By Betty Widerski
Being invited to play with Meredith's band, the Shelley Winters Project, was a very different and exciting experience for me. When I first learned to play violin as a kid and teenager, I was a total Classical music nerd - so immersed in various orchestras and chamber groups that I knew nothing about Pop or Rock music (I think there was one Beatles album in the house, and my younger sister may have had some 45s).
After a hiatus of many years I realized that I still wanted to play, but in a different way. About two years ago I found my way to Meredith's studio and we started to work on my improvising skills. This was a very new type of playing for me (no printed music to lean on!) - I had to learn to rely much more on listening to the other player(s), and start to find ways to come up with harmonies and solo figures to match the sense of what we were playing.
But improvising in a lesson with your teacher is still a pretty safe environment. One day she mentioned that Shelley was working with a theater group on an outdoor musical using the band's songs, and the director wanted to have an additional violinist to echo some of the themes: would I be interested?
I had listened to the band's CDs a few times, and figured I'd have Meredith there doing the major solos and giving me some clues as we went along, so I agreed to check it out. I was invited to a script read-though and assumed that I would probably just be watching/listening most of the time to see what might be wanted from me.
Two days before the read-through, I suddenly decided to do a more intensive study of the CDs, and spent several hours trying to figure out the keys, charting the structures, noting where the violin came in, and writing some cues for the solos. I wondered if I was nervously over-preparing... until I walked into the meeting to find that Meredith was home sick and Rick inviting me to sit down and fill in for her! Picking my jaw up from the pit of my stomach, I dove in... Fortunately the first song was one I had thoroughly charted, so I came out sounding pretty good - the band thought it was funny to see Meredith's solo actually written out! I hacked through the rest of the songs as best I could, and the directors invited me to participate in the show.
And I was hooked... nervous, excited, still not clear where I'd fit in or what I'd be doing, but for the first time in my playing life I was getting a sense of what it was like to be truly connected to playing music. This was what I'd been looking for, and why the (for me) intellectual objectivity inherent in playing Classical music had never satisfied me.
It was about two months further on before it was time for me to be back at a rehearsal with the band and actors, two weeks before the first performance. I had four full rehearsals, plus a music run-through with the band at their rehearsal studio. Though I had a lot of other things going on during that period, too, I was surprised to find myself coming out of the rehearsals feeling energized (I used to collapse after a similar period of classical activity). And there's nothing like the feeling of standing in a small room surrounded by a pile of amps and a full drum kit!
Flexibility was really important - it seemed like at every rehearsal, and right up to the performances, something was changing: my physical location in relation to the band, how I was amplified, what I was playing, whether I could even hear myself (due to a last-minute sound change for the first show)!
The performances were amazing - over 300 people watched the two shows. The weather held (though at 47 degrees and windy the first night I was stuffing heat packs in my fingerless gloves!). The band rocked. The umbrellas twirled. I came away buzzing from the energy. I wasn't always perfect, and that was okay - there were many more moments when I was right in the energy of the music, and that is one of the best feelings I've ever had... I finally got what Meredith is talking about on her page about being a musician, and am really glad I didn't give up on playing before I got here!
Anyone looking for a violinist for your band?....
Click here to find out more info about the show "Things I Never Told U."