History – March 2017 through September 2017

Scott’s Dropbox folder for Shades of Grey You can also visit our History page.

In the song tables below, the Listen links reference mp3 or mp4 files on this server while the Download links reference mp3 files on Scott’s Dropbox location for the band.

Fall 2017 Practice Schedule

Video Review on Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 6:30 PM

We’ll be reviewing the band video of our cottage gig, including the afternoon set uncut and the evening set uncut.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Monday, September 25, 2017 at 1:00 PM

Bring your instruments because we’ll likely do part of the vocal practice while playing our instruments. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend. You can find learning tracks in the song table.

Songs for Band Practice on Friday, September 22, 2017 at 1:30 PM

Songs for Vocal Practice on Wednesday, September 20, 2017 at 2:30 PM

Bring your instruments because we’ll likely do part of the vocal practice while playing our instruments. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend.

Summer 2017 Schedule

Songs for Band Practice on Thursday, August 31, 2017 at 1:00 PM

Songs for Vocal Practice on Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 2:30 PM

Bring your instruments because we’ll likely do part of the vocal practice while playing our instruments. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend.

Songs for Band Practice on Thursday, August 24, 2017 at 1:00 PM—Cancelled

Kelly and Joe cannot attend this practice. So, by band decision, it’s been cancelled.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Monday, August 21, 2019 at 2:00 PM—Cancelled

Kelly and Joe cannot attend this practice. So, by band decision, it’s been cancelled.

Songs for Band Practice on Thursday, August 17, 2017 at 1:00 PM—Cancelled

Scott cannot attend this practice. So, by band decision, it’s been cancelled.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Monday, August 14, 2019 at 2:00 PM—Cancelled

Scott cannot attend this practice. So, by band decision, it’s been cancelled.

Songs for Band Practice on Thursday, August 10, 2017 at 1:00 PM—Cancelled

Scott cannot attend this practice. So, by band decision, it’s been cancelled.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Monday, August 7, 2019 at 2:00 PM—Cancelled

Scott cannot attend this practice. So, by band decision, it’s been cancelled.

Songs for Band Practice on Thursday, August 3, 2017 at 1:00 PM

Songs for Band Practice on Thursday, July 13, 2017 at 1:00 PM—Cancelled

Marc and Kelly cannot attend this practice. So, it’s been cancelled. Next practice will be a band practice on August 3rd.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Monday, July 10, 2019 at 2:00 PM

Bring your instruments because we’ll likely do part of the vocal practice while playing our instruments. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend.

Songs for Band Practice on Thursday, July 6, 2017 at 1:00 PM

Songs for Vocal Practice on Monday, July 3, 2019 at 1:00 PM

This vocal practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place earlier than usual at 1:00 PM. Bring your instruments because we’ll likely do part of the vocal practice while playing our instruments. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend.

Songs for Band Practice on Wednesday, June 28, 2017 at 2:30 PM

Both Kelly and Joe can’t make a Thursday practice this week so we’re moving it to Wednesday after lunch. Note the later-than-usual time. Ted’s out of town so we plan to focus on vocals while playing. Also, if Rick has learned some of the songs, we can spend some time arranging the guitars for those songs.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Monday, June 26, 2019 at 2:00 PM

This vocal practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:00 PM. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend.

Songs for Band Practice on Thursday, June 22, 2017 at 1:00 PM

Homework Assignments for this Practice, from our June 15th Band Practice

• None.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Monday, June 19, 2019 at 2:00 PM

This vocal practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:00 PM. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend.

Songs for Band Practice on Thursday, June 15, 2017 at 1:00 PM

Homework Assignments for this Practice, from our June 8th Band Practice

• New candidate songs: Two Tickets to Paradise, You’re No Good, Jump. Well, You’re No Good and Jump are both backup songs for our Set List, but we haven’t played them much yet.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Monday, June 12, 2019 at 2:00 PM

Note: This is the new, summer vocal practice time at 2:00 PM.

This vocal practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:00 PM. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend.

Songs for Band Practice on Thursday, June 8, 2017

Note: New, summer practice time is 1:00 PM. Please arrive in time to be set up and ready to go at 1:00 PM.

