The Amanda Palmer show last night was awesome. The opening band, The Builders and the Butchers, were Utterly Charming. The youtube & various other audio resources online really don’t do them justice. Anyway. As noted: ‘The mimes were tipped, there was a BonJovi sing along, what more could you need from a Thursday night?’ Actually, there were quite a lot of sing-alongs, come to think of it. It’s not so much that the audience was into audience participation (though they certainly weren’t adverse to it), but that all the performers were pretty much strongly inclined to encourage such behavior. The Builders and the Butchers sent their instruments crowd surfing even. Which was All Kinds Of Awesome.

I got the little girls t-shirts to commemorate since they couldn’t actually *be* there…

From Random December 08

Of course, I’ve been listening to lots of Utah Phillips, my ‘songbook’, a four cd compilation set of his work arrived on Monday (hoorah!) so I’ve been thinking a lot about folk music, and… other things. Contrary to the belief of some people, I do not think about taxonomy 24×7. Only 23.75×7. No, really I don’t even think about it that much. I do think about it a lot, but I think about other stuff too. Like joining the Wobblies. Because I *could*. I don’t think I will, maybe, but it has crossed my mind. But that’s not what this post is about. This post is about the song stuck in my head. Where was I? Oh, right! The song stuck in my head.

I tend to think my musical tastes are pretty broad, and I’m old enough that I am exempt from having to really worry about ‘cred’. I have no cred anymore because I am gleefully OLD and that’s given me a degree of freedom to listen to whatever I want. I did not, however, enjoy hearing Dokken’s Sister Christian today in a desperate search for appropriate beach footwear (tomorrow I’m accompanying M1 on a field trip to the beach. Maude help & protect me!). I don’t think it’s any surprise to anyone who knows me, especially not those close to me & those who’ve known me for a long time that I have a small? (maybe an understatement, maybe an overstatement, using the phrase my MLIS degree taught me, “It depends”) obsession with folk & traditional music. For a long time it was British Isles/Irish, but increasingly American folk music has been creeping in. No real surprise there.

I’ve been collecting folk music nearly since I was old enough to sing songs to myself (there, I said it — it’s folk music I’ve been collecting, maybe not quite to the point of archiving. FOLK. F – O – L – K — music of the folk, owned by them. Look. I told you I’ve been listening to a lot of Utah. Dude pretty much nailed my philosophy on folk music, it passes through me, but doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to *us*). Ah… hrm. The first songs I remember singing were songs about barnyard animals and bawdy sea chanties, Peter, Paul, & Mary, The Kingston Trio, & their elders, being, of course Woodie Guthry, the Carter Family, various Seegers, et al. Pretty sure all of these people have done variations on the song stuck in my head (except maybe the old mariners stuck on their Spanish “ladies”).

I’m fascinated by folk [music/stories]. I’ve never quite felt like I could “own” it. I struggle with the concept of authenticity — which I suppose is a variation on the “cred” issue. I know I have no cred (which hoorah freedom), but I wonder about being authentic to the music that I’ve carried with me as long as I’ve been alive (am I really allowed to keep this tradition? Me of mixed class background, but mostly middle class mutt? And if not me, then… who?). And also I wonder about “ownership” in folk traditions. Sometimes songs become attached to people, or their variations become attached & then my obsession with copyright & giving due respect to others who cover the same or variations on the same music kicks in & then I start wondering about how to go about doing *that* properly. I know it’s all hypothetical because I don’t perform it in front of anyone but Maude & occasionally my children… but I wonder none-the-less…

Anyway. Here’s the Carter Family’s variation on this theme.

Worried Man Blues
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song,
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song.
I’m worried now but I won’t be worried long,

I went across the river and I lay down to sleep,
I went across the river and I lay down to sleep.
When I woke up I had shackles on my feet.

Twenty-nine links of chain around my leg,
Twenty-nine links of chain around my leg.
And on each link an initial of my name.

It takes a worried man to sing a worried song,
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song.
I’m worried now but I won’t be worried long.

