The Saga of Orbert's Band (now with A New Development)

[Orbert]

Well, it's officially over.  Again, but for sure this time.

I spoke with John on the phone for about an hour last night.  We talked about many things, and of course the band occupied a lot of that time.  A lot of things have happened, and a lot of things have changed, since the band last played nearly a year ago.  Obviously Covid-19 is still raging, stronger than ever before, while almost ironically the vaccines are being rolled out.  So here's the short version:

David is still recovering from the long-term effects of Covid-19.  I was hopeful after seeing a few videos of him playing acoustic guitar on Facebook, but that's about all he can do.  Play one song, then rest for a few hours because it exhausts him.  His vision still has not returned, and may not ever.  His strength is slowly coming back, but he will not be attending any rehearsals any time soon, let alone standing on a stage.

Jerry has taken a new job and will be relocating to Colorado.  We are in Illinois, and even though most of us work in IT, there was no option to do everything remotely.  Taking the job means relocating, which he wasn't thrilled about since he and his wife just bought a new house in 2019, but the new job also means significantly more money, so he's going for it.

The clincher, however, is that John is also moving, probably by the end of the year.  He shared that the reason he was pushing so hard last year to play, trying to find substitute players and singers to play the gigs, was because the company he works for (and is part owner of) was being bought out.  Because he had equity in the company, he couldn't say anything, and he had already told us that his long-term plan included retiring by 2023 and moving to Tennessee.  With the company being bought out, and him standing to rake in a buttload of cash (and he was already a millionaire), the plans have moved up, and he's retiring this year, after the paperwork is done.  So with all that going on last year, and him not being able to say anything about it, he played it like he was just really wanting to continue the momentum we had, with what was easily the best version of the band.  And that was true, and while I thought he was being a bit nuts about pushing so hard, I bought it.  What he was really trying to do was play at least one more gig before retiring and moving away.

So best case scenario for the band would include vaccines rolling out by summer, the band rehearsing for months to bring the new guitarist and bassist up to speed, maybe playing a handful of gigs, then John rides off into the sunset.  It might have been doable and worthwhile without having to bring new people on board, but between two new people for sure, and possibly one or both singers (he hasn't even thrown them into the equation yet), it's just not worth the work.

Instead, we'll have our memories (and videos and recordings) of the best band any of us had ever been in, and some kickass gigs, and we'll leave it at that.

Fuck.  I mean, I figured, but now it's official.  Fuck!  2020 was to be our year.  John had previously shared some of the gigs that got cancelled, but he told me a bunch more last night.  Two county fairs, opening the season at Arlington Raceway, the biggest and best indoor and outdoor venues in the tri-county area, and when we're not busy with all that, a permanent slot as opening act for the big band we'd opened for last February.  They were blown away, and wanted us to open for them every show.  Still only an hour to play, but paid more than most regular gigs we'd seen so far.  Dammit!!  All that hard work, replacing players until the perfect combination of personalities and talent was in place, then finally dozens of top-shelf bookings, and a fucking pandemic takes it all away.  It will forever be something that might have been, would have been, if only...

[Grappler]

Crazy!   I'd been wondering about your band - some of the larger bands in the area, are playing shows where they can.  Then again, those bands tend to be very anti-pandemic mitigation efforts and are very willing to play. 

That sucks that the band is over, and that you weren't able to play those scheduled gigs.....those would have been really big ones for you guys!   

[Evermind]

Man, that sucks. Fuck indeed.

I've been following this thread for a couple of years as of now and it's sad that's the way your band goes out. I mean, it's life, and it sucks, and I mean with Covid what could anyone expect, but I'm going to bed now and I'm quite bummed this ended like it did. Like, shit, this has somewhat ruined my evening. I hoped you'll finally get a functional band and be performing out there in the future.

Orbert, please know that this thread and your posts, even though this is it for your band, have been entertaining me for years.

