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	<title>Donavon LeNabat</title>
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	<description>Piano Entertainer</description>
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		<title>At Least It&#8217;s Christmas</title>
		<link>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=1008</link>
		<comments>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=1008#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Dec 2014 18:06:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donavon LeNabat</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[I recently wrote, recorded, and made a video for a song! The song is currently available for purchase through iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/at-least-its-christmas-single/id947770773/) CDbaby (https://origin.cdbaby.com/cd/donavonlenabat/).]]></description>
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		<title>The Rainbow Connection; A Slide Show Tribute to the Muppets</title>
		<link>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=984</link>
		<comments>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=984#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Jun 2013 07:18:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donavon LeNabat</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.lenabat.com/?p=984</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve been performing The Rainbow Connection as Kermit for a very long time, but only recently have started incorporating other Muppet voices. I thought it would be a good idea to have some visual representation so I put together a slide show to go along with it. Here it is!]]></description>
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		<title>iPad, Apps &amp; Advice III: Accessories</title>
		<link>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=288</link>
		<comments>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=288#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 14 Nov 2012 08:28:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donavon LeNabat</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.lenabat.com/?p=288</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I’ve written a lot about using the iPad in a live performance setting, about the type of apps and what you can do with them. (see previous posts: http://www.lenabat.com/?p=219 and http://www.lenabat.com/?p=284) This entry is dedicated to making the live performance that much better by using certain accessories. For the first 8 months I had the iPad, I was using it with the &#8220;Smart Cover&#8221; that Apple sells. It is slim, looks good, and is able to provide two different levels of stands (or none). For the gigs I was doing at the time, it was perfect. It would sit perfectly on the music stand of a piano (or digital piano), and the magnetic strip that attaches the cover to the iPad had the added benefit of securing it to the metal casing of my keyboard when performing with a band. As time went by, I received a gift from a very thoughtful friend of mine: a Bluetooth wireless keyboard/case. (http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/e65a/?srp=2) Initially, I wasn’t sure I would use it as I already had a pretty decent setup happening. Then one night I decided to take use it on a Dueling Pianos gig. I was playing a Grand Piano that had the lid closed and I soon discovered how easy it was to search for and read lyrics on. Not having the keyboard taking up half of the screen was pretty sweet. Also, when I wasn’t using the keyboard or iPad, I could “close” it easily, keeping it out of sight and protected from the elements (aka spilled drinks). On a non-musical note, anytime I’m away from home and plan on doing some document writing, I will take this keyboard/case with me. As someone who used a laptop for years, this was a really easy transition. I’ve also noticed that ergonomically, it’s a lot easier to type on a screen that isn’t raised by 15 degrees. The touch properties of the screen are still fully there, too, so it’s the best of both worlds. Also, the “fully charged lithium ion battery lasts for 90 hours of continuous use.” Which means your iPad will die 9 times before this baby does. (FYI it charges through USB.) I don’t use the keyboard/case for heavy music-reading gigs, as I prefer my music to be in portrait mode. Also, if I’m playing with a band, the keyboard case is a little bulky for my on-stage setup. But it is PERFECT for my Dueling Pianos gig in Oakville. Next up, two words: Pogo Sketch. (http://tenonedesign.com/sketchplus.php) I first bought one of these because I was in the process of signing a bunch of documents/contracts. I didn’t want to print out/scan any more material, and I felt that this $15 purchase was worth saving a few trees. I used it in conjunction with an app called “SignMyPad”. It’s much easier to sign your name with one of these babies than with your finger. (Also, Pogo Sketch + iPad = awesome DrawSomething) Going back to the music, I’d long heard of wireless page-turners. As I was quite used to turning pages by hand (paper and virtual), I was skeptical. And then I watched a video a friend of mine had taken of herself singing while I accompanied her one night. The next day, I went out and purchased the PageFlip Cicada page turner. (http://www.pageflip.com/index.html) I had seen myself playing for 20 seconds, reaching up and tapping the screen of my iPad, and then repeating the process innumerable times throughout the piece. It was all I could see and I soon realized how distracting it must be, not to mention detrimental to the music. See for yourself (music