Had rehearsal number 2

Yes I did, I had rehearsal #2 on Sunday afternoon. And here's what's up:

My left hand middle finger is still hurting (let this be a lesson to anyone reading this), but at least it is hurting less. I almost have full motion w/o pain.

My mandolinist (father of new baby) has done his homework. Good man! This is why I feel I can count on him to participate in a very important role in this project. If he backs out, I'm pretty much done. In the meantime, I'll give myself credit for arranging to have a one-on-one rehearsal with just him before adding in a violinist (whose primary instrument is electric guitar). This way I could work with the mandolinist in a manner where we could give each other our undivided attention. Get him solid enough before adding more variables.

So Sunday June 4 comes, before mandolinist arrives, violinist calls (after I make several unsuccessful attempts to reach him since his land line doesn't work too well, and his cell phone voicemail is full), and says something on the order of, "I forgot we were rehearsing today, and by the way, I left my violin in the studio, so I'm kinda without it." The studio would be a two-hour round trip, and my mandolinist, who just arrived, has only two hours available to rehearse. The violinist continues with, "also, I'm without a ride as my van has no brakes." Oh, great...

So, deciding to maximze use of time, I suggested to the mandolinist to join me on the ride to pick up the violinist (since the violinist will be playing other instruments on some of the songs), bring his mandolin with him so he could run over the songs with me in the car while we picked up our absent-minded violinist (and if he is reading this, sorry, but I had to ;-). This worked out pretty well.

One of the song on "Not For Kids Only" is called "The Teddy Bear's Picnic." It's a cute little tune that has a bit more complexity in the chord progression than the standard I-IV-V that comprises most of the rest of the tunes I've picked. This is also the song which I have selected AMV (Absent-Minded Violinist) to play the upright bass, something he was really looking forward to doing. Then we worked on "Arkansas Traveller", and while AMV will be on his violin for this, he kind of fiddled around on the upright bass while taking in how much the mandolinist and I already have this song well-reheared and tight. Then we worked on "Jenny Jenkins", which the vocals are only a 2-part harmony on the CD, but the AMV wanted in on this, so we worked with him to arrange a third harmonizing part. This proved to be more difficult than originally anticipated as the AMV as a guitarist is also a lead vocalist, so he's never been in a position where he's had to harmonize with someone else's lead vocals (mine). This was quite a learning experience for him and me. The rest of the tunes we breezed through pretty easily, although I still has some homework to do on solo/picking work for "Jenny Jenkins", "A Horse Named Bill", and "Ain't No Bugs On Me" (note to self)

I just called Mr. AMV to remind him to retrieve his violin for the next rehearsal. I might have to send him daily text messages on his cell phone to further keep the bug in his ear. ;-)