Vuvuzela concert

Ravel's "Bolero" on the vuvuzela is rather funny. I like the stuffy German presentation that accompanies it.

Vuvuzela concert

The Shadetree Guarantee

Waaaay back in 1972, I got into dulcimer making thanks to Bill Bland in Tucson.  He was interviewed in the Tucson Daily-Citizen about his musical instrument store and he talked about his dulcimers using what he called "The Shadetree Guarantee:"

This won't rip, run, rag, bag, sag, wheeze, sneeze, fall out at the knees, or smell bad in hot weather.

I thought this was great schtick and committed it to memory. (And thank you, Bill, for that and for many other musical gifts in my life that keep on giving!)

Fast forward about 17 years to one of many computer swap meets, where I was selling carloads of floppy diskettes. I used the Shadetree Guarantee, rattled off at speed, as part of my schtick to drag in customers. One woman liked that and responded with this (also at speed):

Won't rust, bust, gather dust, wrinkle 'round the edges, bend, break, or tarnish; good for coughs, colds, torn assholes, corns, calluses, and bunions, and it's waterproof, too!

This cracked me up and nothing would do but that I had her write hers down. (She got me to write my schtick down for her as well.) And I believe I even was able to sell her diskettes, so it was a perfect deal.

The Shadetree Guarantee

Dante Bucci!

I have always liked steel drum music, particularly when the musician is breaking out of the traditional calypso mold (although that stuff is pretty good, too).

Dante Bucci is a musician who's just been pointed out to me. He plays the hang drum, a new invention based on the steel drum. (I want one, or at least to try one!)

There are a number of videos on YouTube of Dante Bucci playing, but you should also search for "hang drum" as well. If you prefer to listen to lots of music like this, try pandora.dantebucci.com or itunes.dantebucci.com.

Dante Bucci!

What the heck? It *is* the music of the spheres!

This article talks about astronomers recording the sounds made by stars using the Corot space telescope. There are recordings of three stars, including the Sun.

Professor Ian Roxburgh of Queen Mary College, London is among those trying to work out what the sounds from the stars tell us about processes occurring inside stars.

"It's not easy," he says "It's like listening to the sound of a musical instrument and then trying to reconstruct the shape of the instrument".

Fascinating stuff!

What the heck? It *is* the music of the spheres!

Renaissance Concert

The Babe and I have been in rehearsals with the church’s Chamber Singers for the annual Renaissance Christmas Concert and lo! it came off well. The group has been practicing music in German, French, Latin, and even a couple songs in English since September. We were originally slated to do one concert on Satuday, December 10th, but the tickets sold out in two days, so we scheduled a second concert for Sunday the 11th. 300 tickets got sold – not too shabby!

We’d had rehearsals Friday evening and that morning with the musicians (Byrdsong Early Music Consort), so by Saturday evening, we were ready to go. Everyone showed up at 7:00pm, an hour before the concert, to warm up.

Warming up

Warming up

We did just enough work to check our blocking and volume and so on. People were trickling in so we stopped at 7:30 and milled about a bit.

Pre-game

The choir has had the privilege of performing with Byrdsong before. They’re all multi-talented: they play viol (aka viola da gamba), recorders, harpsichord, and several other instruments. Some of them are excellent singers, too.

Byrdsong

Brice, the sackbut player, isn’t normally a part of Byrdsong, but we had the pleasure of his company for these concerts.

Brice showing off his sackbut

All of this has been under the guidance of Tom Sears, the best church choir director we’ve ever run into.

Tom Sears, our esteemed director

The ladies kicked off the first vocal number and it was smooth sailing throughout.

First number

After the show, there was a crowd that headed for the goodie tables. A number of choir members and others had brought all sorts of baked goodies (I was able to show off my chocolate dipped biscotti to an admiring throng, too!). There were a lot of goodies; so many so that we all took some home after the second concert Sunday afternoon.

The queue for goodies

It was a lot of work but it was definitely worth it. The concert was taped by one of the other basses, so I’m hoping to create MP3s of the concert and post them online. (Watch this space for details.)

Renaissance Concert

I bought a new banjo... and it's my first

Kay banjo and resonator

I've just gotten a very special banjo: it's an old Kay banjo, a five-string with a mahogany neck and a rosewood fingerboard.

Kay head--back

The head is probably some kind of plastic although it looks like skin--not likely a skin head would be this tight and would last this long. It's got a resonator on it, but I've taken it off--I want the open back sound to it.

Back of Kay banjo

Here's a picture from the back. You can see the nice flame pattern in the neck.

Kay peghead



Kay peghead--back

The pegs are metal and solid. They're rather unusual, as most of the straight-through pegs you find have some kind of plastic knob on 'em. Finding a Kay banjo with this particular feature has been something of a challenge, as most of them have the ivory-colored plastic.

Okay, it looks nice, it's in really good condition, and it's sturdy (although I do have to make some adjustments to the neck to get it just perfect), but what makes this banjo really special? Easy: this is the make and model of banjo that I started playing on, lo! these many moons ago, in 1971. I bought it from a very nice man through eBay and it just came today. Just pulling it out of the box and looking at it brought back a million memories of being in high school in Tucson and learning to play banjo and guitar.

There's nothing really special about this banjo of itself. It's like any of thousands of other low-end basic banjos. But save for a missing decal at the top of the peghead, it's the spitting image of the one I had. Even better, when I got it strung up with new strings, the tone was the same as the one I used to have Way Back When! It's a slightly different tone from any of my other banjos (this one's number #5 in the house) and I recall walking around Tucson, playing the banjo and singing songs. Gawd, I just well up with happiness at recovering a part of my youth. {deep and happy sigh}

I bought a new banjo... and it's my first