starts around 1:06): (Apparently &#8220;Innumerable&#8221; = 13) Once I started using the pedal with regularity, it became an integral part of my setup. It allows you to turn a page forward by hitting the right “wing” and backward by hitting the left. Because I now use my left foot to turn pages, I no longer have to take my hands off of my instrument, with one small exception: I’ve mentioned before about putting “links” into scores (for repeats/D.S.s/Codas/etc), and in that case, you have to tap the dot on the screen that will take you where you need to go. There is one major and one minor drawback with using this pedal. I was using the iPad/foot pedal combination for an entire evening at an open mic and at one point someone came up and handed me their sheet music (in a binder). When it came time to turn the page, I found myself hitting the foot pedal and wondering why the pages hadn’t turned. Shortly thereafter, I realized how trained I’d become, berated myself for being a dumbass, and then quickly turned the page manually. By that point, I was three bars behind. This is the “major” drawback (and it still happens to me every now and again). The minor drawback is that you cannot use the PageFlip and Wireless Keyboard simultaneously. The reason is that the PageFlip is technically viewed by the iPad as a wireless keyboard. If both are connected, and you try to use one, weird things will happen: random (repeated) page turns, for example. The foot pedal runs on two AA batteries that have lasted me almost a year so far (and show no signs of dying). The pedal also has a sleep mode, which kicks in after about 10 minutes of non-use. It is “awoken” by tapping the pedal, akin to hitting the space bar on a “sleeping” Mac. Once it is awake again, it will find the iPad and re-pair itself, so make sure you allow extra time for that to happen if you have a page turn coming up. If your iPad is asleep, but the pedal is still on and paired, a tap on the device will make your screen turn on (similar to opening up the magnetic cover). There is a handy flashing red light on top of the pedal to let you [...]]]></description>
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		<title>iPad, Apps &amp; Advice II: ForScore</title>
		<link>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=284</link>
		<comments>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=284#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 14 Nov 2012 05:29:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donavon LeNabat</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.lenabat.com/?p=284</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[After a year and a half of using the iPad with my rig on various gigs (cocktail piano, open mic, piano bar, small and large band formations), I’ve decided it’s time to expand upon my previous blog entry: “iPad, Apps and Advice!” (http://www.lenabat.com/?p=219) This entry is dedicated to explaining the more useful tools within ForScore. First thing’s first: ForScore is the bomb. If you’re a musician that does a lot of chart and/or lyric reading, GET IT. It’s a $5 app that allows you to read, annotate, and otherwise abuse PDFs in any way a musician could ever want. I currently have over 6 GB of scores in my iPad, which (if you know anything about PDF size) is a LOT. Some charts, I’ve created for myself (using Finale on a home computer and turning them into PDFS), some I’ve scanned, and others I’ve downloaded from the Internet. Since I’ve been using ForScore primarily for chart-reading gigs, I’ve discovered a few very helpful tools. Settings: The first settings I modified when I started using ForScore was to turn off the gradient effect (which makes the bottom of pages look darker than the tops), turn off the page transitions (which just clutter up the screen when sight-reading scores at break-neck tempi), and turn off the “half-page turns” option (which might be more useful to music readers who only have one line to read). Set List: This is very handy when you’re playing a show and don’t have time to scroll through the menu to find each individual piece of sheet music. Create a set list and add whichever scores/charts/pdf lyric sheets you want to use. If you’re viewing it under the “Manual” tab, you’ll notice that all scores are listed in the order in which you’ve selected them. Deletion of charts from the “Set List” will only remove it from the set list, not your library. Bookmarks: Suppose you have a PDF of song selections from Rent, but you find that you often play “Seasons of Love”. Instead of having to scroll through the book to find the proper page, you can create a new title in your menu just by navigating around the score and selecting certain pages. It doesn’t take any extra space, other than showing a new title on the main menu. Once created, the program sees the bookmark as a different piece, and you can easily throw it into a set list, or email it (more on that later). Annotate: Annotating scores is also easy. They have options to type, draw, undo/redo, erase, and clear all markings you’ve made. You can even change your “pen” size and colour! Links: Part of the problem I have as a piano player is that I’ve gone from reading two pages in a book or binder to just one on the iPad screen. Until I buy a second iPad and figure out how to link the two, that means at least twice as many page turns. When you’re reading from a larger songbook that has repeats and D.S.s and Codas, it’s even more difficult to turn back your pages quickly enough. That’s where the “links” tool comes in handy. They’ve created a scrolling feature within the links tool that allows you to find your destination page very quickly. It’s