Homework Assignments for this Practice, from our May 31st Band Practice

• TBD

Songs for Vocal Practice on Monday, June 5, 2019 at 2:00 PM–CANCELLED due to Kelly’s Recovery

Note: This is the new, summer vocal practice time at 2:00 PM.

This vocal practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:00 PM. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend.

Songs for Band Practice on Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Homework Assignments for this Practice, from our May 19th Band Practice

• Alone
  • Joe to create patch
  • Everyone to listen to the recording and work on things that need correcting/improving.
• Lido
  • Joe to make corrections to the lyrics in his song notes.
  • Everyone to come up with a proposal for ending the song–we can’t fade out. 🙂
  • Kelly and Joe to continue working on the harmonies.
  • Joe to write out notes for Kelly’s keyboard brass part.
• Babe
  • Everyone to listen to the last recording and work on things that need correcting/improving.
• Heat Wave
  • Harmony people to listen to the learning tracks and work on their notes.
• You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet
  • Joe and Kelly to work on harmonies.
• Jessie’s Girl
  • Everyone to become more familiar with the song and spend time practicing it.
• Joe to create mixes of the recordings and upload them.

Decisions Made at the Previous Practice

• There will be no band or vocal practice in the week of May 22nd..
• There will be a vocal practice on Monday, May 29th from 7:00 PM until about 9:00 PM with the usual band practice following on Wednesday May 31st.
• You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet will be moved to the set list replacing Raise a Little Hell.
• The Power of Love will be added to our repertoire.
• Lido Shuffle will be moved to the Jamming list.
• Jessie’s Girl will remain on the Candidates list for now.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Monday, May 29, 2019 at 7:00 PM

Note: This was the vocal practice for Friday, May 26th. Marc couldn’t attend so we’ve moved it to Monday, May 29th. Because Joe is still working, it will be held at 7:00 PM until roughly 9:00 PM.

This vocal practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 7:00 PM. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend.

Songs for Band Practice on Wednesday, May 24, 2017–CANCELLED

Note: This week our band practice has been canceled because Kelly is away and Marc is in the midst of the big move.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Friday, May 19, 2019–REPLACED

Note: This week our vocal practice has been replaced by a regular band practice because Kelly and Marc weren’t available on Wednesday.

Songs for Band Practice on Friday, May 19, 2017

Note: Band practice has been moved to Friday at 2:00 PM for this week only, replacing our regularly-scheduled vocal practice.

Homework Assignments for this Practice, from our May 10th Band Practice

• Joe and Kelly to figure out what Kelly can do during You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet (cow bell, harmonies?).
• Joe to create a patch for You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet.
• Everyone to work on tempo for Alone and Heat Wave to make sure it stays constant and doesn’t slow down.
• Everyone to become familiar with Jessie’s Girl and Lido Shuffle (candidate songs) and spend a bit of time playing/singing both songs so that we can jam to them at our next practice.

Decisions Made at the Previous Practice

• Raise a Little Hell has been removed from the Set List and replaced by You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet.
• Send Kelly your summer availability (June to August) so that she can summarize.
• Starting the week of June 5th, Vocal Practices will be on Monday at the same time (2-4 PM).
• Starting the week of June 5th, Band Practice will be on Thursday from 1-5 PM. Aim to arrive between 12:30 PM and 12:45PM so that we’re ready to play at 1:00 PM.
• Everyone is open to changing the name of the band so start keeping a list of candidates that we can discuss at the next band social event, which could be a house-warming party at Marc and Jane’s new condo sometime in June or July.
• We discussed having a band practice at Marc and Jane’s cottage and making it an outdoor event, inviting some neighbours to hear us jam–it would be an all day event. Put some thought into logistics (e.g. do we need a minivan to transport equpment?). We can determine the date when we have everyone’s availability mapped out.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Friday, May 12, 2017–CANCELLED

Note: This week our vocal practice has been canceled because Marc can’t attend and Kelly is swamped.