[Lax]

Sorry that it might end this way, covid is destroying the world of culture and the vaccine alone isn't enough to guarantee a worldwide return to live music this year...

I followed this thread for years too and it has its highs and lows, cringy funny drama, uneasing not funny drama, shows, rushed rehearsals etc...

Cheers !

[Stadler]

Wow, Orbert, I'm so sorry.   Like Evermind (and Grappler, and others) I've been following this intently for years now, and had always hoped of sometime catching you live.   I wonder if there's some solace that it ended rather... organically than through a meltdown of people.  Perhaps salvaging the relationships can make it a slightly softer land.

What are your plans?   Do you have any desire to latch on to something else?  Perhaps that band that you were going to open for has an opening or knows someone that does? You sometimes lament the politics and the behind the scenes, but your love for playing is pretty clear to me; can you just shut that off?

[Orbert]

I will continue to play in some form or another.  I've always made music at my church, sometimes at more than one, and that helped scratch the gigging itch.  I'm still up for real gigging, but the prospect of building a new band really turns me off.  A couple years back, while our band was in yet another hiatus, I auditioned with another band and wrote about it here.  They were supposedly an established band looking for a keyboard player to round out their sound and help them move to the next level.  Pretty much what I would be looking for.  Instead, they were really just starting up and were "established" in that they had a song list and everybody except a keyboard player.  I showed up with a handful of songs ready to go, and spent most of the evening listening to them discuss the songs and why half of them hadn't even learned their parts.  So that was a hard pass.

I was contacted last year by a Bon Jovi tribute band looking for a keyboard player, with background vocals a big plus.  I think I may have shared that in this thread as well, or maybe it was in the Musician's Chat Thread.  At the time, our band wasn't playing, but no one was playing, and if gigs started happening again, I would've returned to my main band.  I double-checked my contact message again the other night; it's worded like a form letter.  It wasn't addressed specifically to me, but probably went to all the keyboard players they found on the site I'm on.  But that's the type of gig I'd want, if I were to jump into this again.  I'm sitting here with a bunch of gear and no band to play them in, but I sure as hell don't want to start from the ground up again.  What I could do, however, is learn or brush up 40 songs and go play with a band that already has 40 songs down.  A rehearsal or two, and let's go gig.

Once the vaccines start rolling out, restrictions start getting lifted, and gigs start happening again, I'll probably change my status to "Looking for a band to play in" and hopefully start fielding offers.  I seem to be something of a rarity; a keyboard player who actually knows what the fuck he's doing.  I try not to put too much stock in that, as there will always be better guys out there.  But I figure that out of the countless bands around here, there might be a few who have managed to stick together throughout the lockdowns, except for the keyboard player, and that's where I step in and save the day.  The next several months will be interesting.

[FreezingPoint]

Likewise, I always enjoyed reading the new posts in this thread and hoped of catching you guys live sometime. Thanks for all the stories.

I may know of a local area band looking for a keyboard player. More of a progressive/alternative rock group. They've done some Rush, Porcupine Tree and others. I'd have to check to see where they're at because everything is up in the air now (obviously) but I can pass the word on if it sounds interesting to you.

[Orbert]

Thanks for the offer.  For right now, I'm gonna sit tight.  I'm not looking to expose myself to any new people just yet, not with Covid numbers as high as ever in my area.  A band that does Rush and Porcupine Tree does sound like a band I'd be interested in.

[Orbert]

Well, that didn't take long.

JT contacted me a few days ago via Facebook Messenger, just wanted to see what I was up to.  I have to assume that John called everybody and talked to all former members of the band, to let them know that the band was officially ending and that they were in fact former members.  It would be his way.  JT asked me what I was going to do, join another band, or what?  I told him that with Covid vaccines just around the corner (relatively speaking) for old farts with health conditions, such as ourselves, that there's no hurry.  I'm gonna wait until I've had my shots, or numbers are way, way down.  I've sat tight for almost a year now, and yeah it's driving me nuts, but the irony (or whatever it is) of contracting Covid now would be too much.  I cannot allow the universe to have that great a joke at my expense.  I'll wait for my shots.

