we've got a summer's worth of parks and rec gigs coming up, and I was the one who strongly recommended totally selling out, and learning some wimpy 60's stuff for the 60's age group. as if there were any level of pop I couldn't find guilty pleasure performing.
so, the H'man's H'mits medley has fallen to me to construct.
we don't dare do "Must to Avoid". we don't dare do, "Dandy". we don't dare do "Just A Little Bit Better".
and, then there are the must do's. the saving grace of those, to me, is the guitar playing, and the harmonies. if you really nail the parts on "I'm Into Something Good", you have something worth playing. and, y0u try to play that muted rhythm part on "Mrs. Brown", and you remember the chords to that bridge...
the point is, I worked on it this morning, and then again after lisa and kathy and I did our nightly guitar physical therapy session. it's wonderful to have an in-house group with a forgiving nature, to work up to speed with.
played longer, smoother, voice a little better. encouraging, after yesterday.
final tally:
"I'm Into Something Good" (C) up til instrumental, "Baby, Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" (A) one verse, "Mrs. Brown" (C) one verse, then bridge, then "No Milk Today" (Am) from the intro, perhaps through "just two up, two down", ritarding into "Listen, People" (A) one verse, into "I'm Henry VIII" with mandatory audience participation and maybe even the guitar solo (you try to play it!)
timed at 6 min. "Leaning on the Lamp" left out.
so, a little of yesterday's heaviness seems to have passed. tomorrow at 10am the staples come out, which will be a boost. I'll have a chance to check in, ask questions. most of them will be...all the stuff you said I have to do...when do I not have to do it anymore?
but those annoyances are the deepest of bargains, for what I am getting in return for them, for what it has been my profound good fortune not to have to go through. from day 1, when we thought the growth was on the spinal accessory nerve, Dr. Nemechek demonstrated with his body the way he anticipated my shoulder would come forward after the surgery...that didn't happen. I thought that half of my head being numb was what I would feel as the (well justified) price for my voice and guitar mechanisms being left intact...but daily, already, the numb circle is shrinking. my body still feels like there is anaesthesia in my lungs, steroids, the vague wobbliness...
but instead of the condition getting daily worse as it was before surgery, it is daily better.
and when I come back to doing each thing I used to do, no matter what it was, it is going to be cause for such elation in the next months, I can't even tell you.
Scott, the guy in HH stuck a hanky under the strings at the bridge to get that muted sound. It takes at least a year for surgical drugs to wear off completely. When I had my wisdom teeth removed back ij early eighties, I had trouble hitting a tennis ball for a year. It seemed that my mind wanted my arm to swing a certain way but there was a time delay and I couldn't strike the ball correctly. Just wanted to share that with you.
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