Black Celebration – Learning 24 Songs in 24 hours
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.