From: owner-wanderer-digest@smoe.org (wanderer-digest) To: wanderer-digest@smoe.org Subject: wanderer-digest V1 #1 Reply-To: wanderer@smoe.org Sender: owner-wanderer-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-wanderer-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk wanderer-digest Tuesday, October 9 2001 Volume 01 : Number 001 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Welcome! [Susan McNamara ] Re: Welcome! ["Marian" ] Re: Welcome! [Susan McNamara ] Re: Welcome! ["Marian" ] Re: Jonatha [Susan McNamara ] Re: Welcome! [Mark Domyancich ] Re: Welcome! [Susan McNamara ] Re: Jonatha ["Marian" ] Re: Welcome! [Mark Domyancich ] Re: Welcome! [Susan McNamara ] Re: Welcome! [Les Irvin ] Re: Welcome! [Susan McNamara ] Re: Welcome! [Les Irvin ] Re: Welcome! [Susan McNamara ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 08:47:13 -0400 From: Susan McNamara Subject: Welcome! Hi Les, Marian and Mark! thanks for signing up. I'm really excited about this and I hope we get some lively conversations going. First off, I would love for you all to let me know where you are right now in your guitar playing lives. Recently I've had my first "gig" with a friend of mine who is a singer. She's about 19 and has a great passion for OLD music.. ahem... so she thought it would be cool if we did a bunch of Joni songs at a coffee house. As most first gigs go it was a comedy of errors, but in the end the audience of about 20 ringers seemed to enjoy themselves. ;-) We are going to do it again in November. This is huge for me because I am a closet guitar player with intense stage fright. The best tune of the night was Morning Morgantown. The worst was a really chopped up version of "When I'm 64" which she insisted on singing. Yikes, it was like bad vaudeville!!! :-) Hope this first message works. Also if you have any ideas about how the list should function, I'm open for suggestions. take care, sue ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 18:17:31 +0100 From: "Marian" Subject: Re: Welcome! - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Susan McNamara" To: Sent: 08 October 2001 1:47 PM Subject: Welcome! > Hi Les, Marian and Mark! > > thanks for signing up. Thanks for starting this list, Sue! I think it has great potential! > I'm really excited about this and I hope we > get some lively conversations going. Me, too! > First off, I would love for you all to let me know where you are > right now in your guitar playing lives. Well, this year I've been spending a lot of time working out some of Jonatha Brooke's songs. Some of her tunings are very discordant and some of the chord shapes feel quite awkward compared to Joni's tunings and chord shapes. It has been a very educational undertaking in many respects - I feel like I've learned some new tricks in the process. At the end of last year, I got a VG-8. That has been fun to play around with. Nice to be able to change tunings just by turning the dial or pressing a few buttons. Because of the VG-8, I got to meet Ramona Kasheer - a very gifted singer/songwriting who lives in Vienna - and we have become friends. She does songs in tunings, also. She says a new alternate tuning is like a whole new landscape to explore. Her initial training included five years of flamenco guitar and five years of instruction in drumming, so she really is an excellent guitarist and has also a lot of interesting rhythmic things going on in her songs. She worked this summer on recording a CD which she hopes to have out by the end of the year. Her stuff is so complex that I think it would be very difficult to transcribe it just from listening! A weekend ago I had a visit from someone I met at Ashara's Jonifest. We spent the whole weekend doing cooking things and playing music. He wanted to learn some Joni songs, so we worked on Passion Play (nice transcription, Mark), and The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey. We also looked at the process of transcribing. It was really fun to have an intensive time doing the things that I most love. I haven't been performing very much lately. I'm feeling kind of shy these days. I am meeting with a bass player every two weeks, though, and we are playing some Dylan, some Tom Petty, some John Mellencamp, and some Jonatha. We're trying to find some other musicians to work with us. > Recently I've had my first > "gig" with a friend of mine who is a singer. > She's about 19 and has a great passion for > OLD music.. ahem... LOL! :^D But seriously, you are so lucky to have someone who is really