a little bit of effort you have to go to initially that will save you many headaches when performing the score live. Side note: I also have used Links when going through a score for the first time to link up the table of contents to popular song selections. Rearrange: This is a tool that allows you to rearrange and/or delete pages of the score. What’s handy about this is you can make changes and save it to a brand-new file without destroying the original. My advice: read twice and click once. It’s confusing when you have more than one version of each tune, so be sure of the changes you want to make permanently and/or that you create descriptive file names. Side note: I keep all of my scores as listed by title of song or score (as opposed to composer, artist, etc), for ease of finding them. You can also add information to help you index and search by composer, genre, keywords, difficulty, etc. Crop: An incredibly handy tool to change the size of sheet music on your iPad. In my previous blog, I mentioned using larger fonts and deleting margins from your word documents. In case you haven’t done that, this is a tool that should help. Or, perhaps your scanner settings have made the music too small on the virtual page. It’s also worth noting that you can “uncrop” the music if you don’t like the new view. If you’re cropping multiple pages (if, for example a score didn’t scan very well), try to make sure your new sizes and staves match up from page to page; It’ll help with reading. Adding Scores: I usually upload scores through the iTunes menu, or when that’s not available, Dropbox. I’ve recently discovered you can pair Dropbox with ForScore from the menu apps so that the latter has access to the former. It’s infinitely quicker than having to switch between the two and input each score individually. Darkroom is also very helpful. With the increased resolution of the camera on the “new” iPad, if someone has sheet music and you don’t, it’s easy to take a photograph of the pages, and use the “Darkroom” option to turn pictures into PDFs and import them into ForScore. It’s saved me more than once on the bandstand. Sharing scores is also pretty easy with ForScore, as you can email or send via Bluetooth. You can send the original PDFs, a ForScore file type (with your links, pen markings, crops, and other edits you’ve done, that can be undone within someone else’s ForScore), or as an annotated PDF that has all your markings/crops/text on it indelibly. When I’m teaching, I find that all three file [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.lenabat.com/?feed=rss2&#038;p=284</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Do you remember&#8230;?</title>
		<link>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=281</link>
		<comments>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=281#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Oct 2012 21:00:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donavon LeNabat</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.lenabat.com/?p=281</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I don&#8217;t often like to write about gigs I&#8217;m going to do&#8230; I much prefer to speak of them once they&#8217;ve happened. Or, in this case, as they&#8217;re currently happening. I got a phone call in August to see if I would be interested in coming in for an interview for Randolph Academy (http://www.randolphacademy.com/). They needed a Musical Director for one of their fourth-term cabaret courses, beginning in September. I figured there wouldn&#8217;t be any harm in going in for an interview, so I said sure, I&#8217;d love to come in! (Keep in mind, I haven&#8217;t had a consistent teaching gig in probably 10 years&#8230;) I do the occasional coaching or private lesson here and there, but this was a consistent time commitment as well as guaranteed employment for 8 hours a week. I liked what they were telling me about the position, and told them I was interested in it. I guess they liked what they saw in me and offered me the gig! Since then, my Thursdays and Fridays from 11 am to 3 pm have been taken up by working through an immense amount of material with some extremely talented and motivated young people. I&#8217;m having a lot of fun working with them, and am learning more about movement and dance than I thought imaginable. Working with Ray Hogg (http://www.rayhogg.com/Home.html) has been a singular experience as well, as he is incredibly gifted in working with the students, inspiring them to move and really learn their parts. He&#8217;s taken the approach of this being a real-world gig and there is only so much time to prepare everything. I think the students are getting a valuable lesson in how things work, as well as the specifics of each piece (which demand something different of everyone). I&#8217;m also learning more about the tools that I use on the gig, namely my iPad and the various programs/accesories that come with it&#8230; but that&#8217;s something for another blog! In short, my September was amazing, with all kinds of new experiences with teaching and music directing. It&#8217;s pushed me to be more prepared with the music and to learn how to effectively communicate with people who have a broad level of musical knowledge and experience. I had a little bit of experience with that last bit, courtesy of my weekly accompaniment gig with Newchoir (http://newchoir.ca/), but I&#8217;m also learning that every little bit of experience helps you in everything else you do. As I&#8217;m quite fond of saying: &#8220;Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.&#8221; Not to say that I&#8217;m making a whole lot of bad judgment, mind you&#8230; but I can see where (and how) things go awry a lot easier now! I&#8217;m definitely looking forward to the cabaret class&#8217;s performance at the end of November, and hope the experience leads to more of the same, whether it be music directing or teaching!]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Another Fun Summer!</title>
