The Best of Albuquerque

It's been a busy week. Last Thursday the Giovanni Quartet performed at the "Best of Albuquerque" event put on by Albuquerque, the Magazine. We were the only acoustic group although Hector Pimentel was also supposed to play. We saw him there, they announced him, but he never actually played... strange.

As expected, the sound system and stage were set up for bands, not a quartet. The sound guy, Carlos, was very helpful though and we got it set up OK. Four SM58 microphones... and set up a little ways from each of us except for the cello. Richard had a mic down low and fairly close to the instrument. He probably had the best sound of the four of us. During the performance, I could hear that we were on the verge of feedback, and the sound was strange. However, David Felberg was there and he complimented us on the performance. I don't know how many people were actually listening...

Richard pointed out that this was a good experience for us since it would be very similar playing at any type of corporate event. What I was proud of is the fact that we stayed very tightly together musically and adjusted to the circumstances. Subtleties were out the window but everyone played well and I thought we did a good job.

This week we decide what new material to add to the book, and what stuff to eliminate. It's about time, because we really haven't been playing a lot of the stuff in there, and we've been looking for new arrangements. I also want to organize the books by music type, i.e. "wedding ceremonies" "receptions", "pop", etc. It may not be so easy to classify stuff that way, but we'll give it a shot.