Tinkering with Chords and Clay - Part 1

Blogs are great because they make you do things. I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again and will do so forever more. Since writing the last blog entry -- or more accurately, as a RESULT of writing the last blog entry -- I've really kicked it into gear. That very same day, I put an ad up on craigslist looking for a guitarist. A few days later, I took it upon myself to craft some accessories. For the Anya song, which is next to be released, I decided it would be cool to wear the amulet from the episode The Wish, in which on she first appears. I looked it up online, but couldn't find any website that sold replicas of the amulet. But did I let it stop me? Noooooo. I re-watched the episode, freeze-framed the necklace in close-up, drew a sketch of the pendant, took a trip to my local Michael's, and made a reproduction out of green and gold fimo (pictured above). Hopefully at least a few people will get the reference and appreciate it. But even if this one slipped under the radar, the gigantic, shiny, geeky-ghetto fabulous bling I made for the Faith song will most definitely not. I'm going to keep that one under wraps until the release of the video when it makes its big splash.

And while the jewelry was baking, my message-in-a-craigslist-bottle was floating far and wide. I ended up getting more responses than I could possibly use, or even know what to do with. There was one guitarist to particularly impressed me, with whom I followed up and corresponded several times but didn't totally work out in the end. And just when I was thinking I should crack into the initial wave of e-mail responses, I got a belated reply from the person who turned out to be my guy.

His name is Gary Dunn. He plays in a blues band and has studio recording space in his home. He also works in music licensing so he knows pretty much everything there is to know about music from the 18th century until now. When we met up for coffee two Fridays ago, I showed him the chord chart. Originally, the song was in the key of C, but I had changed it to B since -- despite it being more complicated -- it fit my vocal range a little better. It was a point of self-consciousness for me because I thought, "Here I am, diva singer, making everything all screwy-wonky to fit my needs." But his immediate response was, "I like the key of B. A lot of Rolling Stones songs were written in B. It's probably what fit Mick Jagger's vocal range the best." Wow, I thought, that just rocks in so many ways. First of all, you like the key. Second, you cited a Stones factoid that probably a lot of Stones fans don't even know. Third, you kind of sort of indirectly drew a parallel between Mick Jagger's voice and mine. How many points did you just earned in my book???

Finally this weekend, we synced up our schedules and rehearsed the song. There is much to tell from that, but I fear this blog entry is getting a little long so I'll pick it up another day. Hope you've enjoyed! I promise I'll report back soon.