going out to test the strobist kit, any advise

as i've been so happily ranting about, i just got a 43" silver umbrella to fire my 580 into. i bought it in hope to get better live music shots in dark bars. tonight i'm going to photograph a guitar/banjo player. he will be my only subject and has okay'd a couple of flashes. any advise on how/where to set the stand, or settings that might work?? i also have a 5-1 reflector.
i should have posted this earlier today, but i was swamped. thanks in advance

well it was a learning experience. i will post a picture or two after the day job.

two points learned:
a) stick the flash pretty far from the stage. takes away from the setting as the main light source but i am still hopefull for results as a fill

b) st-e2 sucks

Hi thelightofsound,

Please do post pictures. I'd be curious to see.Why is it you feel the ST-E2 is not good? Can you describe the setup and application? I know many poeple with them and for the most part it gets good reviews. I owned one for a short time and although it was not the ideal solution to my immediate problem I did like it a lot. Was it a 'line of sight' issue for you?

TMR Design wrote in post #2754639
Hi thelightofsound,

Please do post pictures. I'd be curious to see.Why is it you feel the ST-E2 is not good? Can you describe the setup and application? I know many poeple with them and for the most part it gets good reviews. I owned one for a short time and although it was not the ideal solution to my immediate problem I did like it a lot. Was it a 'line of sight' issue for you?

i've posted pictures in the P/A forum

i was unhappy with the st-e2 because of the line of sight issue. it was hard to get the angle i wanted while stying in sight.
i had an umbrella with the 580 mounted on a stand about 7 feet from the foot of stage right.
this was hard. i am a complete n00b with flash, so trying to figure it out in changing conditions was not easy. hopefully it will get easier