It’s The Music I Give My Blood, Sweat, and Tears...
So, I just joined a new band...
The core group of musicians who performed with me at the Ethnic Dance Theatre show a few weeks ago, have had their own group since 2004...
They perform around the region, for festivals, dances and other special events...
They're called Orkestar Bez Ime, and there are some good examples of their music on their website...
They lost their "plinky-plucky" guy a few months ago, which is how I got hired for the Fitzgerald show, and the members liked me enough to offer me a position in the band...
I said, "Sure..."
I've been wanting to be in a WORKING band for awhile, and I also like the challenge that the music presents: Bulgarian, Romanian and other slavic musics have VERY odd meters, so even just playing rhythm guitar can be challenging...
Plus they're really nice folks as well as being class-A musicians...
I had my first rehearsal with them last night and it was three hours of playing in 9, 11, 13 and maybe a few in 4...overall, I'm surprised how much music we went through, but after already playing with these guys in EDT, I feel like I'm getting a better sense of the music and how to play it...
We'vw got two big gigs the first weekend in May, at the Festival of Nations...They'll be All Day events, Saturday and Sunday, which will be exhausting...Plus I'll have performed Beethoven's 9th with the concert choir the Friday before...
Did I mention that my life is really really busy this month?
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There's a little aside to all this Slavic music I've been doing lately...
It's felt VERY comfortable to me and I finally realized why...
I remember, back in the day, when David Stensoel used to play ALOT of Serbian, Hungarian and other slavic tunes in Boiled in Lead back in the early 90's...and I think much of that influenced my listening as much as the Irish stuff did...
What I found out just recently is that Stensoel was actually a member of Ethnic Dance Theatre BEFORE joining Boiled in Lead, and that he brought in all those songs from his years at EDT...
Given the fact that *I* started out in the Irish scene almost a decade ago, having performed with EDT and now playing with Orkestar Bez Ime feels very much like I've come full circle...
The core group of musicians who performed with me at the Ethnic Dance Theatre show a few weeks ago, have had their own group since 2004...
They perform around the region, for festivals, dances and other special events...
They're called Orkestar Bez Ime, and there are some good examples of their music on their website...
They lost their "plinky-plucky" guy a few months ago, which is how I got hired for the Fitzgerald show, and the members liked me enough to offer me a position in the band...
I said, "Sure..."
I've been wanting to be in a WORKING band for awhile, and I also like the challenge that the music presents: Bulgarian, Romanian and other slavic musics have VERY odd meters, so even just playing rhythm guitar can be challenging...
Plus they're really nice folks as well as being class-A musicians...
I had my first rehearsal with them last night and it was three hours of playing in 9, 11, 13 and maybe a few in 4...overall, I'm surprised how much music we went through, but after already playing with these guys in EDT, I feel like I'm getting a better sense of the music and how to play it...
We'vw got two big gigs the first weekend in May, at the Festival of Nations...They'll be All Day events, Saturday and Sunday, which will be exhausting...Plus I'll have performed Beethoven's 9th with the concert choir the Friday before...
Did I mention that my life is really really busy this month?
--------------------------------------------------
There's a little aside to all this Slavic music I've been doing lately...
It's felt VERY comfortable to me and I finally realized why...
I remember, back in the day, when David Stensoel used to play ALOT of Serbian, Hungarian and other slavic tunes in Boiled in Lead back in the early 90's...and I think much of that influenced my listening as much as the Irish stuff did...
What I found out just recently is that Stensoel was actually a member of Ethnic Dance Theatre BEFORE joining Boiled in Lead, and that he brought in all those songs from his years at EDT...
Given the fact that *I* started out in the Irish scene almost a decade ago, having performed with EDT and now playing with Orkestar Bez Ime feels very much like I've come full circle...