Tres Gique 2.0

[mdlbear]

(Takes deep breath. Jumps off cliff.)

"My" Toastmaster concert at ConChord this year was actually a Tres Gique concert, and it went off remarkably well considering that we really only had two rehearsals together as a group since last May, and that the set included three songs we'd never done as a group before.

It wasn't awesome. Parts of it came close, though. Quiet Victories, even with a couple of flubs and my flagging voice, was very close to awesome. I don't usually tear up listening to recordings.

Callie's partner, Naomi, pointed out that we could be awesome, consistently, if we got together every 4-6 weeks for a weekend of intensive practice. So that's what we're going to do. Or at least try to do -- we'll get together sometime in mid-November and see how it goes.

This is going to mean some big changes.

The biggest change for me is that we're not going to be "Steve Savitzky and his occasional backup group" anymore. We'll be doing a mix of my songs and other people's songs -- we won't even stick to filk; Joyce has been singing folk since forever. We'll try writing stuff jointly -- I have some ideas about that. I won't always be lead singer (I can hear the cheers from the audience already). I won't get nearly as many concerts as just me -- that's part of the price. But I'll learn to be a better performer, and my concerts, with or without TG, will sound a lot better -- that's the payoff.

For Callie and Joyce, the big change will be that they'll have equal billing as performers in the group, not just as part of some singer-songwriter's backup group. That's what happened to Callie with Echo's Children: she was many people thought of her as just Cat's backup and never became known as the fantastic performer she is.

Jordan, our drummer, will stay in that role at least for a couple of years; eventually he may move out, go into impoverished college student mode, and we'll have to worry about what to do next. Kat, who's performed with us a couple of times, won't be able to make it down from Canada for rehearsals; she can sit in via streaming audio if she wants, but mostly will become our Webmistress. Things will sort themselves out.

Joyce's husband Dave, who has been doing live sound for her and others for years at folk dance camps, will be the official Sound Guy. Colleen is, of course, Catering and Hospitality, and possibly logistics.

Now, about that version number. Back around the end of last year Kat and I came up with a version-numbering scheme: I was 1.0, Callie and Joyce were 0.1 and 0.2 respectively; Jordan and Kat were 0.0.1 and 0.0.2 respectively. Add 'em up. Wwll, we're not playing mix-and-match anymore, and I'm not the main performer anymore. So, Tres Gique 2.0.

If this comes off, we'll have our first concert at Consonance or Baycon.

Comments

[mdlbear]

I know you did, and I'm not saying that Callie wasn't satisfied with that billing. I know she enjoyed singing with you very much.

Hopefully it will. But that's not the real root of the problem. Joyce probably won't ever be known as a songwriter, and she's comparatively new to filk, but her folk repertoire is huge; I'd like to see her get known as somebody who can jump in on anything in Rise Up Singing at the drop of a hat instead just somebody who occasionally gets up on stage with me. I'd like to get better known -- as well as just plain better -- as a performer rather than as a songwriter who, like Bob Dylan, can just barely sing if he plays the melody on the guitar.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Hmm. If I'm understanding right, you're suggesting that filkers generally should value performance skills more than we do?

I sympathize, but 1) I think performance skills are already valued, and 2) I'm not sure how that would fit in with filk's tolerance of people (often people with little performance experience) with very low performance skills but a genuine desire to participate. That latter characteristic is something I really admire about filk, even if I sometimes find it a little difficult in the execution. It makes filk a "safe place" to start out.

Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding, and it's not that you think we should emphasize performance skills, but that we should widen the repertoire of filk circles to include more folk music and other genres? I think that would be cool too.

[mdlbear]

Neither, actually. I love the way filk welcomes new people and tolerates limited performance skills -- I would never have gotten to where I am now without that welcome and that tolerance.

It's really more a matter of branding than anything else. For a long time, people only knew Callie as part of EC, and your songs were all that people expected her to sing. People know me primarily as a songwriter; even Callie was surprised when I told her that, no, I didn't write the tune we use for "The Owl and the Pussycat" (it's probably almost as old as the lyrics).

I'd like to get to the point where, when people see TG on the program, they aren't going to expect an hour of all my songs. And when people see me or Callie on the program, they aren't going to wonder where the rest of TG are. I'd like to make sure that, when people see Callie or Joyce or me in a circle, they aren't going to expect us to sing only the songs we sing in TG performances. I'd like there to be a clear difference between what people hear on a Steve Savitzky CD -- almost all my songs, and a mix of performers -- and what they hear on a Tres Gique CD -- the four of us singing a good mix of songs.

It really says very little about the filk community, only about our roles in it.