MarkM visits BobR at his house over Christmas Vacation

[MarkM]

Whew..... What happened to vacation? Boy does time fly. Well here is a "what I did over Christmas vacation" summary and project.....

I took the opportunity to take BobR's offer to visit with him in MA and have an afternoon of jamming if you want to call it that. I've been fortunate to meet with a few folks from TG but with the exception of playing a bit with Jay I haven't had my guitar with me. I was excited to see if I could play with Bob and really had no idea how the day would go. After I took the close to 2 hour drive to his house he put me at ease and we talked for a while. I'll say this. Bob is a really nice guy. After about a half hour or so we decided to break out the guitars and see what happened. Apart from a couple of songs we discussed earlier we just played it by ear and let the day happen. Overall I think I was there for about 7 hours or so. Boy the the day fly by. Before you knew it I had to get back home. What you'll see here is the first 3 of probably 6 or 7 videos. These are not the "performance" video's that we've seen in the collaboration section. These are not to be mistaken for performances but more of a fly on the wall approach to two guys muddling through some music to see what would happen. Now that we've played together and know what we can vs. can't do I'm sure the next time we get together we'll put some songs up with the idea of a performance. Some other things to note here are that the audio quality isn't that good. I had forgotten my microphone and only had my video camera. That would have been fine but I thought I would be cute and attach one of Bob's mics directly into my camera. This had a bad effect and what you'll hear is only mono coming out of the left speaker. This happens about halfway through the first video. There's also a bit of a hiss noise that you may hear as well. If you turn the volume up after this happens its OK. Bad idea on my part. Next time we'll use a couple of mics and audacity to get the audio right. What I learned from this expierence is that if you don't play with other people that often (like me) it is pretty difficult to get timing down. After a bit of practice were were able to get there on some occasions. I want to reiterate that I had a great time with Bob and am very thankful for the expierence. I can't wait to do it again as it was a great deal of fun. Oh and I didn't upload these files through TG as it really didn't count as a collaboration. This was the first time that I had used MS Movie Maker Live instead of my usual Premiere Elements app. Not sure if I like it or not yet. These files were also probably a bit too big for the TG uploader as I was experimenting with video resolution.

Video 1 - This is us just getting started. Bob wanted to go over Neil Young's "The Loner". It's in double drop D and although I love this song it had been a while since I've played it. Bob was great in reminding me how the chord progression went. He also set me strait on some of the chords that I wasn't getting right.



Video 2 - This song really just came out of nowhere. It's of us messing around with another Neil Young song "Hey Hey My My". Once agian Bob is showing me the way as I haven't played this one if forever and forgot the chords. After a few times we finally got something that worked. This shows you all the mistakes before we got the the "final product". Bob does a really good job sining on this one. I really enjoyed playing this with Bob.



Video 3- Well this one is of Bob teaching me a song that he's been working on. It's called "That's my Daughter in the Water" by Loudon Wainwright. I'd never heard of it before but it was pretty catchy and fun to play. After mutual screwups we fell back in to a little Neil Young Jamming where Bob shows off some lead work. Nice........




Once again, this was a lot of fun and I'd like to thank Bob for the opportunity to play with him. I'll get the next few videos out over the next day or so. Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoy a birds eye view of two guys trying to muddle through some songs togehter.


MarkM

[Yamaha48]

Hello MarkM and BobR.

Great to see this video s,a lot of fun.
And i know,times flies when you having fun.
I see two cans of bears hahahha lol.
Friends meet together here.
I know this site is great,one big famely.
Thanks for take the time to share it with us my friends.

Greetz. Anton

[willem]

hey guy's that was fun and a big experience for you both,,i thought with the last vid i saw all over the place beer can's but they were guitars,,it is great to get in songs and play it together,,pity was that bob was teaching Mark,,well not pity but i thought Mark was maybe teaching Bob the fretboard..lol
I found it great to see this as a fly on the wall,,it gives a great impression of the day,,looking forward to the ohter fly's you both were great and Bob ''hey,hey rock and roll is here to stay'' keep singin,this is such a great tune , i dream that i sat on a big stage all by my own in a empthy theater and ponding away this song,,, yes holiday's thats a way to share some music,,thanks so far,,,greetings

[jayswett]

Looked like alot fun, and again reminds me how much fun it would be to get a large group together for a weekend...

[Craig]

How great to have the opportunity to get together. It looked like a wonderful time! Thanks for sharing.
Craig

[NKenny]

Looks like you guys had a lot of fun together. Guitars and a couple of beers, what more could you want? Did a good job working things out together, it's not easy.

Have a great day
Kenny

[haoli25]

I am one happy 'fly on the wall'. Bob and Mark, that was just great. Music is best when shared with friends. It was easy to see that you were both having a good time. Thanks for sharing your experience. Bravo!



Bill

[neverfoundthetime]

Magic Bob and Marc! Thanks for inviting us in to share your fun. Those guitars were starting to sound good.
Just how much fun is it to visit folks and jam out of the blue, eh?
Who cleared up all the beer cans after you... I could only see two.... can't believe that!
Chris

[pbraun]

Mark and Bob wow this was great! I have only ever tried once to play with someone else, you guys were great, any trips to Atalnta planned?
Pete

[Chasplaya]

Simply awesome guys, what a fantastic way to spend your holidays, trouble being the days go by far too quick. Thanks for sharing.

Chas