Past

In Progress–Fiddle Sessions

I know I promised to let you know when I’m playing in the area.  But sometimes you just can’t get there from here.  You see, I’m involved in a performance March 17 but before I got a chance to let you know it sold out.  I thought about not saying anything but I didn’t want you to think I hadn’t remembered you.  So here I am telling you about a show you can’t get to.

kbsitepicinstrument003Although I’ve just realized there’s another good reason to let you know what’s going on.  The March 17 performance is a second performance with the fiddler I played with in January.  (The first was the Burns evening, you remember?)  The fiddler and I are discussing doing some more work together, could be some very interesting results.  I’ll make sure I let you know as soon as things begin to take shape.  We’ve also been sitting down to do some guitar and fiddle workout which has been great fun.  The plan is to record some of that over the next little while in preparation for a serious recording to be put together this spring.  I expect the workouts to sound pretty good on their own.  If so I’ll put one or two here for you to listen to.

And I’ll make sure that the next performance I tell you about is one you can actually get to.

March 1st, 2009 | Tags: | Category: Performance, Projects

A Musical

I know I told you I’ve written a musical.  I really didn’t mean to, honest.  I’ve certainly performed in more than a few over the years, but I never thought to write one.  But some time ago I started to scratch down a few thoughts, first the title of one of my songs, then some thinking, then another title, then some more thinking.  After watching myself do this for some time I began to understand that what I was doing was looking at the distance between those two songs, and figuring out what little glimpse of a story that seemed to tell.  (I guess maybe you’d call that the narrative distance.  I wonder what kind of unit of measure that would have… nevermind.)  Finally a third song title, a bit more thinking, then I put it away.  But I couldn’t leave it alone.  After several days of carrying on like this, a few minutes here and there in between whatever else I was doing, I realized what I was up to.  I was writing a musical.

After the shock wore off I decided to keep going and a couple of months later the first draft was done.  Two acts, thirteen songs, five voices.  I continued to tweak the script for a while, but it was definitely finished.  Many of the songs are new and written for the show, others are pieces I’ve written and performed in concerts but which seemed to fit perfectly when I needed something to say just that.  It will be interesting to hear someone else’s voice sing these songs.  Oh yes, and I will actually hear someone else sing these songs.  You see the Waterloo Region Arts Fund was kind enough to give me a small grant to go towards running the whole thing through a workshop process and then performing the results over three nights in June (25, 26 & 27) at the Registry Theatre.  So for a couple of months I’ll be working out the script and the songs with a full cast, re-writing, editing and lifting the whole thing up off the page to see what it feels like.  It’s sure to be an intense but rewarding process.  I’ll let you know how it’s progressing when we get there.

Yes, of course, I should tell you the title.  It’s called “Witness“.

Wish me luck.

February 17th, 2009 | Tags: , | Category: Performance, Projects
 
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