Saturday, September 11, 2004

Bombing at Russia... David Gomes Quartet @ Avanti's 10 Sept 2004

Man.. did you see the news or read about the Russian bombing thing.. and that was just after the Australian Embassy massacre at Indonesia. What is going on with the world today.. what, what, what? Why can't people come to their senses and just be at peace with themselves, then with everyone else? Why? Why?

And today is the 3rd anniversary of the Sept 11 World Trade Center terrorist attacks.. a moment of silence..

Still silent? Okay, never mind.. here's my account for yesterday:

Nothing much happening today, except playing with the David Gomes Quartet at Avanti's Restaurant, Sunway Hotel and Resort. I arrived at Avanti's at about 4pm for the soundcheck and a short rehearsal, and guess what? - No backline (i.e. drumset, monitors, amplifiers, etc). Usually, the outlet people would hire a sound system supplier to supply all that, but obviously this wasn't the case. The drummer had to bring his own drumset, and David had to bring his bass amp. Kind of ridiculous. All these stuff should've been provided. So we had to use their in-house system, which was nothing much.

Well, at least they provided rooms to hang out at the new Sunway Resort (next to the Resort Hotel), and also makan at the coffee house there. Buffet galore...

We started playing at 10pm, played a couple of tunes first, jazz standards like All The Things You Are, Fly Me To The Moon and some others. Here's the funny bit: while playing Have You Met Miss Jones (with David singing a powerful rendition of it), the power to the sound system shorted out... and only the piano and drums were heard. The bass amp had no sound, and David couldn't sing to the mic (no power mah), so I had to finish the song up, and I could play loud with amplification. Heh... took a break until they sorted it out.

They got it sorted out and we finished up the set with a few of David's original tunes, as well as some other nice jazz standards. Thing was, I was kinda disappointed with myself. Didn't play well today (at least to my own standard). Even to the point, in one song, I didn't rely on my ears, and only found out after my improvisation bit that I played it in the wrong key, and it was because I was reading off the chart (David started the tune in a different key, as he couldn't find the chart for the song). The key in the chart was in F, but he played Eb, but I played F. I was scratching my head.. why so funny.. is this the right key, I'm playing in? This is one of those moments, where my head rather than my ears were in control, whereas it should've been the other way round.. arrgghh.

Gotta practice more. Like running, you need to practice (train) a lot to be good at it. Even though I don't have a day job, but I have to practice in the daytime, and that takes several hours at least. But sometimes when there are lot of things going on, I won't have time to practice. Who said being a musician was easy...? Must kick their bekside.. still have to work. Sometimes the work hours are more than the average white collar worker some more. Practice sometimes take all day.. rehearsals take several hours.. sometimes rehearsal at odd hours. Oh well.. all part of the trade.

Okay, I'm sleepy as I'm typing this... better go..

Up next: My training long run in the hot sun...

No comments: