So here we are nearing the end. Last night 3 of us practiced at the drummer's house. The main idea was to get the 3rd bass/guitar player up to speed on what we went over last week. We drastically altered the song form of Heard it Through The Grapevine to do band introductions and end. To keep it straight for me, I went through our last band practice and wrote it out. While I was at it, I wrote out the form for every song we are doing since all but one of them we've modified. At this point, most of us know all of our parts and we have a good groove going, we just all need to be in sync with the song form. Everybody has a copy of what I put together, so we'll all be working from the same page...literally :-).

The singer who will be singing for us will join us next week for our final practice. I hope it isn't too much that has to come together at the end. Since we all know our parts, if we stray from the form I'm sure we can get back on track quickly and easily.

One thing that struck me last night was how good the groove is now. We struggled with it in the beginning and our mentor would have to pull out his cowbell to help us all stay in time. It's been weeks since the cowbell has come out! :-). Now we take "being in the groove" for granted and focus on other stuff. Not bad for 2 months I thought!! The downside of having the groove down...it's too easy to get lost in and lose your place! There were a couple instances of that last night.

We are mapping out a plan and strategy to continue on with a subset of us. Mabye then we'll be able to come up with a name :-).

One thing of note - when practicing HITTGV the other night, I was using my pedal emulator and stumbed upon the "auto-wah/compressor" pedal. I gave it a try and was surprised at how well it worked. Yes, it sounded a bit like a cheesy TV theme from a 70's TV show, but it was fun and worked. It worked especially well with my solo which attempts to emulate the sax solo. I used the effect at practice last night and everybody thought it was pretty cool. It also led to a jam of Voodoo Child! I think I'll leave it out for our final performance next week, but for the band that follows on, I may use it. If anything, I'll use it for the solo.

Next week, I hope to be back glowing in the success of our final performance with video. Fingers crossed... :-).