It came to my mind in one of those moments. Working out the parts for one of the songs in the musical, and I reminded myself that when the workshop is over I’ll have to take the changes and write up a proper finished guitar chart so someone else can play it. I mean, I know that. But it wasn’t until I’d acknowledged that thought, plus maybe a couple of seconds, that it occurred to me. Wait a minute, I play guitar in a tuning which isn’t so normal. I mean it’s not as unusual as it once was, but still… Apparently I have a decision to make. Either I’m going to have to rearrange everything for a more normally tuned guitar, or I’m going to chart it up in it’s native format and expect the guitar player to either play it that way or make do. Of course then I remember that the solo guitar version, or solo piano for that matter, isn’t the end goal. It’s to disassemble the guitar part back to the original parts that it’s representing, bass, keys, percussion, horns, and yes a guitar part which would likely at that point be charted and played in standard tuning. Oh okay. The solo piano part’s gonna be a grind because I’m not fluent in the language, but all the ensemble stuff is just a matter of transcribing what I already either play or hear. But can I tell you the funny part? All this is passing through my mind as I’m trying to read and sing a vocal line not improvise it the way I usually do when I sing the song myself because right now there’s four other people singing it, and trying to play the guitar part both as written and groovy enough that there’s something coming off of it that people can work with and I’m not just making dishwasher noises, and I’m trying to read five lines of vocal score which I’m noting where I need to make corrections while listening for how all the parts are working so that when someone says did I hit the right note back there I have something vaguely intelligent to offer.
And it’s at that particular point in the proceedings that I apparently choose to begin to have complex conversations with myself.
I mean really. What’s with that?
Am I getting this across? Somebody throw me another plate. Most days I can barely do long division without tragic consequences, but the second I’ve got six plates spinning apparently some part of me way back in the lizard-brain either thinks I need more of a challenge or is bored and needs to keep busy, or both. That. What’s with that? Geez. Shut up and sing wouldja.
I mean really.