I got a text from JT today, to me and a phone number I don't recognize or have as a contact.  The text is introducing me to Paul, and Paul to me.  Paul is trying to start a band.  He plays bass, Kate sings, Jackson plays guitar and sings, JT is of course the drummer.  They need a keyboard player.

I told both of them that if there's a way to actually jam online, in real time, it could be interesting, but until then, sorry not interested.  Last I knew, there was no such software because any latency at all (and there's always at least a little) means you can't really play together in real time.

JT says "We are not doing anything live until vaccines.  No worries.  We've been virtual for months.  As you know, I am very cautious myself".

Interesting.  Maybe someone's figured it out.  I hadn't heard.  I said I'd have to see a song list.

Paul enters the conversation.  He'll send me a couple of links.  One is to the band page, one is to a set list.  He just needs my email address.

I sent it to him.

[Orbert]

Paul emailed me a couple of links.  One wasn't just a set list, but a shared spreadsheet (actually very similar to how we did it in my last band) with song, artist, decade (interesting!), and columns for each person to vote.  Votes have already been tallied, and songs have been ranked by results.  From there, the Final Song List has been derived.  The Final Song List (which Paul says in his email is a bad name because obviously nothing is ever final) has 88 songs.  At least a dozen or so songs don't have any keyboards, possibly more because I didn't recnognize a lot of the songs.  It skewed heavily towards more recent stuff, the stuff bands play in bars these days.

The band page wasn't really a band page yet; it's more like their Mission Statement.  (It's actually called the Band Concept page.)  It lays out what they're trying to do, which is appeal to 25-to-50-year-old females, on the assumption that if you get them up and dancing, the guys will follow, drink will flow, bars make money, bands make money, girls get to dance, guys get laid, everybody's happy.  Okay, I may have extrapolated a bit towards the end there.  It has a section where he lays out the "desired lineup", divided into what they currently have and what they're still looking for.  The section with "currently have" has the names of the current members and has presumably been edited to reflect their exact status.  Kate sings and plays some keyboards, mostly filling chords and stuff.  The rest is as described above.  Under "still needed" there's a second guitarist with vocals considered a plus, and another singer with some instrument (keyboards or guitar) considered a plus.  Keyboards are not otherwise mentioned in the band concept, and the song list bears this out.

I'm not going to be the guy who joins a band and starts demanding changes.  But I'm sure as hell not the guy who's going to learn 50 songs he doesn't even like just for the possibility that he'll get to play them somewhere, sometime.  I just spent seven years getting another band to that point, only to have it all vaporize just as it reached payoff.  The vaporization could not have been predicted and is no one's fault, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm seven years older and do not want to do this all again.  If I'm going to play, make the effort, learn the songs, invest myself, I have to at least like the music I'm playing, with being appreciated as a band member a strong second.  I swear, that doesn't seem like so much to ask for, but maybe I'm the one who's deluded.  It shouldn't be so hard to play songs you like, for people who like and appreciate what you're doing.

[pcs90]

Regarding the jamming software, if you are all close together (and you surely would be,) Jamulus will work for this in realtime if one of you knows how to host a server on their computer. If connecting to an existing one, there may be lots of lag. You all must have asio audio interfaces.
There's also ninjam, but that's not really intended for covers and such, more for improvising/jamming due to the way that system works.

[Orbert]

Well, close together is relative.  We're all out here in the Chicago suburbs, so within 75 miles of each other.  JT is about 60 miles west of me; I don't know where the others are.  I looked into jamming software last year, and the explanations about how latency, even fractions of seconds, make it basically impossible to jam in real time.  At the very beginnings of the lockdowns, we tried to have choir rehearsals remotely, but it was impossible.  I figured that the inherent latency was compounded by the fact that 20 people were involved, and thought maybe if you cut that down to four or five, then maybe it could work.  But the latency really has to be close to zero, and I can't see that happening.

