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Post by MALCOLM XERXES™ on Aug 3, 2004 14:50:13 GMT -5
TUE. AUG. 3/2004/14:55 E.S.T.
I just got off the blower with my agent, who informed me that the Percussion Ensemble had contacted him to inform me that I will soon be receiving my rehearsal schedule.
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Post by Miss Kitka on Aug 3, 2004 23:06:53 GMT -5
congratulations! is this a local thing or will you be touring?
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Post by MALCOLM XERXES™ on Aug 4, 2004 3:00:19 GMT -5
WED. AUG. 4/2004/03:07 E.S.T.
MS. KITKA,
Thank you very much. ;D It will be a touring gig.
Congratulations on your being affianced! Your bloke is very fortunate to have a woman like you, whomever he is.
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Post by MALCOLM XERXES™ on Aug 10, 2004 12:20:30 GMT -5
TUE. AUG. 10/2004/12:26 E.S.T.
I just got off the blower with my agent, who provided me with the rehearsal/performance schedule for the 1st leg of our tour, each of which will be happening in OCT. 2004.
It sounds ambitious & unlike anything else with which I have been involved as a working musician.
I asked what name we shall be performing under, but that has either not yet been decided, or the intel has not yet been disseminated.
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Post by MALCOLM XERXES™ on Oct 5, 2004 21:36:21 GMT -5
TUE. OCT. 5/2004/22:43 E.S.T.
I visited my agent’s office to sign the contract for the gig & to take care of some other matters, including meeting his new secretaries.
It was satisfactory but for a single clause which demanded the right to use my “signature” in a variety of ways, so I queried my agent about it, who said that he would find out the meaning & purpose of it.
I have been signatory to some strange riders in my time, but that was the first time I had read of such a thing….
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Post by Miss Kitka on Oct 6, 2004 6:44:22 GMT -5
WED. AUG. 4/2004/03:07 E.S.T.
MS. KITKA,
Congratulations on your being affianced! Your bloke is very fortunate to have a woman like you, whomever he is. MALCOLM, this is the second time you've made this sort of comment. I think you have me confused with someone else as I am neither affianced not adating anyone currently. Sorry "mate" but it ain't me...
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Post by MALCOLM XERXES™ on Oct 6, 2004 9:50:52 GMT -5
MALCOLM, this is the second time you've made this sort of comment. I think you have me confused with someone else as I am neither affianced not adating anyone currently. Sorry "mate" but it ain't me... WED. OCT. 5/2004/10:57 E.S.T.
MS. KITKA,
Please accept my apology; no offence was intended, for I have been corresponding for the past 5 years with a member of MALCOLM’S MAIDENS™ who answers to the same name.
No doubt, your career as a cat burglar makes dating difficult….
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Post by MALCOLM XERXES™ on Oct 6, 2004 12:06:02 GMT -5
WED. OCT. 5/2004/13:13 E.S.T.
I have just been notified that the SAT. rehearsal has been re-scheduled from 10:00 E.S.T. to begin instead @ 09:00 E.S.T.
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Post by Miss Kitka on Oct 7, 2004 6:37:51 GMT -5
WED. OCT. 5/2004/10:57 E.S.T.
MS. KITKA,
Please accept my apology; no offence was intended, for I have been corresponding for the past 5 years with a member of MALCOLM’S MAIDENS™ who answers to the same name.
No doubt, your career as a cat burglar makes dating difficult…. No worries mate! Was never offended. The first time you made the comment I was confused but failed to mention it then. I hated the idea of you communicating with me from a false impression, although I hope the flirting won't cease because you now know who I am not! I'm glad you got the reference. I only discovered that movie with the DVD release (not having been born when it first came out) but it has quickly become one of my favourite indulgences.
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Post by MALCOLM XERXES™ on Oct 7, 2004 20:43:51 GMT -5
No worries mate! Was never offended. The first time you made the comment I was confused but failed to mention it then. I hated the idea of you communicating with me from a false impression, although I hope the flirting won't cease because you now know who I am not! I'm glad you got the reference. I only discovered that movie with the DVD release (not having been born when it first came out) but it has quickly become one of my favourite indulgences. THU. OCT. 7/2004/21:51 E.S.T.
MS. KITKA,
That is a relief, & thank you for your candour.
SELINA KYLE in black leather as CATWOMAN is always tempting (especially as portrayed by MS. JULIE NEWMAR!), but SELINA KYLE masquerading as a Russian takes things to a whole new level, so I don’t see the “flirtation” stopping any time soon, since CATWOMAN™ is primarily responsible for my sexuality being what it is!
