I’m playing guitar on a show this week, for the first time in a while, and thought I’d write a little about it…
All Shook Up is (as the name suggests) based on those classic Elvis songs, so it’s all excellent rock’n’roll and country-type stuff. I’m playing Guitar 1, with Laura Moretto playing Guitar 2. In addition to bass, drums and keys, there’s also a 6-piece horn section (3 reeds, 2 trumpets and a trombone).
The Guitar 2 part switches between electric and acoustic, but Guitar 1 is all electric. I’m taking the opportunity to leave my Variax at home (well… beside me as my emergency spare…) and play the gig on my Yamaha Pacifica 311MS hot tele. On the amp/fx side things are pretty simple too: I’m using a single patch (“clean tube” amp into “American 2×12” cab) on my GNX3 with slapback delay always on, tube screamer for solos, tremolo for a couple of melodic bits and wah-wah (not period at all, but marked in the score at a few points… wonder if I’ll end up ignoring that by the end of the run…)
As far as the part is concerned, it’s mostly in nice enough keys, with familiar riffs (almost always in swung quavers!) There are a couple of solos to get my teeth into (think snappy double-stops, faux pedal-steel bends etc.).
A couple of weird things about the parts… they’re the first band parts I’ve ever seen that explicitly say it’s okay to highlight, make notes in pen etc. because they don’t expect them back! Wouldn’t it be great if other publishers did this… or even just incorporated our corrections into future hirings of the parts! The other comment is a bit less positive: they seem to have deliberately put the page turns on double bars, which means changes in style, tempo, key, solos etc. come as a bit of a surprise!
So, we’ve got the dress rehearsal tonight, and we open to an audience tomorrow… more thoughts on this during the week…