A Band Anyone Can Join – For The Players

We’ve already written about our project for the year’s Grassington Festival “A Band Anyone Can Join”. The short version is, the people of Grassington are temporarily joining the ranks of Hope and Social for our headline slot, Saturday 15th of June at Grassington Festival. It’s going to be bloody lovely, and you can get your tickets here. If you still don’t know what we’re talking about, read this first.

Before we go any further, if you are part of a group (or an individual) based in Grassington and are interested in getting involved email us for details or just pop along to one of the sessions listed below. katebeard[at]grassington-festival.org.uk

This blog-post however is mainly for our singers and players at Grassington and is where we’re sharing all the written music parts, resources and instructions for the project. It may also be of interest to you if you’ve ever wanted to know chords and parts for some Hope and Social tunes, so stick around and download below. There’s a lot of information below, so grab yourself a cuppa, sit down and please do read to the end. [grins]

Congratulations people of Grassington…

… you’ve passed the audition! If you have come to this page then that probably means that you are now already a fully fledged member of “Hope and Social – Grassington Branch”. You’re well behind on paying your subs and it’s probably your turn to wash the jackets, but welcome. You’re in The Band. Put something blue or white on. Get used to feeling tired and under-prepared. Make yourself at home.

“#*%$ ME! I can’t believe I just played a musical instrument!”

We have to say… we’ve loved meeting you so far, playing ukulele with you, singing with you, teaching you how to play the bells, getting confused by the rhythms we try to make you clap and all the laughing. We especially loved it when we played a pop up gig in your local pub and when teaching the ladies rounders team to play the ukulele. After playing 2 chords for just 8 bars one of you shouted with such excitement “#%*% ME! I can’t believe I just played a musical instrument!” This is what it’s all about. This made us very happy indeed. It’s not over yet though… if you live in Grassington and aren’t involved yet there’s still time to join our band. There’s still more rehearsals and we’ve got even more plans. If you’re not part of the band or just want to come and see the gig on June the 15th you can get tickets here.

As a member of our band this page will tell you everything you need to know to play with us…. We have the songs you’re going to be playing for you to listen to and download. We’ve also got musical score for ukuleles, guitar, violins, saxes and most every other instrument you can imagine. The music comes as one big zip file, click here to download it, save it and extract that to somewhere memorable on your computer. The parts (the music, the score, parts… call it what you like) will be organised by instrument in folders.

Now, don’t just download and start practising… (although you should) please read to the end. There will be a test.

The Parts

Ukulele players, in addition to the music-score, you’ll also get links to video of Rich playing the ukulele parts under each song below. (That’s a giant size ukulele btw… – Ed) Keyboard players… Ed says “there are no parts, only feelings, so… download the guitar chord sheets and start working those feelings out”. [James hits himself in the face at this point, insists that there is music for keyboards, so you can find that in the download too] [Ed: [sticks tongue out, mutters about written part being wrong, encourages keyboard players to read the chords and use the force]]

Drummers, it’s only drumming. Man up and hit stuff. Singers…(you’re all singers to us so pay attention) we’ll describe where we need you in each song below. Listen to the songs and sing your hearts out. Remember… you’re in our world now and in our world louder is usually better. Be proud and sing out, you’re among friends here. Even mistakes sound much better with volume and conviction.

In the download, you’ll find parts for Alto Sax, Banjo, Keyboard, Guitar, Mandolin, Bassoon, Clarinet, Uke and Violin. If you play another instrument, drop us an email to:
james [at] hopeandsocial [dot] com
If you can’t read music, don’t worry, come down to one of the rehearsals and we’ll try and teach you the songs.

SONGS

Below you can play all the songs we’re working on, you can download them by pressing the “Download” button, or simply play them from this page. As you probably know, you can get all our stuff on a Pay What You Want basis – which includes FREE!!! So let your conscience be your guide. [wink]

Eurospin

YOUR PARTS: Bells, singing in “Hold your head up high” section, keyboard, banjo, and guitar. The violin parts will be uploaded as soon as we can.

You can watch the video of us recording this song here. We turned our studio into a French bistro, served gourmet meals to 70 people and then they helped us record the song playing wine bottles and singing. What you see is what actually happened… it ain’t a music video. Watch the documentary too here with a load of other Come Dine With Us event videos!