		<link>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=733</link>
		<comments>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=733#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Oct 2012 20:53:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donavon LeNabat</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.lenabat.com/?p=278</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve been meaning to write about this for some time now (obviously), as we are now in the fall season! This past June, I had the opportunity to work with some really interesting people. Patricia Hammond (http://patriciahammond.com/) came to Toronto to do a few shows about town and needed an accompanist. Luckily, the dates managed to work out and I was able to accompany her. We played a bunch of war-era music at Hugh&#8217;s Room with the following instrumentation: Piano, Sousaphone, Banjo and Clarinet. (And voice, naturally&#8230;) Patricia has a beautiful voice and was a pleasure to work with. While she was in town, she was interviewed by Macleans magazine (http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/07/11/patricia-hammonds-sentimental-journey/). If you watch the accompanying video to the article, you will see several shots of me playing piano with her. You may even notice my stylishly-hatted head in the background of the main photo. Good times! June was also a banner month for Jack Squat. Not only did we have three major gigs (Bobcaygeon&#8217;s &#8220;Unlock the Summer&#8221; event and two weddings), but we also managed to launch our website. Check it out at http://jacksquat.ca and/or &#8220;like&#8221; us on Facebook (http://facebook.com/jacksquattoronto). The band sounds better than ever and we are always evolving our song list! I was also on Breakfast Television in June, playing for a talent competition known called Senior Star (www.seniorstar.ca). The competition happened the following week, but this was an opportunity to promote the event. In between segments, I got to chatting with Jennifer Valentine and I started goofing around on the piano. She started calling out TV shows and I would play them for her. We ended up videoing us doing this and she even put it up on her blog! Check it out at: http://blogs.bttoronto.ca/author/jennifer/page/2 (the second June 15th entry) The other major gig that I had in June was the Gold Medal Plates fundraiser (http://goldmedalplates.com/site/?page_id=424). It&#8217;s an event that raises money for the Canadian Olympic team and they needed a backing band. While in that band, I got to accompany the likes of Jim Cuddy, Greg Keelor, and Colin Cripps (of Blue Rodeo &#8211; individually and later en masse), Oh Susanna, Molly Johnson, Anne Lindsay, and Ed Robertson. It was a super-fun gig with some really heavy Canadian music icons and it was a thrill to be up there! I don&#8217;t know that I&#8217;ll ever have the opportunity to back up Blue Rodeo and/or the Barenaked Ladies ever again, so this was definitely a unique experience! Just so you know: performing &#8220;Try&#8221; with Blue Rodeo and &#8220;Pinch Me&#8221; with Ed Robertson was pretty much the most amazing thing ever! The rest of the summer as peppered with wedding gigs, keeping busy with Statlers and having lots of fun with Jack Squat. Another highlight was playing two street parties with Jack Squat on successive weekends in August… But that&#8217;s probably another blog altogether! In short: Summer 2012 was pretty awesome!]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.lenabat.com/?feed=rss2&#038;p=733</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Another Fun Summer!</title>
		<link>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=278</link>
		<comments>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=278#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Oct 2012 20:53:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donavon LeNabat</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.lenabat.com/?p=278</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve been meaning to write about this for some time now (obviously), as we are now in the fall season! This past June, I had the opportunity to work with some really interesting people. Patricia Hammond (http://patriciahammond.com/) came to Toronto to do a few shows about town and needed an accompanist. Luckily, the dates managed to work out and I was able to accompany her. We played a bunch of war-era music at Hugh&#8217;s Room with the following instrumentation: Piano, Sousaphone, Banjo and Clarinet. (And voice, naturally&#8230;) Patricia has a beautiful voice and was a pleasure to work with. While she was in town, she was interviewed by Macleans magazine (http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/07/11/patricia-hammonds-sentimental-journey/). If you watch the accompanying video to the article, you will see several shots of me playing piano with her. You may even notice my stylishly-hatted head in the background of the main photo. Good times! June was also a banner month for Jack Squat. Not only did we have three major gigs (Bobcaygeon&#8217;s &#8220;Unlock the Summer&#8221; event and two weddings), but we also managed to launch our website. Check it out at http://jacksquat.ca and/or &#8220;like&#8221; us on Facebook (http://facebook.com/jacksquattoronto). The