkit
track onto the Tascam Monday night, along with a voice track where
I call out the start of each section of the song ‐‐
"verse," "chorus," "solo," etc.,
essentially the spoken version of a
guide vocal.
I suppose, in a sense, that technically means I'd began the
recording process, by starting a song project on the Tascam and
populating some tracks: numbers 1 (voice track) and 13/14 (stereo,
electric piano part), to be exact.
Already having a basic concept in my head for what the bass line
would be, I first sat down and worked out the chords and the structure
of the song on my
Legato III piano.
I rehearsed that the second half of that previous Sunday evening and
then most of the next evening's session, both getting the section
changes into my head, and beginning to work out the rhythm and style
I'd used to play the chords: sustain? staccato? quarter notes? half
notes? broken chords? yadda, yadda....
The first recording session, this past Saturday night into early
Sunday morning was an EPIC FAIL with a serious amount of
takes of the "electric piano I" part, which I had to
return to when I got up for the day on Sunday. During a recording
session that lasted most of the day, in between several trips to
the apartment complex laundry room, I did get a good take,
but it took more takes than I care to admit to get it ‐‐
and I had to resort to
punch in,
which I didn't care for at all. Punching in may not exactly be cheating,
but I'd rather get through the whole song with a viable take. After
all, there's no punch in live. But I was in double digets for the
takes and saw my recording agenda for the day in jeopardy, so, out
of frustration and impatience, I punched in.
You'll note I labeled that keyboard work, "electric piano I."
The rest of the Sunday session was arranging and recording three
more keyboard parts on the Legato: "electric piano II,"
which uses the harsher electric piano voice on the Legato, which
is reminiscent of
Lennon's
electric piano in
The Beatles'
"I Am the Walrus,"
and two regular pianos, "piano III," & "piano
IV," each that has a slightly different piano tone from each
other. "II" through "IV" are supporting
instrumentation, though "II" is major support while the
"regular" piano parts are garnish, especially "IV,"
which doesn't show up until almost the end of the song. II-IV were
done in relatively few takes, five for each of III & IV, but
seriously, if my self-assessment of only being an adequate bass
player is true, I am barley adequate on the keys.
At the end of the day on Sunday, there wasn't much of a
"Motown sound"
going on, with no R&B bass line nor a "horn chart,"
but I think that once I add the bass line and the "horn chart,"
(see below), something in the bain of Motown will develop. The
musical concept I'm now hearing in my head seems to have turned
toward something akin to R&B that
Sting
might do, but we'll see how that turns out.
Last night I started work on the bass line, but I didn't get as far
as I'd hoped. I pulled out the
Viola bass,
with its
flatwound strings,
but I was getting nowhere creating something interesting, so I put
the bass away and set the Legato piano back up. I composed the bass
line, or at least the start of it, on the keyboard. I worked out the
bass in the intro. I may wing it for the verses and the chorus. I
am again going to be mindful that I might someday play the bass and
sing the song at the same time, so I'll probably keep the bass line
a bit simpler in the sections where I sing. I'll up the complexity
again during the solo sectin and the outro; and I'll likely work
those out tonight on the Legato, again. I'm not counting on any
recording tonight, maybe for a couple days. This song has to be ready
to use for the trailer by the end of day Monday, at the very latest,
so I can't have the endless workshopping of this bass line like I
did for the other song from this project. And as you'll see in the
entries below this, some of my time between now and Monday is eaten
up by other things, some related, some not.
The next instrumentation will be that faux horn chart via
MIDI
voices through the
MIDI interface
between Logic Pro and my
M-Audio Oxygen Keyboard.
I'll probably start with the sax that gets the solo. I'm not sure
yet if this will be a trio, a quartet, or more. I do know that I'm
going to aim for more synchronized precision than I ended up with
on the horn chart for the bridge section in
"Cozy Anxious Chaos,"
which I had initially accepted because it has a loose vibe, but
now annoys me when I hear it.
I have not yet much gotten to lyrics nor a vocal melody. These aren't
needed for the trailer. But remember this will ultimately be a
song with words. I may also expand the instrumentation for the later
version. On another note, I'd originally thought I'd retitle that
later version with something quite different from the workshop title,
however, I've had an idea for the chorus which may just lead me to
keep the working title, or something based on it. So, in a limited
way, I have started the lyrics, I'm just not deep in; but I
do have ideas for a few lines I like, and an idea for at least the
vocal melody for the chorus.