Knotted Wood

YOUR PARTS: Singing “I will sail”. Mandolin, Guitar, and Ukulele.

Marching on Through

YOUR PARTS: Guitar, Mandolin, Brass and wind, kazoos also playing brass riff that plays throughout the song, we’ll also get you singing “we’ll sing with the power of a million voices“.

Pitching Far Too High

YOUR PARTS: EVERYONE PLAYS AT THE END. Any instrument you can get your hands on, or sing your lungs out!

Rolling Sideways

YOUR PARTS: Clarinet, Bassoon, Sax, Ukulele (we’ll likely start the song with Ukes, then bring the band in at the Brass Soli – see the musical score for this) plus singing the “Rolling Sideways” bits in the verses, and the soaring “Whoa-oh-ohhhh” line in the chorus.

Ukulele video (which may or not be any help whatsoever) HERE.

Sleep Sound

YOUR PARTS: Singing the choir parts, Clarinet, Bassoon, Sax, Ukulele, Guitar, Mandolin. Ukulele video HERE.

Homework

We also would like something else from you people of Grassington… In our song Marching on Through we list a bunch of names of places we’ve played in and that people love… we’d love you to give us the names of places you care about. It could be your home town, the name of your house or street, your favourite holiday destination, where your parents were born… anywhere that means a lot to you. If you could put your place in the comments at the bottom of this page that would be amazing. We’ll try to fit them all in we promise [Pro Name Suggestion Tip: Grassington might already make it!]

Upcoming timetable

Existing groups should have an idea of what night they’ve been coming in….

Wednesday 22nd May – James and (pending baby permitting) Rich Ed will be at Church House in Grassington from 3-30pm to 9pm or thereabouts. If you were there last week… get yerself down. If you’d like to be involved or are part of a group who’d like to be involved do come down to stick your head in on this day and we’ll try and have a chat or email katebeard@grassington-festival.org.uk for more info!

Friday 25th May – James and Ed will be at The Congregational Church. 6 ’til 9pm

You then have a week off… BUT… very much like the rest of Hope and Social, you will spend this time in painstaking rehearsal to ensure the most fabulous event. You will also promote the $h!t out of the event on Facebook, Twitter and tell all your friends that this will be the most vital and essential experience of their lives and they should buy tickets from here.

Wednesday 5th June – 3-30pm to 9pm at Church House
Friday 7th June – 6pm to 9pm at The Congregational Church.

TWO IMPORTANT DATES

FULL REHEARSAL – Sunday 9th June

– This is the big rehearsal. Bring some food, some coffee in a flask if that’s your thing. This is going to be a full day of pulling the whole show together. Be prepared for some waiting around, for us to call on you at a moments notice, for long soundchecks, for going over songs repeatedly, for microphone placement changes, for tiredness. It’s a big deal this one, and it will (unlike sessions in the pub for example) require some discipline. We’ll make it fun too. Promise. Please get it in the diary and make sure you’ve not got to dash off at 3 to feed the cat or something. Equally if you do have to dash off to feed your cat… [hint: it’s a cat, they can feed themselves if they’re hungry] LET US KNOW and we’ll see what we can do.

PROCESSION AND FINAL GIG – Saturday 15th June

In the morning, we’ll be taking part in the procession around Grassington. It’ll mainly be Marching on Through, and will be carnage. We’ll then have a breather, a cuppa, and maybe a sugary treat to boost energy levels, then we’re straight into the Town Hall to set up, soundcheck and run through any last-minute changes/improvements based on the previous rehearsal. We’ll confirm times nearer the date but plan to be available all day again (hard work being in a band ‘innit?!!). We’re on stage at 8pm in Grassington Town Hall, so we’ll all have to be backstage from 7pm.

Another wee reminder… tickets HERE. If you want your family and friends to see you perform, get their tickets EARLY!

Right, that’s it for now. We’ll keep this page updated as we go, but thanks for getting this far. Put your place names in the comments below, and we’ll do some shoehorning. Don’t forget to email katebeard@grassington-festival.org.uk if you need more info about anything!

Over and out…
See you Wednesday!