band sounds better than ever and we are always evolving our song list! I was also on Breakfast Television in June, playing for a talent competition known called Senior Star (www.seniorstar.ca). The competition happened the following week, but this was an opportunity to promote the event. In between segments, I got to chatting with Jennifer Valentine and I started goofing around on the piano. She started calling out TV shows and I would play them for her. We ended up videoing us doing this and she even put it up on her blog! Check it out at: http://blogs.bttoronto.ca/author/jennifer/page/2 (the second June 15th entry) The other major gig that I had in June was the Gold Medal Plates fundraiser (http://goldmedalplates.com/site/?page_id=424). It&#8217;s an event that raises money for the Canadian Olympic team and they needed a backing band. While in that band, I got to accompany the likes of Jim Cuddy, Greg Keelor, and Colin Cripps (of Blue Rodeo &#8211; individually and later en masse), Oh Susanna, Molly Johnson, Anne Lindsay, and Ed Robertson. It was a super-fun gig with some really heavy Canadian music icons and it was a thrill to be up there! I don&#8217;t know that I&#8217;ll ever have the opportunity to back up Blue Rodeo and/or the Barenaked Ladies ever again, so this was definitely a unique experience! Just so you know: performing &#8220;Try&#8221; with Blue Rodeo and &#8220;Pinch Me&#8221; with Ed Robertson was pretty much the most amazing thing ever! The rest of the summer as peppered with wedding gigs, keeping busy with Statlers and having lots of fun with Jack Squat. Another highlight was playing two street parties with Jack Squat on successive weekends in August… But that&#8217;s probably another blog altogether! In short: Summer 2012 was pretty awesome!]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.lenabat.com/?feed=rss2&#038;p=278</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Everything&#8217;s coming up &#8220;Jack Squat&#8221;!</title>
		<link>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=274</link>
		<comments>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=274#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 Jul 2012 21:56:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donavon LeNabat</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.lenabat.com/?p=274</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In recent months, I&#8217;ve been performing more and more with my cover band, Jack Squat. Sometimes it&#8217;s because people know I can sing and play piano, and ask if I have a band. Sometimes it&#8217;s just a serendipitous situation where the gig falls into my lap. What matters is: Jack Squat is almost always there to answer the call. When I started this band 8 years ago, it was at the behest of a club owner who heard me singing at a fundraiser while playing piano: &#8220;Do you have a band? We&#8217;d love to have you in here!&#8221; I wasn&#8217;t singing much those days, so I jumped on the opportunity to put together my own group. My set list consisted of fun 80s keyboard-centric songs that no one on the Toronto scene I knew was playing. Our first several gigs barely paid anything so when I chose the name &#8220;Jack Squat&#8221; we all thought it was appropriate. I&#8217;ve tried to come up with other names since then, but nothing has stuck. Our song list has since evolved to include music from every era: 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, rock, blues, r&#38;b, funk, soul, as well as some of today&#8217;s top hits! We&#8217;ve now had more gigs in the past 6 weeks than we did in the first two years of the band&#8217;s existence, and more offers keep rolling in. In the month of June, we played a private boat cruise in Bobcaygeon, ON, as well as two private weddings. On July 1st, we played a Canada Day celebration at Lion&#8217;s Park in Toronto. I figured if we&#8217;re getting this much exposure, it&#8217;s probably time that we had a website! Lo and behold: I give you http://jacksquat.ca/ With new media being added after each gig, the site is continually changing. Our past several gigs have gotten rave reviews and we&#8217;ve had a blast! We are a kickass and professional band, but at the same time try not to take things too seriously. If you want to hire us for your private event, please message me. We  will even tailor our set list to your event. Special song requests? We do those too. Got an event that needs music? Consider Jack Squat to bring the fun!]]></description>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes</title>
		<link>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=258</link>
		<comments>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=258#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 May 2012 20:55:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donavon LeNabat</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.lenabat.com/?p=258</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[After looking at my last posting, entitled &#8220;My Birthday? Already?&#8221;, I was tempted to write: &#8220;Summertime, already?!