I first saw BATMAN™ (1966) when I was a lad in Manchester, but now that I own the DVD Special Edition, I have a whole new respect for all the personnel involved, not least of whom is MR. FRANK GORSHIN, the man who portrayed THE RIDDLER™ as MR. BOB KANE’S version of THE JOKER™.
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Post by MALCOLM XERXES™ on Oct 9, 2004 20:31:55 GMT -5
SAT. OCT. 9/2004/21:39 E.S.T.
REHEARSAL #1: 09:00 – 13:00 E.S.T.
I arrived @ the rehearsal hall half an hour ahead of schedule, so I loitered outside the building for 20 min. before finally ringing the doorbell to be admitted.
The Musical Director answered the door (accompanied by his dog YODA) & I was surprised to find that not only was I the first to arrive, but that I had preceded even the Stage Manager!
“Are you alright with dogs?”<br> “Yeah, fine, thanks,” @ which point YODA jumped up onto my right leg so that I might pat him on the head, but he did so in such an aggressive manner that I decided it best not to touch him, since he had nearly knocked me to the floor, being a French Bulldog.
I was shown the apparatus that we were to play, & found myself immediately thrilled by what I saw, as I found that I could literally feel the sonorities & timbres each item would produce when struck properly.
The Choreographer joined us, then both offered me coffee, which I declined, asking for water instead, as I anticipated that I would need to keep my fluid level up throughout the coming rehearsal.
“Perrier™, or…?”<br> “No, thanks, just conventional water, if you have it, please.”<br> A monster plate of excellent muffins of various varieties was placed on a baby grand piano as coffee was being prepared, so I took a seat to await the others.
About 09:07 E.S.T., the other blokes arrived gradually, the S.M. (male) being last to arrive, circa 09:18 E.S.T., which was again outside of my own experience.
The first was a British Columbian from Victoria who described himself as “a hand-drummer” after inquiring about my own experience; the next a bloke from Ottawa (the eldest of the quartet) who struck me as a cynical studio musician (but turned out to be a cynical veteran percussionist of pit bands for large-scale A-house musicals); the next a self-described “Persian” whose fashion sense struck me as being very Montreal, & whose enthusiasm for kit drumming was very much that of “a keener”, offering to loan each of us DVD & CD recordings of his favourite players.
It turned out that the first 2 blokes were known to each other already, so they chatted a lot of “shop talk” & shared gossip about musicians of their mutual acquaintance, but known only occasionally to me, since I am not “a session cat”, while the other bloke & I were left to talk with each other, which was when I learned that his favourite drummers are MESSRS. NEIL PEART & SIMON PHILLIPS, & that his favourite performance by the former is RUSH™: “SHOW OF HANDS”.
The S.M. revealed virtually nothing about himself beyond the fact that he had worked on A Major Musical Production that had enjoyed a long enough run in Toronto that it had seen a succession of major Hollywood™ actresses in the lead role, a fact which I gleaned from the crew jacket worn by the S.M.
I disagreeessment of the respective personalities involved was that the elder would appoint himself the Alpha Male, the Victorian would back him, & that the Persian would be the 1 most likely to be discomfited by the self-appointed Alpha Male (both of whom have chops for days!), while I would be the bloke who would acquiesce to whichever decision would get the job done in the most efficacious manner, adapting my own aesthetics to whatever the needs of the quartet might be.
Since the blokes who knew each other had already been assigned the harnesses they would wear by the Director, they went off to be fitted for them, leaving the other bloke & me to chat in the meantime.
Our own apparatus was mounted on wheeled conveyances that we shall be pulling about the stage while playing simultaneously, my own being the largest, as its function is to take the role of Snare Drum & Bass Drum (& Tom-Toms when occasion demands it), which means that I am primarily responsible for establishing & maintaining correct tempo, as I had predicted might be the case, & is an awesome responsibility when one is accompanying other drummers/percussionists.
The Persian was assigned a range of metals that were to be analogous to cymbals, while the other 2 blokes were given a variety of plastic & metal objects with which they would solo freely over us. I knew that this would produce “an almighty clattering sound”, as MR. ROBERT FRIPP would say, so I decided that my own role would be 1 of “less is more”, in order to keep the space as clear as possible for the other 3 blokes to play in, particularly since my own assigned task was to both establish tempo *&* solo for 4 bars.
We had been given permission to “experiment” with our assigned apparatus while the other 2 blokes were being fitted with their own ambulatory apparatus, but I did not feel very comfortable about imposing that much racket upon other people while in such close quarters with them, so I did a lot of “air drumming” to familiarise myself with the gear, finding out what I could do from what I could not.
When the others had been fitted, the Musical Director told us the arrangement & tempo that he wanted, then offered to play his own recording of same, but the other blokes didn’t want to hear it, preferring instead to play right away.
