Tres Gique session report: logistics

I see that I haven't posted anything substantial about Tres Gique's rehearsal "weekend" (which actually started Friday evening and will end tomorrow about 5pm). And I haven't unpacked and labeled the recordings, so I don't have a list of everything we've done. This is, therefore, basically an overview.

Friday cflute ended up getting in late and worn out due to airport stupidity. Fortunately I'd already decided that the day was likely to be mostly a write-off as far as actual rehearsal was concerned, and invited the Ugglas to come down for dinner, socializing, and planning. That worked well, and we got in a few songs into the bargain. The band's eminence grise, pocketnaomi, joined via Skype (on my Macbook) and IM (to cflute's laptop).

Saturday was our day for socializing, while the Ugglas were out of town. Fun, if a little tiring. But I've already posted about that.

Yesterday we went in to $COMPANY's office and set up in a conference room, in hopes of being able to rehearse there the next two days. It was a good session, but we spent about an hour in setup. The best part, by far, was having Naomi on the projector where we could all see what she was typing. Big win. Good session; ended about 5pm and left things mostly set up except for Callie's instruments.

I got a call this morning from $COMPANY asking us not to play in the conference room during business hours -- apparently the walls are paper-thin, which is something I hadn't known and hadn't bothered to check. So Dave and I trundled up a little before noon, packed up the remaining gear and put the room back pretty much the way we found it. Setup at the Starport didn't take nearly as long as yesterday, largely because my gear and Callie's were already in place, and we didn't have to figure out what to do with the conference table. We did have to move a few chairs and so on; most of them ended up in the office, where I no longer have room to swing a cat. That's OK; the Cat hasn't been able to square-dance in years.

I put my Macbook where it could be more-or-less seen; it wasn't perfect but it was halfway decent. With a bigger monitor (or younger eyes) it would have worked. The set-up will work out wonderfully tomorrow, since it's half an hour closer to the airport, Callie's luggage is already there, and I won't be needed to mind the door for packing up. We'll gain at least an hour on that one. It's also better because Callie and I won't have to spend half an hour commuting each way. (It's about a wash for the Ugglas.)

After the chaoswolf moves out, presumably taking her wedding presents and some of the furniture, we'll have a media room again. The wall where the couch is currently located is about the same length as a stage, and I'll be able to set up my guitar, a music stand, monitor speakers and a mixer and leave them there. That'll be a huge win logistically. We should also have a newer and bigger TV by then; it'll work for Naomi's backchannel and perhaps the occasional bit of whiteboard space.

With liberal amounts of Throat Coat and Emergen-C (which I find palatable only in hot water), my voice seems to be coming back; it was nearly gone yesterday, but I was able to sing lead on a couple of songs today.

It's not exactly logistics, but I also spent some time writing Emacs commands for adding chords to lead sheets: they make the job go much faster, and since most songs need chords on all the lines, that's a big win. I also need to write a transposer; that'll be pretty easy in Perl.