Musical challenge

Although I never received any musical challenges from the "Keeper's Monthly Musical Challenge" thing on Paul's blog, either because he has begun working again (yay!) or nobody came up with any good ideas (boo!), there is, in fact, a big musical challenge coming up for me.

Saturday, I'm going to be rehearsing with the Raspberry Jam Band for a performance the following weekend of a musical comedy routine that I wrote many years ago but never have performed because it requires a musician who knows the routine.

The big challenge is that I haven't been on stage since acting class in 1990 (and even then it was just for the small class, so never for a full theater audience), and I've never performed on-mic, other than the PC or my camera with their auto gain control.

It's also been a while since I've done my Elmer Fudd voice... or Scooby Doo... But I think I can manage.

You see, bandleader Julia wanted me to perform with the band (as thanks for providing and composing music for them to play) after hearing how well I can whistle. But then in the course of casual conversation, she heard me do a bit of We Will Rock You as Mickey Mouse (yes, casual conversation with me can be strange -- actually I was mentioning how I thought of making video of me doing that, but then Wayne Allwine passed away and I thought it might be bad taste since my Mickey is his Mickey), so she thought maybe I could sing Lulu's Back in Town as Mickey, which I did a bit of on the spot to show that I could.

A couple hours later, though, I suddenly remembered this musical comedy skit that I had in my head, and asked if they play Red Rose Rag. They didn't, she said, but they'll learn it. I've sent them the "script", and we'll see how it goes in rehearsal this weekend. Then next weekend's Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival will be the moment of truth. If it goes over well, we could do the skit again in November at the West Coast Ragtime Festival.

Hopefully I'll have somebody hold my camera and record it at Sutter Creek.