Monday, December 12, 2011

So, That Was Something

We just had our Christmas concert. Normally, the holiday-themed event is better explained as a play or a musical or the like, and there was a bit of a theatrical element, but by and large, it was the band -- bands, really, involving both Sunday bands, with the bassists switching off and the percussionists trading positions between the plexiglass cage for the kit and the bongos and shakers and such outside -- and the choir just playing music.

We guitarists simply decided that the other would generally play lower chords while I would play higher chords, because it is silly to have two guitarists playing the chord form. So, I'm up the neck, set to bridge pickup, and playing a chord form I learned from Richard Thompson. Listen to "Shoot Out The Lights" from the album of the same name and and you'll hear a bit that you will not immediately recognize as E-D-E, because of the joy of voicings. The first E is basically the D form barred and moved up two frets, roughly 022450, which you'll notice is all roots and fifths. When playing with distortion, the third makes the chord sound bad, so that's a nice chord to have. I've taken to that as a go-to chord form, the D-style barre, going there more often than A and E style barres, which we've come to take as standard.

So, I had roughly 2 hours practice on Tuesday, general playing on Wednesday, 2 hours practice on Friday, 2 hours practice on Saturday, 1 hour practice/soundcheck and 2 services Sunday AM, and the gig Sunday evening. And boy, is my shoulder still sore. But it was fun.