Playing pan

All this time have been playing pan I realized I have in general been playing too loud (ye ye whatever guys, very funny :p )
It is an interesting concept that came about when KK, while teaching us to play a song made the comment that the lead should never strive to play above those supporting, but rather those supporting should “make a space” for the lead.

It was an enormous revelation that had me cringing. My volume typically for playing songs ranged from loud to louder, depending on my enthusiasm for the song. Now, however, I find that songs actually sound better. Even more embarrassing is that I am also realizing quite often when a song sounded noisy it was my pan that was playing too loudly and not others :s … ah well we cant all be perfect.

All this was re-enforced even further by ‘musical Director’ or whoever he was from “Skiffle Bunch” that was running a pan workshop the other day. He pointed how in a particular song how all the other sections played behind whatever section had the lead, no matter the volume they played at…. Again I cringed.

The sad part is this was not the first time this has been mentioned to me, but for some reason when KK was talking to the band it finally hit me. Now songs sound way better at least when I am playing. The flip side to this of course is the fact that now I have to focus on my control… this automatically eliminates much of my bouncing and moving around the pan… not cool.
Fortunately B and I had a talk about antics around the pan a while back, and what she said was that if we are going to doing antics when on a playout, or performing anywhere for that matter, we should practice these antics so that they come naturally to us….. easier said than done.
I realize that once my feet start moving my control is reduced. I am pleased to say it is not as bad as before, but I have a long way to go.

What strikes me though, Is that I remember looking at video of a previous concert where myself and Mark2 were playing. For the whole concert while playing I thought we were doing the same moves, but on looking on the vid I realize M2’s moves were much more subdued…. Maybe that’s why he was the best player on the section?

In any case, the time I can easily dedicate to pan has been greatly reduced and I find it hard to discipline myself to find that extra time for the panyard, but I am working on it. Sigh.. you never really know what you have till its gone, at a time such as this when I am ready to really work on improving my technique the people who use to try to help me (to whom I rarely listened) are not around, ah well such is life.

The Skiffle bunch really impressed me and has made me feel a need to really improve my playing skills. With respect to being section leader HA! Boy I tell you
But that is for another blog we’ll see how it turns out