Songs for Band Practice on Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Homework assignments for this practice, from our April 26th band practice:

• Joe to mix the recordings from the April 26th band practice, fixing the one glaring bass note mistake in Babe, and send to Scott for posting. (DONE)
• Joe to create learning tracks from the Heat Wave recording. (DONE) Everyone should listen to the old recordings of Heat Wave for comparison.
• Ted and Marc to check if their parts for Raise a Little Hell are do-able.
• Everyone should become more familiar with Closing Time.
• Everyone should learn the structure of Raise a Little Hell.
• Kelly to work on vocals for Heat Wave.
• Everyone to continue practicing The Power of Love, Babe, and Alone for recording next practice.
• The song picked for the weekly jamming “sniff test” is You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet by BTO.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Friday, May 5, 2017–CANCELLED

Note: This week our vocal practice has been canceled because Kelly is away.

Songs for Band Practice on Wednesday, May 3, 2017–CANCELLED

Note: This week our band practice has been canceled because Kelly is away and Marc is in the midst of post-moving.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Friday, April 28, 2017–CANCELLED

Note: This week our vocal practice has been canceled because of the Cooper Brothers CD Release Party.

Songs for Band Practice on Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Homework assignments and focus for this practice:

• Working on “Power of Love” to get it ready for posting on the web.

Work on “Babe”, focusing on stuff noted in homework below (it, too, is close to being ready for posting)

• Record “Alone” for critical listening.
• “Heatwave” … we will start with vocal practice and then play and record the song
• Jam to “Raise A Little Hell” to determine if song can be added to the Set List
• Arrive with suggestions for ‘uptune/upbeat’ songs so we can establish a list of viable candidates for Set List (this means listening to the song and paying attention to the level of difficulty and complexity and being honest with ourselves about what we can do well at this point)

More homework from the Vocal Practice of Friday, April 21st, particularly after a critical listening session for the band practice recordings of April 19th:

Babe

• Drums … listen to the original / suggestion is to have none at the very beginning to give Joe chance to get fingers primed, with 2 bar intro and build slower, and work on the ending for it to be softer
• Joe … turn down volume for strings played by Kelly
• Marc … guitar solo needs to be a bit quieter

Power of Love

• Kelly … Tambourine needs to be quieter
• Scott … look at jazzing up the bass during Marc’s solo
• Everyone … make the starts/stops cleaner (from verso to chorus to bridge, etc.) – listen to mix and see where there are issues
• Kelly … better vocal sync with Joe during chorus and better singing in the bridge
• Technie stuff (Joe and Scott):
  • Bass drum not coming through
  • Rattle on small tom

Heat Wave

• Scott and Marc … work on eliminating oscillation/wavering in singing
• Marc … practise singing “heatwave” on 1 note
• Everyone … better breath management – listen to the mix and be aware of where you are running out of breath
• Marc … for the AAH’s, be aware of not starting too high … and watch the note on “True”
• Scott … be aware of tempo for Burnin’ for when to come in and watch the note on “Pass” … oh and don’t go sharp on the word “Heat”
• Kelly … put on headphones and work on vocal production

Joe

• Create tracks for the vocals … one with all vocals (with Kelly muted in the background) and one for each of the individual voices

Songs for Vocal Practice on Friday, April 21, 2017

Note: This week our vocal practice is at 10:00 AM. This vocal practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:00 PM. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend.

Songs for Band Practice on Wednesday, April 19, 2017

NOTE: This practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 6:30 PM. Kelly is unable to attend this practice due to a conflict in both the afternoon and the evening. Marc has an event to attend during the day. Consequently, we’ve decided to hold the practice Wednesday evening without Kelly. We can use the recorded Kelly vocal tracks if we like or work without vocals.

By band consensus, the song, When You’re Gone, has been demoted from the main list to the warmup list.

Homework assignments for this practice:

• Black Velvet – Joe and Kelly will record the ending so that we all know the structure as we have changed it.
• Scott to revise the web site to replace Boys in the Bright White Sports Car with Raise a Little Hell and demote When You’re Gone to the Warmup List.