Musical Director played the tempo he wanted on his pocket metronome, then I commenced playing, but once the other blokes joined in with their respective instruments, the tempo became increasingly faster, as each individual had his own idea of what the tempo should be, then attempted to impose it with what MR. ROBERT FRIPP refers to as “calisthenic displays of virtuosity” which sounded to my ears like a lot of noise, rather than music.
Again, I had anticipated this, given that the 4 of us had never played together as a functioning quartet, we were playing instruments of indeterminate pitch, & there was to be the inevitable p*ss*ng contest that results whenever a band of individual male percussionists are put together in “The Empty Space” with each other.
Musical Director felt that I could play more syncopation, & had wanted me to play with my bare hands rather than the felt mallets I was using, but I explained that since it was the first time we were playing together, I was keeping it bare bones in order to hang onto the tempo & to be able to hear what the other 3 blokes were playing (which was *very* loud!), so he conceded, but asked me to disregard his initial directive to lay down the fat 2 & 4 backbeat, & that I should feel free to “make it funkier”, which was tremendously liberating, since it meant that I could begin applying some polyrhythms that I had wanted to essay, since I have been auditing PETER GABRIEL: “PETER GABRIEL IV” (aka “SECURITY”) & KING CRIMSON™: “DISCIPLINE” quite a lot over the past couple of weeks.
Once I began occupying more of the sonic space, it was easier for me to control the tempo, then the other 3 blokes began playing more selectively, & together, rather than @ each other, then things began coming together quite well.
After several run-throughs of the entire arrangement, we took a 15 min. break that was needed more by the Musical Director than by me, whose head was fit to burst, & probably by the Stage Manager, as well, & during that time, I talked with the other blokes about what I perceived to be the peculiar challenges of playing with accomplished percissionists
We re-convened for several more run-throughs, during which time we polished the arrangement with rests, dynamics, textural changes, et cetera, which tightened things up even further, sufficiently so that after another break, the Choreographer began putting us through our paces, which was when I began to become especially thrilled about things.
When we had assimilated the intel she wanted us to have, we integrated the music with the choreography 1 more time, then were dismissed for the day.
S.M. gave us intel about next scheduled rehearsal(s) & Dress Rehearsal, then I was informed by Choreographer that we had also been booked to play @ a high-profile gig in December (that I shall post more about when the time comes!), & that I could customise my costume for this month’s gig in whatever manner I chose to make it easier for me to play well, so long as it looked “urban, street & edgy”, so once I finish typing this debriefing, I shall commence doing that very thing.
My next scheduled rehearsal is on Thanksgiving Monday, which means I shan’t be attending a turkey dinner….
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Post by ladytass2001 on Oct 11, 2004 0:57:00 GMT -5
Sounds like it went better than you thought it would,to begin with.
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Post by MALCOLM XERXES™ on Oct 11, 2004 9:43:52 GMT -5
Sounds like it went better than you thought it would,to begin with. MON. OCT. 11/2004/10:51 E.S.T.
LADYTASS,
Guilty as charged, although I did not go into the situation from a position of pessimism, but rather, from a position of openness & eager anticipation.
I shall be attending the 2nd rehearsal today @ 16:00….
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Post by MALCOLM XERXES™ on Oct 12, 2004 12:30:33 GMT -5
TUE. OCT. 12/2004/13:38 E.S.T.
REHEARSAL #2: MON. OCT. 11/2004/16:00 – 24:00 E.S.T.
I arrived @ rehearsal to find that there were 4 new faces awaiting me (2 of whom are female, which pleased me), each of whom appeared to be in their early 20’s, & that we were scheduled to learn & rehearse 3 new pieces of music.
After doffing my jacket & introducing myself to them, I scoped out the manuscripts & found them to be enormously challenging, particularly the 2nd piece, so I knew that the day’s learning curve would be significantly steeper than
While we were being taken through the arrangement of #1/3, the Persian bloke arrived about half an hour late, but was integrated into the proceedings with very little fuss.
After we had learned the entire arrangement of the first piece, I decided to record the rehearsal from that point on, so as to have a record of both the right way & wrong way to play the pieces, each of which has clever titles.
The 2nd piece was sufficiently challenging that we never got around to learning the 3rd piece, which means that we shall have to learn it next SAT., in addition to reviewing the material we did spend the day on.
I have not yet audited my recording of the 2nd piece, which begins very quietly, & has most of us employing the same sound source, which makes listening to each other & differentiating our own parts a far more tactile experience than auditory.
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Post by ladytass2001 on Oct 12, 2004 20:20:01 GMT -5
They changed groups on you? or are these just different parts of the whole group?(except of course for the persian)
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