interested in doing music with you and performing. What a great thing! > so she thought it would be > cool if we did a bunch of Joni songs at a coffee house. You are also lucky to have this kind of a venue! > As most > first gigs go it was a comedy of errors, > but in the end the audience of about 20 > ringers seemed to enjoy themselves. ;-) (what are ringers?) > We are going to > do it again in November. That's great, Sue! > This is huge for me because I am a closet > guitar player with intense stage fright. The > best tune of the night was Morning Morgantown. What was your setlist? > The worst was a really chopped up version > of "When I'm 64" which she insisted on singing. > Yikes, it was like > bad vaudeville!!! :-) I once changed all the strings on a twelve-string guitar that I had just before I performed at a university coffee house. What a mistake!!! In the review printed in the school paper, my name fortunately went unmentioned, but there was a snide remark about people who couldn't tune their guitars! I was mortified!!! Regards to all, Marian marian@jmdl.com http://www.jmdl.com/guitar/marian/guitar.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 13:32:50 -0400 From: Susan McNamara Subject: Re: Welcome! Hi Marian: >Well, this year I've been spending a lot of time working out some of Jonatha >Brooke's songs. I have a Jonatha Brooke and The Story CD that I haven't really listened to. I'm going to have to pull it out and see what it's like. I remember it has a picture of a black dress on a hangar, maybe you know which disc I'm talking about. >At the end of last year, I got a VG-8. That has been fun to play around >with. Nice to be able to change tunings just by turning the dial or >pressing a few buttons. Because of the VG-8, I got to meet Ramona Kasheer - >a very gifted singer/songwriting who lives in Vienna - That sounds great. What fun! > >(what are ringers?) Ringers is an expression that comes from sports, like in the big game you bring in a new player who only hits home runs! I use it to say all the people in the audience were our friends who wouldn't dare boo!! :-) >What was your setlist? > We played Morning Morgantown, Big Yellow Taxi, Starry Starry Night (Don McLean song about Van Gogh), Anna (an old Beatles tune), When I'm Sixty Four, and she sang about four songs a cappella including Janis' Mercedes Benz. She wanted to sing Blue but we couldn't get it together in time. We only played for an hour then a bunch of regulars came up and did old Weavers songs. My husband Joe calls them the "Folk Mafia!" :-) > >I once changed all the strings on a twelve-string guitar that I had just >before I performed at a university coffee house. What a mistake!!! In the >review printed in the school paper, my name fortunately went unmentioned, >but there was a snide remark about people who couldn't tune their guitars! >I was mortified!!! Joe warned me never to do a gig with new strings! He would have that happen to him all the time. Experience is the Great Teacher!! :-) Take care, sue ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 19:51:55 +0100 From: "Marian" Subject: Re: Welcome! > I have a Jonatha Brooke and The Story CD that I haven't really > listened to. I'm going to have to pull it out and see what it's > like. I remember it has a picture of a black dress on a hangar, > maybe you know which disc I'm talking about. That's Plumb. It was her first solo (without Jennifer Kimball) album. Some great songs on it! My favorites are West Point, Is This All, and Paris. My favorite album of hers is the LIVE album. It's amazing how perfect she is live. Beautiful voice, beautiful guitar work. Marian marian@jmdl.com http://www.jmdl.com/guitar/marian/guitar.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 13:49:06 -0400 From: Susan McNamara Subject: Re: Jonatha Great, I'll listen to it and then maybe we can trade tunings. You said some of the Jonatha tabs you did are on your website, right? sue >That's Plumb. It was her first solo (without Jennifer Kimball) album. Some >great songs on it! My favorites are West Point, Is This All, and Paris. My >favorite album of hers is the LIVE album. It's amazing how perfect she is >live. Beautiful voice, beautiful guitar work. > >Marian >marian@jmdl.com >http://www.jmdl.com/guitar/marian/guitar.htm - -- "Heart and humor and humility will lighten up your heavy load ... " - Joni Mitchell ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 12:50:12 -0500 From: Mark Domyancich Subject: Re: Welcome! Well, unfortunately I haven't had