I feel like this video needs a little background first. I work for a small company in North Dakota. Even though it’s small, we have offices in 2 cities that are a few hours apart; Fargo and Bismarck. Every year, we have a company get together in Medora, which is a town out in the western part of the state where there are numerous activities. Part of that time is spent in a team meeting, which is usually designed to be more of a “fun” meeting.
Everyone in the company knows I like to play guitar. When I’m working from home, my guitars are visible on the wall behind me in video calls. I have my old Squier sitting in my office at work to noodle around on during breaks. I’ve been asked a few times when I’m going to play for everyone, so I proposed playing at our annual Medora trip.
Lorie, the person that usually runs the Medora meeting, loved the idea. She plays piano and there are a couple other people in Bismarck that play instruments so she wanted to try and arrange a group performance as well. We talked a guy that plays alto sax into joining, and she borrowed a portable keyboard from another coworker.
Lorie had the idea of wearing “hippie” clothing, so she got tie die shirts and headbands for us. We decided that I would start off trying to play “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and completely buthering it, then play a couple other things, talk a little bit about my guitar journey, and then go back to “Twinkle” with the 3 of us playing. After that we would try to play a couple other pieces together.
The following video is just my part. My wife recorded it on her phone. She also has a separate recording of the group performance, but I’d rather not share it without letting the other two know. That part did not go so well, because we only had about 20 min of practicing together and figuring out what we were going to do right before the meeting. We still had a good time and I think it was at least an entertaining train wreck…
This is the first time I’ve really played guitar in front of a group of people. There were maybe 30-ish people at the meeting. Mistakes were made, but I think I did ok at recovering.
Terrific performance and super response from your audience. You looked amazingly relaxed playing, often without having to watch your hands’ positions. Well done.
Thanks Brian! I’m glad I looked relaxed because I definitely didn’t feel it. After I was done, I was thinking I should have tried to look at the audience a bit more.
Great stuff Dan. To get up in front of people and play was quite a challenge and you rose to that challenge brilliantly. Well done.
You and your colleagues now have a year to practise for the next office get together. Get your set list sorted, have a few zoom rehearsals and you’ll blow your co-workers away.
@CT , I love the sound of the LP. Thought about bringing my acoustic just for Blackbird but decided to just bring the LP.
@sairfingers, the piano player and I tried practicing a bit over MS Teams, but the latency was just too bad. Plus, it would try to reduce the volume of the other person while you were playing, so it was really tough to properly play together.
@Alexeyd, Not sure we’ll do this again next year, but I would be open to it! I do want to try and do an OM here at some point. I’ve looked into local OMs in the area too, which I think would be fun, but haven’t really committed to trying that yet. I’d want to sit in on one or two first to see how they are run.
@Jenndye429, glad you liked the TTLS intro. My original plan was to play it all the way through but do it really slow and deliberate. I was going to preface it with saying something like, “A few of you might recognize this one. I’ve been working on it a long time.”
I found out later that one of my co-workers had 3d-printed some little bird whistles shaped like birds for all of the kids. If I had known that ahead of time, I would have tried to talk him into blowing one at the appropriate time during Blackbird.
Super performance Dan, … just standing up while playing a Les Paul is an achievement in itself … (I’m guessing an Epiphone is comparable in weight to a Gibson)
To play in front of your work colleagues took some real courage, and maybe the ad hoc band have been enthused enough to try and have more practise time before the next meet-up.
Congratulations, Dan, and well-played!
You can do a fair bit of preparation for ‘band performances’ without playing live together.
You just need to all know exactly how the song goes. Either pick a pre-recorded song and stick strictly to that; or make a click-track, someone plays guitar over that, then add keys, drums, vox, whatever. Everyone can practice with the way the others are playing.
Also, sign up for an audience member for the next community open mic. Then you’ll have fulfilled all the criteria for participating, whenever you feel like it
All great suggestions! I’m not sure how motivated the other two are to try that, though. Before this performance, I had suggested trying to record something that the others could play against, but they didn’t seem too concerned with that.
I’d love to join the audience of the next OM, but it will be around 2am my time, so I’ll probably wait for the next one. Looking forward to it, though! It seems like you all have a great time with it.
That was great Dan! First performance in front of work collegues - wow, my colleagues are the last people in the world I would play for - most of them don’t even know I play - the guitars are at the other side of the room so the video cam can’t catch them. Something about keeping work and private life separate - so hats off to you! Looking forward to seeing you on one of the next OMs!
The company I work for is a pretty close-knit group, so it wasn’t too bad for me. Still, sometimes I think it’s tougher to play for people you know than it is for complete strangers.
(I’m guessing an Epiphone is comparable in weight to a Gibson)
