John Hendow

 My first gig with Black Celebration was last Saturday night and it went pretty well. I had a limited amount of preparation time, so it was a bit of a scramble to prepare for this show. The show was quite a lot of fun and I look forward to working with them again. The band members are good friends of mine, and I’ve worked with them all in numerous musical settings. It was a comfortable and professional atmosphere, and overall I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

Because Depeche Mode has such a dense texture in their arrangements, I was trying to be careful of filling too much space. In this context my guitar parts were generally percussive and sparse. I did a lot of palm muting to keep from muddying up the balance of the mix, and my effects patches were completely dry (no reverb or other guitar effects). The songs with signature guitar parts, such Personal Jesus and Enjoy The Silence were the most challenging to nail. For these, I approached the songs by transcribing the guitar parts myself to ensure accuracy. As much as I appreciate online sources of shorthand and guitar tablature, the versions made available online are never sufficiently accurate or complete.

Read the rest of this post for the set list and other details.

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Last night I was asked if I was available to play with local Depeche Mode tribute band “Black Celebration”. The show is tonight, and I’ll be spending a lot of today working on guitar parts for this gig. I have 24 hours in which to learn 24 songs (!). They use a tightly sequenced track structure for their music, and there is no room for error or variation. My strategy for learning the songs is to map out the main portions of the song arrangements using Nashville notation, a kind of musical shorthand developed by studio musicians. I’ll be doing some reference checks against my chart during tonight’s show, but overall I think everything will go pretty well.

If you happen to be out and about this evening, drop by the Chop Suey on Capital Hill in Seattle. We’re on last, which usually means a 10:30 PM downbeat.

Last week I joined some friends for dinner in Seattle. It was a nice evening, until I returned to my car and discovered it had been broken into. A kind bystander had witnessed the break-in and called the police to report the incident, and he was nice enough to hang around until I returned. Although I’m not all the pleased about the crime, I think overall my faith in humanity is slightly improved because of the kindness of a stranger.

It’s just a thing. The window has been replaced and I am moving on.

Last night at preons rehearsal we played our main set of songs with a metronome keeping time. In my experience this is usually more difficult that it sounds, and can be a challenge for seasoned musicians. Our songs have a degree of internal syncopation at times, and it’s a natural tendency to rush or drag a bit. Although the steady pulse is a good reference for tempo, it takes a degree of concentration to stay locked up with it.

When practicing at home I use a metronome / click track, or sometimes I fire up a drum loop to give me something to play against. When I’m practicing fretless bass I also have my digital tuner in-line… I’m getting much more consistent at finding the finger placement that puts me in tune but it’s always nice to be able to spot check when changing positions on the neck. So, which is more important: to have perfect rhythm or perfect pitch?

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