Band Bass-ics

This evening I met up with the newly appointed band members of "The Spotlight Band for our very first rehearsal. Its been a good while since I've sung with a band and I was really excited! I had rented us a fully loaded music studio at Smash complete with keyboard, amps, mics and drum kit. Originally, the band was only going to consist of our pianist, a guitarist and percussionist, but in the past week or so our musicians requested that we find a bassist to fill out the sound. So that we did!

Several of the guys already knew each other from working on various projects around the improv community, but the drummer was new to them, which was actually a cool thing since these guys are often in need of a drummer. They all seemed to jive and jam pretty well together though, so this may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship!

If anyone felt like the odd man out here, it was me. I'm new to song writing and I felt a bit ill prepared to give the band direction as to what to play. Since I am a musical improviser, I just sort of assumed that I'd do some spot songs with the pianist to get the ideas flowing, and then the other musicians would join in when inspired. This is easier said than done however, so the guys opted to jam and play around with some ideas for tunes while I listened and gathered inspiration for some lyrics.

The guys did a great job of improvising musically. I was sorta envious and wished that I had been able to contribute to their process. We're trying to write an original song, and we all want it to be good - so I'm feeling a little pressure.

By the end of our two hour session, the guys had fleshed out a pretty groovy tune, which may or may not stick - but it's solid a start. I have a big job ahead of me to start pinpointing what I want the song to specifically be about so that I can write some lyrics and fill in the missing elements which hold the keys to helping get us on track to making beautiful music together!