More homework from the Vocal Practice of Friday, April 14th, particularly after a critical listening session for the band practice recordings of April 12th:

• Alone – (1) Work on the transitions between sections, particularly the loud-to-quiet parts. (2) Also, focus on fading out the last chord.
• Babe – (1) Joe to look at creating harmony parts for Marc, Scott, and Ted. (2) Listen to transitions and endings. (3) Joe to figure out how to sustain the keyboard sounds.
• Power of Love – (1) Kelly to try tambourine instead of shaker. (2) We need a solution for filling the musical hole to create a “wall of sound”. Either Mar adjusts to a fatter sound or Joe creates something for keyboards in the background. We should try a few things at this next practice. (3) Joe and Kelly to work on arrangements for the vocals at the end.
• Heat Wave – (1) Check to see whether there’s a piano “diddle” at the beginning of the song or elsewhere. (2) Mark to work on solo. (3) Joe to connect sounds. (4) Ted to try bass drum rhythm change. (5) Vocals: (a) Everyone to work on the notes, (b) Scott on the oooo’s during the instrumental–less bass in the voice, (c) Scott to be sure not to hold “it” too long in the “Can’t Explain It” sequence, (d) No breathing between “Burnin'” and “O’s”.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Friday, April 14, 2017

This vocal practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:00 PM. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend.

Songs for Band Practice on Wednesday, April 12, 2017

This practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:30 PM. Homework assignments for this practice:

• Black Velvet – Joe and Kelly will record the ending so that we all know the structure as we have changed it.
• Heat Wave – Joe to do new learning track for Ted.
• Closing Time – Kelly to practice the piano parts.

New song for Jamming list – One of These Nights, replacing Lucky Man.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Friday, April 7, 2017

This vocal practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:00 PM. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend.

Songs for Band Practice on Wednesday, April 5, 2017

This practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:30 PM. Homework assignments for this practice:

• Black Velvet – Work on the end of the song. Kelly will send out a chart of some sort for us to work from.
• Free Fallin – We do this song a bit differently than the original due to the addition of some additional measures for harmonies. To make it easier for us to practice accordingly, Joe and Kelly will do a basic recording of the song for the rest of us.
• The Power of Love – Marc to figure out guitar/sounds/patches /volue for verse vs. chorus. Joe and Kelly to experiment to see if Kelly can play a guitar patch to cover for Marc during the guitar solo.

In last practice, we also added a new category of songs to our list to join the current Main and Warmup categories: the Jamming list. This list is distinct from our other lists in that it is a lower priority and thus we will likely put less effort into polishing these. These songs are just to play to have fun. Of course, if we find that any of them turn out good, maybe we’ll add them into our repertoire at some point. The current jamming list has been added to the table below.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Friday, March 31, 2017

This vocal practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:00 PM. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend.

Note: Kelly will arrive at 2:30 PM due to a prior commitment. The rest of us should arrive at 2:00 PM to work with Joe. We will be working on Heat Wave to refine our vocals.

Songs for Band Practice on Wednesday, March 29, 2017

This practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:30 PM. Homework assignments for this practice:

• Black Velvet – Figure out the break between the last two choruses.
• Free Fallin – Figure out the solo. Start piano, second verse piano setting.
• First We Take Manhattan – Check timing on chord changes before instrumental.
• Black Magic Woman – Play organ throughout.
• When You’re Gone – add one line at end so that we have three lines instead of original’s two lines.
• Heat Wave – Kelly: It’s okay.
• The Power of Love – Kelly String. Joe ending melody.
• Babe – Take bass off bottom end of keyboard.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Friday, March 24, 2017

This vocal practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:00 PM. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend.

Note: Vocal practice canceled this week by mutual agreement because Kelly cannot attend due to a prior commitment.

Songs for Band Practice on Wednesday, March 22, 2017

This practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:30 PM. Note the time change!!!

Note: No changes from last week–no new songs added.

Songs for Vocal Practice on Friday, March 17, 2017

This vocal practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:00 PM. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend.

Songs for Band Practice on Wednesday, March 15, 2017

This practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:30 PM. Note the time change!!!

Songs for Vocal Practice on Friday, March 10, 2017

This vocal practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:00 PM. If you’d like a vocal part for these songs, please attend.

Songs for Band Practice on Wednesday, March 8, 2017

This practice will be held at Kelly and Joe’s place at 2:00 PM.

Songs for Band Practice on Wednesday, March 1, 2017

This practice will be held at Marc’s place at 2:00 PM.