Sunday, June 17, 2007

The Birth of Gryphon Labs



<-------------NEXT TUESDAY, JUNE 26th!
We had our first Gryphon Labs rehearsal for the upcoming show the other night, and I was blown away by how quickly these guys picked up my songs, especially knowing that their brains are just as taxed as mine with Zappa material. Fortunately, my music is not nearly as intricate as Frank's (whose is?) and these three gentleman are mad geniuses on their instruments.
But, I realized in ZPZ rehearsal the other day that the mastery of muscle memory in our band is only part of why I think we sound so good. An equal element to this gig, and to all musicianship I guess, are our ears and the amazing ability to hear the different parts going on in these songs. Granted, on some songs we have the technological ability to listen to the different instrument tracks individually thanks to our access to the master recordings in the Vault. But just the way Scheila has been picking out and arranging Frank's dense doo-wop-like vocal harmonies, or Dweezil being able to hear and learn his Dad's compicated rhythmic and melodic figures without the aid of reading music, or how Aaron and Billy have been figuring out how to transpose and re-arrange orchestral sections to be played by our instrumentation, shows that the ridiculous things these people can do on their instruments is only half of their immense talents.
So, come on out on the 26th and see what these guys can do with their hands AND their ears.

2 comments:

Zuchus said...

Jabslice,
I hope Tuesday went well; congrats....and thanks.
Zuchus

Unknown said...

Saw you guys in Lansing tonight and I had to see what other projects you were part of, I hope this one takes off!