&#8221; because I&#8217;m just realizing how long it&#8217;s been since then. I suppose it&#8217;s a testament to how busy these past several months have been! Several months ago, I made the decision to follow my own path and work on my own bookings. I knew it would be a more difficult endeavour than playing in someone else&#8217;s band, but I felt the change was necessary. It was scary and I didn&#8217;t know what was in store for me, but the past several months has seen me doing some very fun and exciting things! On April 29th, I was involved with a show called &#8220;Simply Divas&#8221;. It&#8217;s a phenomenal fund-raising event that benefits an institution called F.A.M.E. (Family Association for Mental health Everywhere, http://fameforfamilies.com/). They bring in several extremely talented young ladies to pay tribute to &#8220;Diva&#8221; artists over the years. This year, they did Janis Joplin, Tina Turner, Adele, and Gloria Estefan (to name a few). I accompanied the show and led the band throughout an afternoon performance that was simply magical. Of course, there&#8217;s so much more to the event than the music, but that was my focus and I was happy to be involved. To find out more about the event (and/or if you would like to contribute to it in the future), please check out their website: http://simplydivas.ca/ Later that same day, I played a show that was a tribute to the music of Joss Whedon with some incredibly talented friends of mine. We&#8217;ve played this show a few times before, and always to the delight of our audience! If you&#8217;re a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Dr. Horrible&#8217;s Singalong Blog or pretty much anything Joss Whedon does, chances are you&#8217;d enjoy this show! Several of the performers are instrumentalists as well, and our 9-person ensemble knocked it right out of the park! I&#8217;ve rarely played a gig in which the vibe from the audience was so intimate. Look out for &#8220;Once More, With Feeling&#8221;, in my calendar! On May 12th, I was music director of a band that accompanied NewChoir (http://newchoir.ca/), showcasing the vocal talents of approximately 150 people. I&#8217;ve been the choir&#8217;s accompanist for the past three seasons, but I&#8217;ve never been available to play the concert until this one. Each season, the choir has a different theme for their concert; this season, it was &#8220;Road Trip&#8221;. We performed music such as &#8220;Life is a Highway&#8221;, &#8220;Shut up and Drive&#8221;, and &#8220;Radar Love&#8221;, to name but a few of the 18-song set-list. Between Scott Pietrangelo&#8217;s masterful choir direction (http://scottpietrangelo.com/) and the talents of the choir and its new band, the general consensus is that this is the best performance the choir has had in its 14-season history! I&#8217;m extremely proud of the choir and the new band! Of course, I&#8217;ve also been doing more Dueling and Solo Piano shows throughout the GTA and receiving some very encouraging response. I like to keep my audience involved and with almost every show I learn something new that will keep them engaged and entertained. It&#8217;s almost as much fun for me as it is for the audience! My own band, Jack Squat, has been getting more and more bookings of late, and that&#8217;s very exciting news. I had hoped that it would get more work, and as it stands we&#8217;ve got two major bookings each month between now and September. The response has been so great that I will soon create a website for the band. It will include audio and video for people to peruse at their leisure, as well as testimonials from people who&#8217;ve heard us play. In short, it&#8217;s very exciting times around here and I couldn&#8217;t be happier! Meanwhile, I&#8217;m back to editing/adding videos to YouTube! My channel: http://youtube.com/user/dlenabat/.]]></description>
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		<title>My Birthday? Already?</title>
		<link>http://www.lenabat.com/?p=253</link>
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		<pubDate>Sat, 18 Feb 2012 20:04:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Donavon LeNabat</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[It seems like just yesterday I was hosting my birthday evening at Statlers at which some of my best friends and favourite musicians in Toronto were coming out to perform with me. What a great night that was, with so much fun and talent! This past year has just flown by, with me doing more of everything I love and experiencing all kinds of growth performing on my own. Dueling Pianos has gotten consistently better, and my solo work as well as performing with Jamie Bird (http://www.birdpercussion.ca/) with regularity has brought the shows at Statlers up to a new level! In previous years, we’ve held quasi-lavish birthday celebrations: a “pool party” at a pool hall (complete with shorts, beach towels and flotation devices), a TV/movie-themed costume party at our house, Statlers last year… For months I’ve been racking my brain as to what to do this year that could top previous years. And then life happened! When I left Soular, I started saying yes to all sorts of gigs that I never had the availability for before. That’s meant having to learn entirely new repertoire, program keyboards, and explore areas outside my comfort zone. Add to that the office/studio that I’ve been building in my basement for the past month and it’s been a crazy time! I hope to be down in the new space at some point in the near future, but it’s not ready just yet. Also, since November, I’ve also been saving up all my tips from Statlers to put towards my “Leslie Speaker Fund”. I bought a Hammond A100 last August and have been searching for a Leslie ever since. Now that my office is almost ready, I thought the next logical step would be to purchase one! As luck would have it, I found a very reasonably priced one on Craigslist and was able to haul it home with a little help from my wife and mother-in-law. (No elder abuse here: I just borrowed her van!) I guess I’m trying to say I got what I wanted for my birthday: a Leslie speaker and a day off. Next year, though: watch out!]]></description>
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