Several Days Later

Friday was the premiere of 2 new pieces by me, All Things are Not Equal and You Can't See the Stars in the City (you can here recordings from the rehearsals here.) Street Cleaning was also performed, with me doing a great impression of a methed up hobo...but only after putting the audience to ease with a soft spoken introduction where i was more humble than usual. It's all about the stage presence.

I also performed on 4 more pieces during the course of the night. And lent a helpful hand by recording the concert with some fancy gear. I've been going through the recordings, cleaning them up, etc. Should have it done in short order.

The day following the performance, i was tired. It's still pretty stressful hearing your music performed, whether for an audience of 5 or 500. We didn't have either of those numbers (my guess would be the 40-60 range, which was less than i thought would be there, after we blew out La Esquina a year ago...) and, of course, it was a bit nerve wracking. Actually, I was much more afraid of La Esquina getting packed in like sardines, which happened a year ago. I'm claustrophobic, so even the thought of the small space packed to the brim had be uncomfortable.

2 days after the performance, i worked on the recordings a bit. They sound surprisingly good. A little mixing voodoo and they'll be golden. Listening to the recordings a couple days later was nice, as I was able to remove more of the subjectivity of the performance.

And let me say a couple things about the performance, objectively:

1. there are some killer solos. Nick Howell's solo on Hunter Long's "This Self-Imposed Abyss" sounded good to me then, but i was busy counting and playing backgrounds. on the recording, it blew me away. Fantastic
2. The group, overall, sounded pretty balanced
3. We play a lot louder in concert and lose some of the dynamic contrast we worked hard on in rehearsal. 
4. There was a lot of energy, a mixed sort of energy. Some was a nervous, forward pushing energy; some was a relaxed, focused energy. Most performers strive for the focused energy, but something can be said for the nervous pushing energy. It made Street Cleaning more raw than usual, which was fun.
5. There are always things to work on. Recordings don't lie too much. well, they do on tone colour, but not much else. I didn't play any major lines really, so I can't critique my playing- my "soloing" on Street Cleaning was just kinda, well, it was what it was. LOL. i wasn't trying to play a beautiful solo, more a "character" solo...which I think I did well enough. 

Overall, a special thanks to Black House Collective for the opportunity. A special thanks to Eli Hougland and Stamos Martin  for coming in just to play 2 tunes.

And, of course, thanks to all that showed up!

Oh, and this. "Now this is the plan. Get your ass to Mars." YAY SCIENCE!!!