Fun At Alvin's place

Hmm.

Well I had some activities today at least, to keep me from having to talk to my mother instead of having something interesting to do.

I managed to go to Alvin's place today for some guitar-pickin' and mandolin-plonkin'. We had planned to rehearse the songs Alvin had planned as a sort of 7-song-medley for his birthday party, which would have a total guest strength of roughly 41-odd persons.

As is the common case, Alvin has accomodated to popular christian tastes, and included songs in his set-list which would be instantly recognisable to people within his social circle, and who is/has 1. either in his present church; 2. been his former church; 3. from St Andrew's Junior / Secondary school. Apparently, his guest list includes people from these three places (his present & former church, primary & secondary school), not to mention the numerous relatives and friends being invited.

Of course you get the upbeat gospel tracks, and (yawn) extremely intensive-religious numbers and the oddball country teaser. That's what Alvin is all about, and here I am, thinking I should probably bring my newly-minted electric and tear the house down with my Led Zep licks.

Definitely out of place.

Anyhow, the 'band' performing the 7-song medley includes Joshua (on Acoustic guitar, Alvin's present church-mate), Andrew (on Synth, Alvin's former church-mate), Christopher (old primary/secondary school pal who plays Bass), Alvin himself (on Banjo) and yours truly (primary/secondary/poly pal, on Mandolin).

The choice of personnel was largely Alvin's, although the choice of Christopher on bass was delayed because our initial choice was Michelle (Joshua's older sister who is involved with so many major singapore orchestras and the VJC choir) who proved to be a very, very, very busy and unavailible person, so we were left with Chris who has played bass previously with me, but learns songs fairly slowly.

So I was at Alvin's place, I managed to re-string his banjo (the strings on it were so old and rust & dirt-encrusted, I had a hard time keeping my hands clean just removing them), show off the paint job I did for my mandolin's pickguard, re-record an old song, and also rehearsed the 7-song run of numbers intended for the party.

Here's the number of issues I currently have in the back of my head regarding the whole affair:

1. There is little or no time for all five of us to practise the songs as an entire unit.
2. As such (due to the above), the factor of mistakes occuring increases considerably.
3. Chris is slow at learning songs, and he may be busy and hence unavailible to meet up to practise the songs.
4. I can't even remember half of the songs by heart, and that's troubling because I usually get songs quite quickly.
5. Alot of the songs being played involved different instrument intros and breakdowns, and due to number 1., the whole thing might be confusing when it comes to the real thing.
6. Many songs involve complex/inconvenient mandolin chord positions, and after three songs, my hand has literally turned purple just trying to press down on that tiny neck with my jumbo fingers.
7. It turns out, as the Mandolin player, I have to play rhythm and lead for different songs, which means I have to follow someone, and not lead.. kinda tough cuz i tend to speed things up.
8. I might have to provide the Synthesizer due to transportation problems involving Michelles synthesizer.
9. There is very little space to set up 'shop' in Alvin's place, and the placing of band members are crucial, but indecisive as of yet.
10. The whole thing starts at roughly 7:30 in the evening, and I wonder if I have the energy to go through the set list, not mentioning the fact Chris and I might just fall asleep on the 'intense' songs.

Let me just say that I view the whole matter from a band manager or producer's point of view: I have to co-operate with Alvin to perform his songs, ensure that he can cope with co-ordinating the whole affair (well, he's been doing it for years, so not much problems there), ensure that the band performs efficiently, ensure the audience gets a proper balance of sound from the instruments etc.

In short, it's a logistical nightmare.

Ah well, it's almost 11:30, and i gotta get up and get ready form my Class chalet tomorrow. See you guys in two day's time!


Cheers,

Crawldaddy