Hey Hartlist,
Me: “Do you think the middle section is too long?”
Matt (fiddle/mandolin): “Yes. But not because it needs to be shorter.”
This is the kind of in-rehearsal exchange that I love. It defies logic but it is correct, it it knows words can’t really hold the slippery dream substance that is music, and acknowledges the territory of art making where the problem isn’t the problem and solutions are often -to use the hideous corporate phrase - “outside the box”. (WHAT BOX? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???)
The section of the song in question was “too long” because it was too many bars in a row that stayed “the same” in terms of energy and dynamics and arrangement. If we had made it shorter, that might not have changed much. I remember in grad school, someone once brought in a rewrite of a scene that had been judged draggy and slow. It now had a lot more energy and pace and the teacher asked what she cut. She had actually written more of it. “Huh,” I remember the teacher saying. “This is a good reminder that sometimes the way to make it shorter is actually to make it longer.”
I guess my point is, like, what even is TIME, MAN??
Anyway we have some new songs and some old songs are better for next time.
Speaking of next time!
For the fan of The Chrysalis who told me he can’t look at any more screens, I’ve included the audio version of last week. Join me this SUNDAY, September 19, 4PM for THE CHRYSALIS 26: MY CONDITION, Part 2.
New Haven CT! I will see you SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 25, solo and/or with Nick, outdoors, 3:00PM at “a closed part of Central Avenue, but say 882 Central Ave, which is the empty lot next door”, and I agree that sounds shady but it’s not.
Tickets are on sale for the full-band Hallows’ Eve (Eve Eve Eve) Show at The Cutting Room in Manhattan, which you can get tickets for Here (Here Here Here).
I just tried (twice) to write a paragraph that somehow addressed Yom Kippur*, forgiveness, my search for a new acting agent, and the nature of collaboration. Trust me there was a connection, but I’m trying to remember this is a (cool? music-related?) newsletter, not the Dead Sea Scrolls. Sigh. There’s a lot going on in my brain and I want to share all of it with you all at once (see: the theme of this week’s show).
Instead, I leave you with these words, said to me recently by a wise woman: “Rebecca, the more you say, the less they hear.”
Because also… sometimes it really does need to be shorter.
See you soon,
Rebecca
*the jewish Day of Atonement, otherwise known as My Half-Assed Yearly Fast, or, Yesterday.
i love it when a band comes together