Interstate "jamming" with the 1962 Hummingbird -- Explination added

[tpbiii]

Here are our latest long distant harmony attempts with the old bird.  I even dressed one of them up using chromakey.

Let's pick -- safely

-Tom

Edited April 29, 2020 by tpbiii

[fortyearspickn]

All were great - for some reason, liked the last one more.   Love this old country  - "Pre-Grass"  !  Thanks. 

[tpbiii]

16 hours ago, fortyearspickn said:

All were great - for some reason, liked the last one more.   Love this old country  - "Pre-Grass"  !  Thanks. 

Thanks

I really did not say very much of why I put these up.  In a way they are part of my bluegrass life, but they were never intended as performance videos.  Rather they are just a byproduct of an attempt to develop more pieces to use in (often) bluegrass jamming and maybe a show or two.

In bluegrass, no one has all the pieces -- in a session, different people may do one or more of these things.

Sing Lead

Sing Harmony (tenor, baritone, bass)

Play rhythm on bass, guitar, banjo,mandolin, fiddle, dobro ....

Play lead on the same instruments -- even bass

Harmony is a big deal in bluegrass -- it is usually close harmony and a variety of different stacks are used depending on vocal ranges.

What is going on here, a woman (Kelly Moore) is a jamming buddy of mine -- when I am in Houston, she will go out with me to various sessions.  She also sings (and plays guitar and banjo) with my daughter in their (Hazel and Alice style) duo -- DEAD GIRL SONGS.   Well for awhile Kelly and I wanted to put together more harmonies on more songs to jam and/or maybe perform occasionally.  When we are close -- in Houston -- we have long wanted to break in more songs.  But I live in Atlanta, and when I visit Houston (I have a house with my daughter) she is often busy teaching (U of H) and much of the available time is used for going to jams.  So we are kind of stuck on a small number of songs.

Well what we need to do to expand our useful materials is for Kelly to work out the harmonies (usually on the chorus) so she can jam the song strongly.  So we are both locked up -- although she is still teaching on line -- so we are trying to expand our collection of immediately accessible songs. 

So here is what is going on.  I record a really simple version of the song -- just rhythm and lead, and then put it up in vimeo.  Kelly then plays that back on an ipad (or some such) and records a harmony track on her cellphone. She used a headphone over one ear so she could hear both her voice that the original and no audio from the original would get in the track. She sends that back to me -- the video software I use is a full mixer, and it is easy to sync the audio tracks visually. We are doing this since we both love to jam, and we are leaning new materials for jamming when I get back to Texas.😀😎

Because of the way bluegrass works, this often leads to immediate opportunities to do songs bluegrass style -- just mix in bluegrass musicians and jam, including on stage.  Here is an example of Kelly singing as part of the DEAD GIRL SONGS duo show with a full (pickup) bluegrass band.  It is the spice of life IMO.

 

Kelly is the one in the wheel chair playing the 45 J-45 (Banner)

Let's be safe then pick

-Tom

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by tpbiii

[ratherbwalkn]

Nice Tom thanks!

[tpbiii]

 

 

Here is a more extensive example.   Here is a quote from my FB page. 

Quote

OK, Kellyand I are continuing our interstate jamming project. We are now adding more breaks and more people to the jam. Here is how it works. I have a recording of just me -- voice and guitar -- of Last Train From Poor Valley. The rhythm structure is TURN (3 CHORDS) -- BREAK -- VERSE -- VERSE - CHORUS -- BREAK -- VERSE -- CHORUS -- BREAK -- VERSE CHORUS -- BREAK -- CHORUS. So 4 breaks and 4 chorus. Then using the original as the reference, participants record a track -- harmony, instrument, whatever. Your recording can cover the whole song -- I can use pieces to do different mixes.

So here is the original (green screen) and one of the early mixes (pictures, harmony, harmonica and mandolin).

Here is an open invitation for all those players/jammers stuck at home. Using the original for reference, record a track. Just be sure to use headphones so the track doesn't include the original. Send it to me, and I'll get in a mix or two.

http://vintageacousticinsruments.blogspot.com/
http://www.vimeo.com/tpbiii

 

SS

 

 

[uncle fester]

9 hours ago, tpbiii said:

 

 

Here is a more extensive example.   Here is a quote from my FB page. 

http://vintageacousticinsruments.blogspot.com/
http://www.vimeo.com/tpbiii

 

SS

 

 

Well done Tom, that bottom one is my absolute favorite...  by the time the harmonica came in was lost in the song and couldn't tell it wasn't all done in the same room.