Don't get me wrong, I absolutely, 100% love, love, love what I do with the Cedar and the Stringbeans etc. But sometimes, I need to live a bit dangerously to get the viola-adrenaline flowing. Sometimes I play with the Mandibles.
This is dangerous because I don't do it often. Not often enough to actually know the set list, which is constantly growing and changing. Just every now and then the oppurtunity presents itself and I get to go pretend I know what's going on onstage in front of audiences. Including taking solos on tunes I've never heard before. Brilliant! That's my kind of adventure sport.
For those interested, the on-stage process I go through goes as follows:
-Find the tonic (that is to say, what key the piece is in)
-Figure out the harmonic structure (does it just go I-V-I? What's up with the minor section in the middle? etc.)
-Figure out the bass-line
-Watch out for the look from one of the others that means Go! Emma! Make up a solo now!
-Smile.
2 comments:
sounds thrilling. i admire you for having the skill (and guts) to do that.
I know this feeling... You know how those motivational speakers/career counsellors always talk about "flow?" I think that really good improvising in front of lots of attentive audience members is the most extreme flow a person can experience.
I fear that if I told a career counsellor this, they would try to get me in sales and next year you'd see me at the Capital Ex, pawning Sham-Wows on a naive and unsuspecting public. *shudder*
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