[pcs90]

I have friends in various parts of Europe who all jam together and they are more than 75 miles apart. Frankly, it is better not to read too much into it and just jump in, it's one of these things that doesn't make sense or seem realistic but I have loads of recordings to prove that it works (though again, not covers really.) I can sit here in the USA and play with guys in Australia using some of this tech and some of these jams are so interactive that they really sound like we're in person together. It's scary at times.
The choir latency may be due to a variety of factors. Was everyone actually set up with a high speed audio interface on a computer? I imagine the number of people would also be a factor as you said.
I think the largest struggle will be that your use case is for specific covers with a specific form as opposed to a looser structure. A lot of this stuff is really intended more for improvising and experimentation.
That being said, if you simply wish to play without leaving the house and don't actually care about learning songs note for note, I'd definitely look into it -- it's kept me sane all the way through 2020, that's for sure.

[Orbert]

I take your point about not analyzing it too much before trying it, but I don't see how the genre or format of the music makes any difference.  You keep mentioning that I play covers.  That's true, but how does it matter whether we're playing covers or originals?  It's either happening in real time, or not.  To me, the whole point of playing with someone is that it's interactive, happening in real time.  If there's latency, then it's not real time.

[pcs90]

Sorry I should have clarified a little better. There are 2 different platforms I have used for playing with other musicians online and they work quite differently -- one really is realtime and one is delayed by a fixed interval. Obviously, for covers (or original compositions for that matter,) you want the first option, which is Jamulus. Given your distance from each other it should absolutely be doable as I've heard people hundreds of miles apart in Europe play music (both covers with singers and original jams) perfectly locked in time on there. In your situation the latency should not be a problem, with a nice interface it would add a few MS on top of the interface's delay. Basically what that means is you should hardly notice it.

Ninjam, which is the second option, is not so good for covers because it delays audio by a predetermined amount (based on a progression, tempo, etc) so that, no matter where you are on the planet, it will be in time and line up. For that reason, even though it isn't realtime like Jamulus, I prefer it because in my case, I do not have a band and am not working on specific material, and the pool of musicians to play with is much higher since it's not location dependent. In the majority of cases you don't even notice that it's not actually realtime, but for composed pieces it is obviously not going to work correctly.

So that's why covers make a difference; only one of these options will really work for that format where you have a defined structure (verse, chorus, bridge, etc) due to it actually being realtime. I would look into Jamulus. Someone in the band would need to host the Jamulus server on their computer (preferably someone with a fast and reliable internet connection) and the rest of you would just connect to that server. The only investment would be a USB interface with asio support, but even a cheap one will be fine. If the drummer and singers don't have mics then they'd need those too of course.

[Orbert]

Interesting.  I'm pretty sure someone mentioned Jamulus last year when I first started asking around, but I didn't really follow up because at the time there was no need.  Thanks for the explanation!

[Orbert]

A new development.

Back in 2016, after Anne left the band and before Angela joined, we auditioned a number of other singers.  We still had Jessica, only recently brought in to help on vocals and front-line presence, but not capable of carrying a show herself.  We still needed another singer, and among those who auditioned was a girl named Patty.  Patty had seen us at that really big gig which turned out to be the last one for both Pat (which we knew ahead of time) and Anne (which we did not know ahead of time).  The one where we were just the opening band for a Led Zeppelin tribute band, but we got an encore and a few gigs out of it.  Patty had come out to see us a few more times, when we were out in her neck of the woods.  She's a great singer, plus she's cute and has large, wonderful breasts.

Anyway, Patty contacted me via Facebook Messenger a couple of weeks ago.  She asked if I'd found another band yet; I told her that I wasn't really looking yet.  Same thing I've been saying here; nothing serious until after my Covid shots and there's actually gigs to play.  Also, if I join one, it has to be a truly established band, where I learn 40 songs and start gigging with them, otherwise no.  She asks if I'd be into trying something a little different, like just voice and piano.  She has a friend who can supposedly get us gigs, restaurants and places that have live music sometimes but not bands.  Singers, duos, maybe trios.  Go up there with voice and piano, do a couple sets, make enough money to cover gas and dinner that night.  That sounds perfect.  But still, nothing serious until after shots.

