Slept in a bit this morning. Had a lesson at noon and rehearsal at 1:30, so I used the morning to continue the review of repertoire. Most time spent with Wang Dang Doodle. Wanted to see if what I worked with yesterday had stuck with me. It had. Began to work on the rhythmic turnaround at the chorus, which was eluding me yesterday, and found it a bit easier. Working with the metronome (a very un-Wolf thing to do, since the original starts accelerating in the second bar and keeps steadily speeding up through the fade out) but I wanted to keep track of the whether or not I was making the rhythm flip reliably, or if I was just imagining it. When I am playing conservatively it is quite reliable, but as soon as I get playful things can go awry. Also worked with singing over this arrangement. There is so much room for playing around with the guitar part, but it makes my vocal phrasing very stilted. Decided that for the time being, when working on the vocals, I will use the metronome and stick to the barest essential guitar part, until I know I can execute independent and authentic phrasing in both parts simultaneously, and then I’ll allow myself to get cuter with the guitar part.
Played through a few pieces on the “Under Consideration” list. Decided to move Louisiana Blues back to the inactive “Potential” pool. Every approach I came up with sounded more or less like a rock band covering a blues tune. This is a piece that goes way back for me, and my connection was initially Savoy Brown. Not dissing them, love them in fact. But I’m not interested in playing rock covers of blues tunes any more. There are some great tunes that I love, but they have become rock standards. I Just Want To Make Love To You – great tune, but the primary cultural association is Foghat, or maybe the Rolling Stones if you’re a little older, not Muddy. I’m having some of the same difficulty with Sittin’ on Top of the World, as it is a very specific cover of the Cream version. I don’t want to become dogmatic or doctrinaire on this point, lest I indiscriminately rule out strong material. But I don’t want to be classic rock cover band either. I’m finding, in general, that my best course of action is to go back to the earliest recordings I can find, and begin working with the raw material myself, so that what emerges is coming from my sensibilities. Even if through this process it works its way back to something not particularly original, as long as it feels authentic to me I can live with that. In the end, my aim has nothing to do with innovation or breaking new ground, but rather it is all about doing justice to the material.
So, we’ll see.
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