Tres Gique on the River

[mdlbear]

This is a follow-up to my upstream posts Tres Gique: Weekend of Win and Tres Gique: Weekend Wrap-up, this time from the point of view of the River posts.

A weekend is barely enough time for catching up with a friend. Fill it with 8 hours of rehearsal, a couple hours of commute time, lunch and snack breaks, and add the fact that cflute is not only my good friend but Colleen's. I got plenty of time with Callie, but most of that time was busy and tightly focussed. All the one-on-one time was spent in my car, and while I can talk and drive, I can't concentrate as much as I like to do when I'm talking with a friend.

Colleen, of course, got even less time -- she'd wanted to at least do a little recreational shopping. Schedules permitting, we'll have to try tacking an extra day onto the next visit.

 

Colleen ended up feeling excluded, even though she excluded herself because she knows that listening to us rehearse would drive her crazy. And because she knows that if she's around we'll be trying to entertain her -- perform for her -- rather than working on the hard parts in a way that would be excruciating for someone who listens to music purely for pleasure.

Next time we'll have streaming audio, probably using icecast, with a text backchannel probably using either IRC or Jabber. That will mean that remote participants like Colleen and pocketnaomi can be flies on the wall if they want to, and drop out quietly if they're bored.

Having Colleen cater lunch on Saturday was highly successful. Next time we'll have her come in with a snack on Sunday as well, which will hopefully make her feel even more connected and give her a chance to say goodbye to Callie, and sit in on our last session if she wants to.

 

We had a different set of problems with pocketnaomi, who wanted to be included even though she was stuck up in Seattle. Our initial attempt on Saturday, using a cell phone, was disastrous: Callie interpreted N's saying that the sound quality was barely tolerable as meaning that she didn't want to continue listening. The result was a very upset PocketPerson on the other end of the line, especially since Callie and I turned our cell phones off at that point.

Sunday we set up Skype on my laptop, which was much better, especially after we turned off the video. We used IM (to Callie's laptop) as the backchannel. Naomi told me the next day that

I'm quite happy communicating to you in text while being able to hear you but not be heard. It means if I need to deal with the kids or ask someone a question or rustle the pages of my book, I'm not interfering.

The only glitch came when we took a break, and both of our laptops timed out and dropped the connections. Leaving an upset PocketPerson on the other end of the line again. This time, fortunately, we were able to recover quickly and almost gracefully.

The lessons for next time:

• Callie and I both have (non-geekish) people who love us, and who will feel excluded if we don't make an effort to include them. It's a "working weekend", sure, but we can't treat it as just another business trip. It's not some computer conference that's only of interest to us, it's music, and they wish they were with us even while they know they'd be bored silly if they were.
• Nokia's speakerphone feature is barely usable for speech; it's intolerable for music. (I noticed this a couple of days ago in the car -- it sort of works, but I was losing about one word in three.) Anyplace with a net connection, streaming audio with text back is the way to go.
• The main channels for remote participants need to be high quality and reliable. Streaming audio from a computer that isn't going to go to sleep and drop the connection. Text on the backchannel, projected on a screen or a large monitor where everyone in the group can see it.
• We need to keep multiple channels open. Leave phones on -- this isn't a performance, after all. Maybe on vibrate so we can ignore them during songs. Have one or more laptops, with power-saver mode turned off, available for private IMing.
• Colleen should cater the break on Sunday, bring the kids if they want to come along, and stay for the last session. She can also take Callie to the airport while the rest of us stay behind to pack things up -- it's on the way to the kids' game night anyway.
• The last session on Sunday should be for everyone, and go out on a high note. Do one last run-through of the stuff we feel best about; more like a concert dress rehearsal than a work session.

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I would absolutely not be bored silly if I were with you while you rehearse. I've been with TG while they rehearsed, for three hours at a stretch and then you and Callie for another two hours later that night, and it was wonderful. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I'd do it every time in a heartbeat. I want to be as much of a participant as I can, not only because I love Callie, like you, and want to be part of your lives (and miss the heck out of Callie when she goes away, even for a couple of days), but because I want to be part of the band. Even if the only part I have the talent to be is quasi-producer, helping out with financing rehearsals and setting up music stands and offering opinions on how things sounded when solicited. I want to be any part I can.