I'm getting my first shot this week.  Second shot will be scheduled at that time.  By the end of April, I'll be fully immunized, or at least at full efficacy.  Meanwhile Patty says we should keep communicating, try to build a song list.  Okay.  She asked me about "Songbird" by Fleetwood Mac (from Rumours but essentially a Christine McVie voice and piano solo tune).  I love that song.  So I learned it this week.

This could be interesting.

[Evermind]

She asks if I'd be into trying something a little different, like just voice and piano.  She has a friend who can supposedly get us gigs, restaurants and places that have live music sometimes but not bands.  Singers, duos, maybe trios.  Go up there with voice and piano, do a couple sets, make enough money to cover gas and dinner that night.  That sounds perfect.

This actually sounds great. I would rather see this in restaurants/bars than full bands performing. Hopefully this works out for you!

[Lonk]

I always enjoy a good, stripped down performance of just vocals and 1 other instrument. Sounds like a fun alternative for you and I hope it works out well.

[Orbert]

I sent her a quick update last night, right before I wrote my post here, in fact, letting her know that I have an appointment this week for my first shot, and that I'd worked up "Songbird" this past week.  I also mentioned that my fingers can't/won't do exactly what Christine did on the record, but I'll be there with the feel.  It's more about the feel than about the exact notes you're playing.  The places where it's just piano (intro and outro especially) will be pretty much note-for-note, but when she's singing, I'm just doing chords and arpeggios.  I imagine it's similar to how she does the song live; it's about the feel, not the exact notes.

This morning she'd already replied and sent me two more songs.  "Someone Like You" by Adele and "Glitter in the Air" by Pink.  Both voice and piano songs, nice enough, but I've never heard either of them before.  Getting the feel of a song I don't even know will take longer, but it's doable.  Also, the piano parts seem more structured.  There will definitely be specific things I have to play.  I can do it, but it will take longer.  But we must all suffer for our art.  Ha ha, just kidding.  I like learning new songs.

[Lax]

I'm happy you found a way to keep those fingers on use
I wish you gigs and memories !

lol'ed at the breast comment, you're doing instagram styled reviews now

[Orbert]

Thanks, I think.  I've heard of Instagram, but I don't know what an Instagram-styled review is.  If I were explaining the situation to my buds back home, I would absolutely have to mention how attractive she is, and in what way.  This isn't quite the same (believe it or not, I do try to tone down the sexism here) but it's similar.  Patty lives nearly an hour north of me, so rehearsals will be a pain.  I love to play, and I'm psyched about this, but the fact is that I wouldn't do it if she were ugly.  I wouldn't drive five minutes to rehearse with someone ugly, and that's a horrible thing to say, but it's true.  I play music for many reasons, and connecting with people is one of them, but life's too short to spend time with people you don't like.

I don't even know Patty very well.  When she auditioned for the band, we all became Facebook friends; she already knew one of the other guys, which is how she got the audition.  She's really friendly and nice, a real sweet person.  She came to a few more gigs, and we've stayed in touch since then, but before this, I had maybe three conversations with her.  Once at her audition, and a couple of brief ones at gigs.  But when I think of her, I think of her smile and that amazing profile.  So I figured I'd mention it.

[Stadler]

Sorry, if you're doing paid gigs at bars and clubs and what not, the reality is - and this isn't sexist, since it works both ways - you're going to get 100 people to your shows.   Maybe 5, 10, 20, will be because she can sing like a beast.   Maybe 5, 10, 20 will be because she's hot.   The rest a mix of both.  That's better than getting 80, made up of 5, 10, 20 that think she can sing like a beast and the rest, uh, because she can sing.