much time to play guitar lately. Over the past few months I've had several "life changing" events that have made me not pick up the guitar just because I'm not in the mood to play. It's also difficult to play now for some reason. My playing has gotten a lot sloppier and after maybe a minute of playing I'll hit the string wrong and I'll play a note that is completely wrong and I'll put the guitar down. It's very discouraging! I'm trying my best to get back in it though. I'm trying to learn a couple Neil Young songs (learned Pocahantas on my brother's friend's 12-string and it sounded remarkable, so maybe I'm underrating myself :) ). And believe it or not, I've been trying to learn some Talking Heads as well. Cities is an easy song to play. I've also been trying to learn more stuff in standard tuning. Last night I attempted to transcribe a song by the New Bohemians called "Uh Oh." Hard! I opened the CD track with Peak (an audio app) and looped sections one at a time and moved around the neck note by note to get the chord right. That's an incredibly slow process but if you continue to work on it you can have the whole song done. Well, that's about it! Haven't performed "live" since 1999 and don't really want to play live again until my playing gets more "fluid." Hoping the best for the list! I'll try to post again this afternoon. Mark ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 14:00:09 -0400 From: Susan McNamara Subject: Re: Welcome! >I'm trying my best to get back in it though. I'm trying to learn a >couple Neil Young songs (learned Pocahantas on my brother's friend's >12-string and it sounded remarkable, so maybe I'm underrating myself >:) ). Neil never let mistakes stop him, Mark!! :-) Coincidentally, I've been learning some Neil songs. I went to the Rust site and printed tabs for You and Me (from Harvest Moon) and When You Dance, I Can Really Love (probably one of my VERY FAVORITE neil songs). Both are in Drop D tunings. I got psyched when I saw his Legends show on VH1 last week. He's very Joni-related!! :-) I'm waiting for an email back from the Smoe Owner to confirm that digest mode is happening and then I'm going to send a Please Join email to the JMDL. I hope all goes well! Take care, sue - -- "Heart and humor and humility will lighten up your heavy load ... " - Joni Mitchell ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 20:07:48 +0100 From: "Marian" Subject: Re: Jonatha Sue wrote: > Great, I'll listen to it and then maybe > we can trade tunings. You > said some of the Jonatha tabs you did > are on your website, right? Yes. There's a lot of her stuff there - most are transcriptions I have done, but there are also a few by other people. It's very interesting to learn her music. I find it difficult to play her music and sing at the same time! Because sometimes the guitar work or chord changes are tricky. I guess, like anything, it just takes repetition until eventually one can do it. It just seems more difficult to me in that respect than learning to play and sing one of Joni's songs. Marian marian@jmdl.com http://www.jmdl.com/guitar/marian/guitar.htm - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Susan McNamara" To: Sent: 08 October 2001 6:49 PM Subject: Re: Jonatha > Great, I'll listen to it and then maybe we can trade tunings. You > said some of the Jonatha tabs you did are on your website, right? > > sue > > >That's Plumb. It was her first solo (without Jennifer Kimball) album. Some > >great songs on it! My favorites are West Point, Is This All, and Paris. My > >favorite album of hers is the LIVE album. It's amazing how perfect she is > >live. Beautiful voice, beautiful guitar work. > > > >Marian > >marian@jmdl.com > >http://www.jmdl.com/guitar/marian/guitar.htm > > > -- > > > "Heart and humor and humility > will lighten up your heavy load ... " - Joni Mitchell ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 14:35:17 -0500 From: Mark Domyancich Subject: Re: Welcome! I really enjoy the RustList's guitar section. Very bare-bones compared to our masterpiece, and I'd really like to see them implement their tabs as printable versions. Every time I look at one of them it defaults to the Arial font (which is not monspaced, mind you) so I end up having to copy and paste into SimpleText and format it in Courier or Monaco. Oh well! Maybe I'm complaining too much. Bob Muller sent me a copy of a really early Joni show from England several weeks ago that contains a full version of The Wizard of Id. I haven't tried tabbing it out yet but I would like