I asked the old judge what may be my fine,
I asked the old judge tell me what may be my fine?
“Twenty-one years on the R. C. Mountain line.”

The train arrived sixteen coaches long,
The train arrived sixteen coaches long.
The girl I love is on that train and gone.

It takes a worried man to sing a worried song,
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song.
I’m worried now but I won’t be worried long.

I looked down the track as far as I could see,
I looked down the track as far as I could see.
A little bitty hand was waving back at me.

M1 asked me what I was singing as I made cookies for her field trip tomorrow. I told her. She said it sounded like a lullaby. And then said it was funny, she had the same melody stuck in her head. And tried vaguely to interpret the melody, never actually having heard it before. So sweet, she still thinks I’m neat. :) I guess I should go to bed. Long day with lots of kids in it tomorrow. Eek!

So we showed up. The guys at Rosewood Guitars are very nice. There were two guys there today, we started off with one & they switched at 11 when one guy got out of teaching a class & the other had to go in to teach a class. They have a bunch of guitars for sale out in the main room, but for trying to figure out which one I wanted, they set us up in a room & started us off with a guitar. This room had their collection of guitars, from 19th century guitars to guitars not for sale because they collect them also as investment pieces. A points out that there are guitars that they sell in the $10K+ range. Also points out that when I get home and break the price to P that I should point out how many thousands of dollars I saved… Heh.

I played it (damn my poor memory for the pieces I’m currently working on!), A played it while I stood in front of it. The guy brought us a second guitar, I played it then the first one then the second one again. A played the new one, the first one, then the new one again. The guys who were helping us traded off & the second guy came in & sat down & played both guitars while we stood in front. We talked about sound, and tone, and stuff.

Then he brought in a third guitar. He played it, played the first, played the second, played it, sound/tone/stuff talk. I played it, played the first one, played the second one, played the third one, back to the second, back to the first, back to the third.

By this point, I’d settled on the first passage of a piece by Sor. I still play awkwardly as I’ve been playing on either steel string or half size classical. There’s an obvious adjustment issue between half to full-size guitar. What might not be so obvious to non-players, is that classical guitars are built differently from steel strings (which are different from electric). The neck is much wider & the back of the neck is flat, rather than rounded. This means the stretch of fingers on the neck is somewhat larger. A was playing a Villa-Lobos piece that didn’t require him to retune the guitar to a drop D.

He played all three instruments, then I sat down & played all three again. The third one was awful pretty. I noticed the stretch even on basic open chords like G caused my pinky finger to hook over to the side so I was pressing down with the side of my finger. My pinky is curved on that hand. It’s totally bizarre! I think I knew that, but had forgotten or stopped paying attention. Gotta start paying attention to that again. So I asked A & we talked a bit about it & the guy came back in & I asked if a 7/8ths size guitar would be something that might be a work around for this small hands issue. He said mostly it came down to technique, but they had one in the shop, so I played it. It didn’t sound as nice as the third guitar. I said, “Well that was an interesting experiment! Thank you!”

He brought in a fifth guitar. Yes. I know. So, you know the routine by now, mostly. I played them all (except the 7/8ths which went away), A played all of them, the guy played all of them, talk about sound/tone/stuff. Talk about the fact that this fifth guitar was a good $400 additional over the price of the third guitar & the girls need pants without holes in them. My brother started giggling & said, “Are you sure? Maybe you’ll *find* a pair of pants! Hey! There’s a pair of pants! < pointing at the corner >” “Yeah, how about, M1, why don’t you borrow a pair of Uncle A’s pants!” We had a good laugh, settled on the third guitar, I didn’t choke or keel over as I paid & we walked to the car full of glee & congratulations.

We celebrated with lunch at Persimmon, then went and played at A’s apartment for a bit. Then I came home & played a little more. And now? P is going to go take a bath & I’m thinking… I’m thinking I might just play just a little more this evening. Just maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe just a *leetle*.