[Orbert]

Visual appeal, like it or not, is a component of any live performance.  How large of a component will depend on various factors, but lots of people can sing, lots of people can play.  All else being equal, the good-looking ones will get the better gigs.  I get that.

But I wasn't even thinking about that yet.  I was just thinking about rehearsals, taking one or two Saturdays a month, driving an hour each way, and playing music with someone.  It has to be music I actually want to play, and the person cannot be unattractive.  Some guys would be perfectly fine doing all that and making music with someone ugly.  That's cool.  We all have our reasons; we all have our standards.

[Lax]

I wasn't directly pointing at you as sexist, I giggled because in times like now, it takes nearly courage to praise breasts without fearing being crucified. And you said breasts

The instagram thing is because 80% of female guitarists on it play half naked...Probably for likes...But it becomes nearly a comedy because it's too much

[Orbert]

Well, I'm not the most politically correct guy, although I do try a bit harder here at DTF.  I know that the population here is vastly skewed towards males vs females, and I suppose I'm part of the problem.  I can easily see how my remarks can offend the few females who risk hanging around this place.  So I spend a lot of time trying to decide whether I should continue to police myself in order to help try to keep as many females around as possible, or just say "fuck it" and go unfiltered since there aren't that many here in the first place.

I post here because I like to write and feel that I (sometimes) have things worth sharing, so I sprinkle my writing with humor in order to keep things interesting, because there's no point in writing if no one's going to read it.  I thought maybe an Instagram-style review had something to do with my particular style of humor.  Patty does have wonderful breasts.  That is, for better or worse, one of the first things that comes to mind when I think of her, and what I would assume many people would notice upon first meeting her.  And in the context of "why are you driving an hour to play songs with someone you barely know?" I thought it provided a good reason (by most male standards).  But there's a way to say that without being crass, or overly crass anyway.  I would not say "She's hot and has great tits."  To me, that is overly crass and offensive, because first and foremost I do respect her as a person and would not be working with her if that were not the case.  So it's not the first thing I mention, but has to be in there somewhere.

Regardless of the wording, it is sexist to point out, so I'm not surprised that I've been called out on it.  There's a price to pay; freedom is not free, etc.

[Lax]

We are on the same mindset so no problem

I continue to upkeep my classifieds, but they already are cancelling the shows that were rescheduled to his year here, so people aren't motivated at all.
I hope pubs and other places I like to play in aren't endangered for a further long time...I don't wanna be a bedroom musician, I didn't jump in the wagon in 2020 so I guess I wouldn't do it later on.

How are the perspectives for you ? everything is getting opened, safe and welcoming bands ? Are there bigger gigs ?

[Orbert]

Here in Illinois, restaurants are opening back up at reduced capacity, so that's encouraging, especially since those are the types of places we're supposedly going to play.  Will there be enough gigs to make this worthwhile?  I have no idea.  No idea about bigger gigs, either, since I'm not really looking right now.

Patty sent me another song to put on the list, "Desperado" by Eagles.  Another great song which can easily be done just voice and piano, with the piano having a few key parts that everyone will expect but otherwise I'll be fine as long as the chords are right.  So we're up to four songs now, and I'm wondering how many we'll need before we start looking for gigs more seriously.  I'm guessing at least 20.  At three or four minutes apiece, that's an hour, or maybe two sets with a break.  Something like that.  Of course, we haven't rehearsed yet, but that's coming.

She also asked me to pick some songs.  Experience has shown that I'm not a good judge of what songs other people like, and even worse at picking songs for others to sing.  So I'm fine with her picking the songs.  But if she really wanted my input, my buddy John and I used to do a set of Elton John songs back home, obviously great for voice and piano.  I tossed out a few titles, just as examples, and asked her to think about Elton John songs, but she'd have to pick ones that work for her voice.  Patty is younger than me, by 10 or 15 years if I had to guess, but I'm pretty sure most singers are familiar with Elton John.

