music stuff

[cellio]

On the Mark had a practice today. (Since Andrea moved to central PA we've been limited to alternate weekends. I prefer Sundays, but that didn't work for someone this time.) We're going to be performing at an SCA event in November (gotta find out how long our slot is -- I think 20 minutes' worth of material is safe but should make sure), and then at an SF convention (Darkover) on Thanksgiving weekend. I've been going to Darkover since, I think, 1984, and OTM has been performing there since 1991. Maybe one of these days I'll actually read a Darkover book. :-)

I try to make sure we always have some new material for Darkover, because most people there are regulars and we actually have a fan base there. Lately we've been working on "Rasputin's HMO" (thanks, Ralph), which is going well. I still have to write (or adapt) a bridge to play on the bowed psaltery; the one the Austin Lounge Lizards do is way too complex for that instrument and my skill level. This'll be fun.

We also started working today on a new arrangement of an old classic not heard much lately, "Biotech Fantasy". ("We've got an animal liberationist in our lab... in a cage behind the storage shelves in room 117..." :-) ) Heather Rose Jones, the author, used to work in the biotech/pharmacuticals world; can you tell?

A friend of ours wrote a song (on September 12) called "We Stand" that is about sticking together and (secondarily) vengeance. Robert (who is very much the pacificist, BTW) and I really like the song, but one of the other group members vetoed it in its current form. Bummer.

I have got to get around to writing music for Yaakov'e poem "Sisera's Mother". I promised to do that ages ago. (I want to do it. The muse just isn't speaking to me. Grr.)

Comments

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

When's the next OTM performance that will be in Pittsburgh and not at an SCA event?

[cellio]

Good question. Our plan (this past spring) had been to do one in November, as we'd be getting ready for another performance anyway. But that was before Andrea took a (one-academic-year) job in the boonies of Pennyslvania, so it's not going to happen this fall. She can't get here frequently enough to do the level of rehearsing we need for a performance like that. (As with the one in March, our plan is to record it. We're hoping to do a live CD, or at least one with mostly-live material.)

So best case would be in the winter or early spring, asuming she gets a winter break that she'll spend here. Otherwise, probably not until summer, when she moves back.

Sorry. I'm bummed, too. But there are career-related reasons that this job is good for her, so I don't begrudge her that.