[mdlbear]

Point taken; should probably have split that sentence into two, though it might have been more awkward. Colleen would be bored silly, or worse; she prefers moderately polished performances to the kind of thing one gets early in the rehearsal process.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there is a very different mindset between liking to listen to music and liking to be part of the construction process from first discussion about possible repertoire to finished performance. I'm in the latter category -- the only reason I'm not in a band is because I don't have the skills and don't want to drag one down... and at that, I'm on a two-year plotted campaign to become competent enough as a performer to deserve to go onstage with Callie on a regular basis.

For someone whose interest in music is basically as an audience member rather than a wannabe-performer, it would be a whole different story. But for me, the only reason I'm not at every rehearsal is that I can't afford to fly down to San Jose. I wish I could.

[mdlbear]

You and Callie would make a fine duo -- that occurred to me the moment I heard you sing at ConChord. It's not as if Callie would mind being in more than one group...

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I'm working on the skill set necessary for it, and hoping you're right about us making a good duo. I'm certainly not intending to try to take her away from TG; Callie's got enough music in her for at least two bands, and probably only stopping there for lack of time. :)

[callibr8]

Callie's got enough music in her for at least two bands

Yes, definitely!

So much music, so little time.

Then there's those pesky things like the need to *yawn* sleep and eat...

[mdlbear]

As Chaos says, "sleep is for wimps. Intelligent, well-rested wimps, but wimps."

[mdlbear]

You and Colleen and Dave and Kat are very much part of the band. In fact, we should probably work on ways of getting you or Kat on stage as guest performers when you're local.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Colleen's the band's official caterer and hostess -- a valuable role indeed, but fortunately for her, not one which requires her to be at every rehearsal. :)

I'd love to come on as a guest performer if I had enough rehearsal time with the band on whatever I'm guesting on to feel like I'd be adding rather than taking away from what the band could do without me. I'm not going to do it just to gratify my own ego, that's not the way I treat performance.

[mdlbear]

Of course. And Kat's the webmistress-in-training.

Between singing along with recordings, working with Callie, and a couple of runthroughs before the gig you could easily come on for a song or two. Especially if it's one of your own, which it probably would be. Or one you're very familiar with.

Callie has a lot of experience with guest performers, and I'm getting there; we both love it. The pure fun of it is well worth the occasional trainwreck.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Callie's perfectly happy to invite me onstage with her, but I don't want to be there unless I'm good enough to feel that I'm contributing.

[mdlbear]

I'm under no illusions about my musical talent; I'm not in Callie's league as a performer. Fortunately she seems to like making music with me anyway.

[callibr8]

Yes, I *do* like making music, with you, and Jordan and Joyce. I had that thrill of "it's really WORKING" when Joyce added the bass on the first song we ran on Sunday, that sense of, "damn! we sound like a BAND now!".

I'd so much rather be part of a band than a solo diva. The tapestry of sound that one can create is just so MUCH more interesting.

[mdlbear]

I'm usually too busy to listen much until later, but I really like the energy and the opportunity to do something cool with other people after years of not even thinking about it.

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

Just as a note: if you're open to openning up the rehearsal streaming to others, I'd be interested, but I also understand if you wouldn't want to.

[mdlbear]

I've been thinking about that; would have to consult with the other band members, but it's definitely a possibility. Especially with people like you who are longtime friends of one or more of us.

[callibr8]

It's absolutely fine with me if you want to include tibicina in the rehearsal streaming. FWIW.

[mdlbear]

Thanks -- it's worth a lot. There are probably a small handful of others we want to include; in particular, people we're working with or whose songs we're singing.

At some point we might want to consider selling subscriptions to help finance the travel fund, though "friends of the band" like tibicina would of course get a free pass. At that point we'd also have to consider things like stream hosting, licensing, public and private streams... I think we can safely wait until after Consonance to think about the commercial aspects.

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

Oh, though this discussion reminds me - did you ever split up my and Callie's concerts from ConChord?

[mdlbear]

Oops.

OK, one more thing to do this weekend...

[mdlbear]

Not split yet, but at least sort-of usable:

http://steve.savitzky.net/Concerts/ConChord-2008/callie.mp3
http://steve.savitzky.net/Concerts/ConChord-2008/rebecca.mp3

Power Saver hassle

[donsimpson.livejournal.com]

I hate resetting my screensaver and power saver stuff around various events. It's hardly any work, but a computer should be able to do it for me. So, currently I have Jiggler, a Mac app that simulates tiny mouse movements at intervals shorter than the various timer settings. So I just need to click on the icon to temporarily nullify any dimming, blanking, or shutdowns, and a click-&-drag to Quit in the icon's menu to completely restore it all. There could be a better implementation, but it's adiquate.