[hefdaddy42]

Breasts are great.

[Orbert]

Yeah, I'm a fan, for sure.

[Orbert]

Another one in the bag (for me at least).  Tiny Dancer by Elton John.  Man, what a great song.  And of course the piano drives it all the way.

The fun part is building things up using just the piano, where on the record they add bass, drums, strings, etc.  I have to mentally peel all of that away, get it back to the original voice and piano song it started with, then build it back up using just the keys.  I love doing stuff like this.  If Elton sang the song with just him and the piano (which I'm sure he's done many times), he wouldn't just play the same thing all three verses.  You vary the voicings, fill it up, empty it back out, etc.  That's the fun part.

For one of the talent shows at the church many years ago, I accompanied a girl singing some song from a musical -- I honestly don't remember what it was now -- and her mom was there as well.  Her mom is in choir and can play a little piano, so they practiced that way, but she'd suggested I play for the actual show, and we were putting it together a couple days before.  Anyway, as we're playing through the song, the girl, Diana, says "Wow, this is really different!  This is much more like on the mp3."  I wasn't sure what she meant, but both her and her mom said something like "You're playing a lot more notes than are written here.  Where are all those other notes coming from?"  I couldn't really explain it.  To me, the written chords are just that, the chords, the starting point not the goal.  The actual notes come from somewhere else.  I told them that I read what's on the paper, but by the time it gets from my eyes to my brain to my fingers, my fingers have already come up with something else that they find more interesting.  I suppose that's close enough to how it works, since I don't honestly know myself.

[Stadler]

it's so funny; my daughter and I attended the Songwriting Class Neal Morse put on this past month, and during the first session he was jamming out a chord progression and he kept adding stuff, then at the end he did this nice little run tying it all together and my daughter asked the exact same question.  "How did he get from just the chords to all THAT?"  I had no answer for her.

[Orbert]

Next week, on 4/20, it will have been 14 days since my second shot.  I'll be fully immunized, or at least as safe as I'm gonna be.  Patty's second shot is next Wednesday, and she'd heard that you only have to wait 10 days.  I think they're both just guidelines anyway.  Obviously every body is different.  But ten days from next Wednesday is May 1, a Saturday, and theoretically our first practice.  I'm tempted to just do it, since I should be "safe" by then.

We're up to 14 songs.  I just have to finish putting together charts for three of them, which I'll have in plenty of time.  Since we live an hour apart, she was going to look into some kind of rental space in between us where we can practice.  Well sure, if she wants to go that route, and pay for it.  I'd rather not lay out any cash until we have a more realistic idea that we'll actually be making money, but I think Patty isn't concerned about the money part.  Which is fine with me, as long as she doesn't say "and your half of the cost will be..." because if it comes to that, I'm fine driving an hour each way to her house and back.  Travel time to rehearsals is a great time to crank the songs in the car and play along with them in my head one more time.

[Orbert]

First rehearsal is this Saturday, May 1st.  As I predicted, she's quite anxious to get things going.  She also says she can't wait to hear me play these songs on the piano.  A compliment, of course, but my first thought is "Great, now I have to live up to expectations."  On the other hand, my understanding is that most people think I'm pretty good, so I shouldn't be worried.  I'm personally pretty psyched about just making music.  Playing the piano while someone sings is one of my favorite things to do, period, and of course the better the singer, the better it is.  I've been doing this since I was 10 years old, so I suppose I'm getting pretty good at it.

Now that this isn't really about "Orbert's Band" anymore, should I start a new thread?  Or I guess I could continue to post updates in this thread, and maybe retitle it.  Something like "The Continuing Adventures of Orbert and His Quest to Make Music and Money at the Same Time".  Not that money is the overall goal, but I guess I kinda separate my "professional" endeavors from the music I make with the church, since it's a given that that's all gratis.  The folks at my church think I'm a "pro" because I used to play in a band.  Ha!

[Cool Chris]

This is literally the only thread I have ever read in this sub-forum.