to soon. Mark ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 15:43:14 -0400 From: Susan McNamara Subject: Re: Welcome! >I really enjoy the RustList's guitar section. Very bare-bones >compared to our masterpiece, and I'd really like to see them >implement their tabs as printable versions. Every time I look at one >of them it defaults to the Arial font (which is not monspaced, mind >you) so I end up having to copy and paste into SimpleText and format >it in Courier or Monaco. Oh well! Maybe I'm complaining too much. Yes, I had the same problem printing. Having to cut and paste took at least two minutes, dammit! :-) It is a great site otherwise. >Bob Muller sent me a copy of a really early Joni show from England >several weeks ago that contains a full version of The Wizard of Id. >I haven't tried tabbing it out yet but I would like to soon. > >Mark WHOA, Excellent find! Is Bob thinking about treeing this? Never ever heard that song before. sue - -- "Heart and humor and humility will lighten up your heavy load ... " - Joni Mitchell ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 14:03:51 -0600 From: Les Irvin Subject: Re: Welcome! At 01:43 PM 10/8/2001, Susan McNamara wrote: >WHOA, Excellent find! Is Bob thinking about treeing this? Never ever >heard that song before. Hi folks... This was a disc handed out to all those who attended Jonifest this year. I doubt it will be treed, but if interested I can provide anyone with a copy. To answer your initial question, these days I'm not doing much with the guitar although I made my first appearance on stage at Jonifest this past month. It was fun, leaving me wanting to do more. I am basically a bluegrass guitarist (I have a Martin D-18) and I grew up listening to Clarence White and Tony Rice's playing. I am also very, very into and influenced by Pierre Bensusan, a French guitarist who plays almost exclusively in DADGAD tuning. I was also highly influenced by Ian Anderson's acoustic playing back in the "old days". Congrats on the new list, Sue! I hope it's a big success... Les ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 16:14:36 -0400 From: Susan McNamara Subject: Re: Welcome! >I am basically a bluegrass guitarist (I have a Martin D-18) and I >grew up listening to Clarence White and Tony Rice's playing. I am >also very, very into and influenced by Pierre Bensusan, a French >guitarist who plays almost exclusively in DADGAD tuning. I was also >highly influenced by Ian Anderson's acoustic playing back in the >"old days". Wow, great list of guitar players, Les. Tony Rice is great; I love his covers of Gordon Lightfoot songs. Beautiful. And I assume your talking about Ian Anderson the folk guitarist and not Ian Anderson of Tull with his foul flute. :-) >Congrats on the new list, Sue! I hope it's a big success... >Les Thanks, Les. After the Smoe master translates the Config file he sent me, I think I'll be ready to send an invitation message to JMDL. Thanks!!! sue - -- "Heart and humor and humility will lighten up your heavy load ... " - Joni Mitchell ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 14:19:48 -0600 From: Les Irvin Subject: Re: Welcome! At 02:14 PM 10/8/2001, Susan McNamara wrote: >Wow, great list of guitar players, Les. Tony Rice is great; I love his >covers of Gordon Lightfoot songs. Beautiful. And I assume your talking >about Ian Anderson the folk guitarist and not Ian Anderson of Tull with >his foul flute. :-) No... actually I *am* talking about "Mr Tull". His playing is really what made me want to pick up a guitar in the first place. All that acoustic stuff on Aqualung used to thrill me to no end! Still does, actually. Take care, Les ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 16:26:39 -0400 From: Susan McNamara Subject: Re: Welcome! >No... actually I *am* talking about "Mr Tull". His playing is >really what made me want to pick up a guitar in the first place. >All that acoustic stuff on Aqualung used to thrill me to no end! >Still does, actually. >Take care, >Les Cool, as you know I'm a huge Tull fan. Life's a long song is probably the coolest song played on acoustic guitar. I've had this dream to someday be able to play the song Moths (off of Heavy Horses). Another great acoustic song by Ian. But there is another guy named Ian Anderson who probably rues the day Jethro Tull ever got a recording contract. :-) sue - -- "Heart and humor and humility will lighten up your heavy load ... " - Joni Mitchell ------------------------------ End of wanderer-digest V1 #1 ****************************