As for those first two new songs, I still have the vocals to arrange
and record for the second one, and loads of instrumentation to arrange
and record for the first one, as well as finishing its lyrics and
composing the vocal melody.
The drumkit part in GarageBand.
Writing down the chord progression.
The notation of the chords and structure of
the song.
*) ADDENDUM: The playwright's name, as indicated in the
updated event icon, is Dave Carley.
I kicked off my
script study
with my standard practice of creating flashcards on index cards. It
being a ten-minute play, there obviously are not a lot of lines,
but, they still need memorizing. I also have been simply reading
the script for more
character study.
As a ten-minute play, digging into the character and the story is
not a monumental task; that's not to suggest there isn't depth; it's
simply not as major of a job as climbing into the lead character
and story for a
full-length.
And Facedown in Buttercups is a light-hearted little play,
so there's not some deep, dark, intense message here. As I wrote,
a few posts ago, "it's a sweet little story."
Thursday night we did our initial rehearsal, our
table read,
using the DTG board
room ‐‐ apparently, one of the cast members is connected
at that theatre. The show gets
blocked
tomorrow night. Being that it's all one ten-minute scene I am sure
it'll get completely blocked and that we'll run it several times.
I'm not off-book
yet, but that won't be too long in coming; I have a grand total of
twenty-four lines and only a couple with anything even close to
substantial word counts in them; and we're not talking marathon
monologue
word counts.
Earlier in the week, making my flashcards during my
lunchbreak at
the rent-payer.
Drilling lines yesterday, again at lunch, again at
the rent-payer.
CRANKING OUT THE PROMO TRAILER, OR, THE BEST LAID PLANS...:
There's often a monkey wrench, ain't there? I've run into a few
litte scheduling glitches for producing the
Between Riverside and Crazypromotional trailer.
My SOP for the trailers is to shoot on the Monday night of
Tech Week,
then I have Tuesday to edit the DV movie to
final cut
and get it on-line. However, I discovered yesterday that the show
will be dark
that night. I don't want to wait until Tuesday evening to shoot,
that puts the publication too close to
Opening Night
for my liking.
Director
Robert-Wayne Waldron suggested that I shoot on
Tech Sunday,
but as you'll see from the next entry, that day is tied up for me.
There are
full run rehearsals
this Thursday and Friday. I'm going to drop in Thursday to watch
up to the scene both Rob and
Producer
Rick Flynn think is the best moment for the trailer. Then Friday
will be the
principal photography.
I have to meet with the show's
sound designer,
David Sherman, on Thursday, anyway, to orient him to the quirks of
the DTG sound sytem.
I'll still probably need Saturday and Monday to finish off the
music for the trailer, so it looks like Tuesday will still be when
I edit to final cut.
GAFFIGAN AGAIN:
Regardless of my current artistic agendas, I do get to take a break
from it all on Sunday when I head to the
Taft Theatre
in Cincinnati
to see
Jim Gaffigan
‐‐ for the fourth time, I might add. This was originally
on Nov 3, but that was rescheduled because Jim was offered a gig to
play Tim Walz
on
Saturday Night Live
on November 2nd. Jim had several appearances at The Taft scheduled
for that weekend; he understandably moved them for that stellar
opportunity.
And it's most UNFORTUNATE
for America, and the world, that Jim playing Tim on SNL
didn't end up as a standing gig, for four years, plus!
THE ORIGINAL MUSIC FOR THE GUILD PROMO TRAILER IS UP IN THE AIR:
Having a
mastered
recording of this new, song #3, before Tuesday, when I have to edit
the DTGpromo trailer
for
Between Riverside and Crazy
to final cut,
is starting to seem like a slim possibility. I am becoming skeptical
that I'll get something completely written, arranged, recorded,
mixed
and mastered by then that will be good enough to use for the DV movie.
Nevertheless, for the moment I'll keep working on it to see how far
along I can get. If it starts to look like it's a no-go to make
the deadline, I may shelve the song and return to one of the first
two, probably the first one, the one that has the bass line that gave
me such a hard time getting down and recorded.