Pix of the real thing in the near future (need to take ‘em for insurance purposes anyway), but for now here’s the factory shot. It’s an Alhambra 6P Classical (made in Spain), solid red cedar top, Indian rosewood sides & back, Spanish cedar neck, ebony fingerboard, (ostentatiously) the machine heads are gold-plated. Pretty pretty pretty, my pretty!

We get back to A’s place to play & he turns to me & says, “Hey, you want an Alhambrager?” I look at him and say, “I CAN HAZ ALHAMBRAGER?” As his sweet cat curls around his ankles, he laughs and says, “YOU CAN HAZ ALHAMBRAGER!”

It’s been interesting watching the remaining kitties adjust to the lack of Siobhan. She was definitely our alpha female who ran the place. ‘Spew is stepping up in her absence & claiming most of the lap space, and TimTheCat seems to be just the tiniest bit less feraldude, occasionally.

I think I’m within $200-$300 of getting my classical guitar. I can hardly wait. I’m entertained by the half-size, but it’s… it’s driving me crazy. The strings & frets are tiny & close together, which is fine to some degree because my hands are pretty tiny & some of the four, five, & six fret stretches & jumps are really hard, but it also means that I don’t have free right hand movement & I frequently bump other strings or accidentally mute them. In addition, that half-sizeness of it means the strings bend a lot more easily & are more sensitive to inexact placement, which is ok, usually. What’s not ok is that above about the third fret, the fret placement is not quite correct & so it takes some bending or prayer hoping that the string will not be flat or sharp due to bad frets or accidental bending. I guess it builds character — because y’all know I need more of that.

I have a strong temptation to have a third piece of bread, but it is, after all, well after 11 so I’m going to try to be strong. Save at least one piece for my lunch tomorrow to go with ‘s tasty sooooup.

I’m tired of having the house for sale. Someone needs to buy it in the Very Near Future. I want my books back. I want… uh… my other stuff that’s been so long since I’ve seen it I’ve forgotten what it all is back. So, people, I need your help. Can y’all visualize a big ass SOLD FOR A WHOLE LOT MORE MONEY THAN ANYONE WAS EXPECTING REALLY REALLY SOON sign on this for sale sign?

Thanks.

R.Crumb was… well, R.Crumb. It was interesting to see the originals, done on graph paper, sometimes with old tape marks. I really liked his little spool people — faces drawn on thread spools. On the “busy” pieces, the level of detail was really astounding. I liked the ones with more white space, I admit. It would have been easy to spend a lot more time really reading through all of the pieces, but an hour gave us a nice (perhaps for some peculiar value of “nice”) overview.

Boris was pretty much awesome. I really enjoyed the concert. I like the small auditorium there, it’s about the perfect size for classical guitar & has nice acoustics. I thought he had a good set of pieces. He has kind of an odd posture, sometimes resting his chin on his guitar as he concentrates & it seems almost as if he uses his right shoulder sometimes to pin the guitar down on his leg — could have been my angle too. But much like runners have their own ergonomics that work for their own bodies, so it is also with instruments to some degree. He clearly enjoyed the pieces he was playing. A & I really enjoyed his playing as well. He used the full instrument nicely, incorporating not just the fretboard, but the soundboard & the bit of strings by the tuning gears, & the tuning gears themselves as well. He played a piece by Dyer — Hommage á Villa-Lobos where at a couple points he dropped the pitch of one of the strings & brought it back up into tune, as a part of the piece, & just kept plowing ahead. Among others, he also did his own piece, Obrigado: Escola de Samba, Pao de Acucar & Carioca (the sound quality doesn’t really do him justice in this recording, but if you’re interested, it’ll give you a gist).

The concert let out a little early, so A & I ambled through the museum shop, then stood talking in the parking lot for a little bit. That was still earlier than I had to be home for so I stopped by Third Place Books on my way home & poked around there a little bit with no one hanging on me, demanding this, that, and the other thing.

Now I’m sitting here with a full belly, a warm little M2 on my lap, a not as little probably just as warm M1 curled up next to a curled up TimTheCat on the couch & I think it might be almost popcorn time.