Performing at NEFFA

 It is the day after one of the most fantastic weekends I have had in a long time and I am slowly drifting out of the clouds (while simultaneously trying and failing to catch up on sleep).  The weekend of NEFFA started with an English Country Dance performance which was a good learning experience but rather rough.  It is a lot of work to learn a new genre of dance music that relies on a different skill-set (sight reading...) and having played upwards of a hundred contra dances (is it really that many?) I felt far less solid than I am used to while playing my third ECD.  The good news is I will be taking lessons with some fantastic ECD pianists once I move down to VT!

My second musical experience of the weekend was the Boston Harmony concert that I went to see the next day.  I could have been part of that concert because I signed up for Boston Harmony this year and participated in three rehearsals but I got too busy and a little frustrated with the slow pace of the group (I was spoiled by the talented and tight-knit Village Harmony Alumni group I sang with this winter).  I went to the concert to see my friends and show some support but the moment I got there they dragged me onto the stage and plopped me in the bass section.  While I had not been anticipating the concert and was not familiar with all of the music, it turned out to be wonderful and fed my singing-starved soul.  Plus, I couldn't stop smiling and winking at my VH friends in the audience who knew I was doing my best to fumble along with the music.

After the Boston Harmony concert I listened to a couple of dear musician friends perform sad Irish ballads and then stumbled across some of my old VH teachers (Will and Lynn) singing with their Windborne quartet.  My heart full of beautiful music, I met with the rest of my band to rehearse for our contra dance later that night.

Sometimes I jam with musicians, have a blast, and the music fits together perfectly.  As the jam winds down we talk about how great it was and how we should play some gigs together sometime.  Most of the time the gig part doesn't happen, except lately, it has been.  I have been playing with multiple configurations of wonderful musician friends this semester in Boston but it came to a peak with this performance at NEFFA.  I finally got a chance to play a gig with the incredible drummer Ness Savedoff and the versatile and unfairly talented (for being 17) Jamie Oshima.  With Kathleen Fownes on fiddle and McKinley James on cello, it was a great mix of talented musicians.  AND WE SOUNDED AWESOME!!!!  Sorry, whew! I have wanted to play with these people for quite some time and even with less than an hour of rehearsal time it was hugely musically satisfying...

I have been playing in a duo for about 3 years (which has been incredibly rewarding and challenging) and this was my first experience playing with a 5-piece band.  One of the most exciting parts about playing with so many musicians is that I didn't have to hold down the rhythm all of the time.  I had more freedom to act as color or as an accent to the rhythmic elements.  It was also fun because Jamie (guitar and mando) and I were constantly communicating about chords and arrangement ideas: shouting things like "hold the four chord!" and "just melody!"

Okay, I could keep going on about this gig but I sorely need to catch up on sleep to finish recovering from this weekend.  To finish up, NEFFA was awesome and I learned a ton and had a great time.  After the dance we had someone offer to record our next album in their studio!  It is tricky to schedule and organize so many musicians but I know this won't be are last gig together and I am looking forward to the next one.

Best,
Clayton