I've been working on creating the bass line for #3. I've sat down
and worked some notes out on the
Legato III piano,
then I've used my
Giannini acoustic bass
to play those, getting familiar with the fretting. I'm using the
Giannini right now because I don't need to amplify it, and I don't
need to use headphones to keep from disturbing my neighbors in the
adjoining apartments. The bass part I've composed thus far is
bringing the feel of the song into the range of the
"Motown sound,"
as I hoped and expected it would; I further hope the planned
"horn chart" will wrangle it all the way in.
But I'm not going to rush the development of the song just so it
can be used for the trailer. If I can get it where it ought to be
in time, great; if I can't, well, that will be fine. I'll just buy
some
royalty-free music
that fits the Between Riverside... trailer ‐‐ even
though I've been hoping to avoid that particular expense.
BLOCKED ‐‐ PLUS:
Last night was our
blocking rehearsal
for Facedown in Buttercups, but there was a bit of
script analysis
and character analysis
as well. We're not going to have a whole lot of rehearsal time
logged in, so it was prudent to multitask our time.
On my immediate agenda for this show is get
off-book,
which, as previously indicated, will not be a difficult task. I'm
already, just by virtue of having read and rehearsed the text a few
times, on my way. It's those
beat changes
that my character initiates, those introductions of a new, or
virtually new, subjects that will be the sticklers; but it's not at
all going to be insurmountable.
On another note, in Tuesday's entry about this play I said how I
had forgotten the
playwright's
name. It's Dave Carley, as you can plainly see from the updated icon
for this event. I also added the location address, date and time to
that graphic, as you can see.
It was a nice idea, but I've had to abandone plans to use new song
#3 as music for the
promotional trailer
for The Guild
production of
Between Riverside and Crazy.
It was already looking like a pipe dream but now I've had a sudden,
short-term obligation come up that has sealed the fate of the aim
by rendering it clearly impossible to have a finished work in time
to use for the DV movie. Number 3 is still on the agenda for the
new album, but I am likely going to shelve it for the moment, as I
said I might, and go back to working to finish #1.
Despite that HRTC is the local
regional theatre
and I could scheduled an in-person audition, I elected to go
with the DV movie due to my schedule this weekend. Exactly what
time I would have open to make the appointment was quite uncertain.
I'm not wholly sure I'm
typed
for anything on the season, but, it seems better to audition with
no roles the theatre will see me good for rather than skip a year
when there's one or more role where they might see me as a good type.
It's been almost seven years since I've been in a mainstage production
at The Race.
We had another rehearsal this past Wednesday of our little
ten-minute play
and plan another tomorrow, though that will mostly be a
line run rehearsal,
as both Rachel (Oprea) and I work toward being totally
off-book.
I must admit, maybe reluctantly, that I am not as far along in my
off-book status as I expected to be at this point, certainly not as
far as I wanted. Last weekend was much busier than I'd anticipated
it would be. Plus, I was sick on Monday and spent most of the day
asleep in bed; so, the
vacation
day I took from the rent-payer
would've been more fitting as a sick-leave day, but, se la vie.
I'd put myself at around 70-80% off-book, when I would rather be
in the high 90s, at least
Showing weekends
May 23-Jun 8, 2025
Tickets on sale...
Join The
Human Race Theatre Company
for a free public reading of the first draft of the Vignettes of The Belonging Project
on our L. David Mirkin mainstage
Tomorrow at 2pm.
Dayton Theatre Guild
430 Wayne Ave.
Dayton, OH 45410
Free. RSVP to Tiffany @ humanracetheatre . org
GAFFAWS AGAIN WITH GAFFIGAN:
I saw Mr. Gaffigan
for the fourth time this past Sunday. It was a really good show.
I liked it much better than the last time I saw him, in 2022 at
Fraze Pavilion;
He didn't seem to be in a very good mood that night, and didn't
seem to want to be there.
But this Sunday he was back on top of his game.
His opening act was a native of Cincinnati,
Josh Sneed,
and he too had a really good set.
They both talked a lot about their marriages ‐‐ as Jim
usually does, as well as him having material about parenthood, as
usual.
It was a satisfying night out. More details to follow....
