Our friends Billy and Sarah of Bean Creek called us a few weeks ago saying they needed someone to fill in at their regular bi-monthly gig at Phil’s Fish Market while they went back east to visit relatives. Abbott Family Band to the rescue! We’ve played Phil’s once or twice before as a family, and I’ve played there many times as a substitute banjo/fiddle/mandolin/guitar player. It’s a nice gig, and the food’s really good, which satisfies Kyle’s criteria.
So yesterday, we loaded up all the sound equipment we were borrowing along with our instruments. It barely fit in our Mazda MPV! The speakers, especially, were huge. That, and… Continue reading ‘A Phil’s Phiasco’
Last week (oops, actually two months ago, as it took a while to get this posted) I sang bass in a performance of Franz Schubert’s Mass in G at First Congregational Church:
Can’t see the video below? You’re probably reading through email or a feed reader. Go to the web site to see the video!
Tomorrow I will be flying to Cordova, Alaska for to teach at the annual Cordova 4-H Music Camp. This will be my second year. I’m excited! Last year was a blast, and this year I have a better idea of what to expect, and plus it’ll be interesting to see how their new book works out (more on that in a minute). The camp is a week long, but I’ll be gone for ten days total. (In fact, it’ll be the longest stretch of time I’ve ever been away from my family.)
The camp itself consists of five days of classes. The kids, which range from eight year-olds to teenagers, each take three hour-long classes on (generally three different) bluegrass instruments, Monday through Friday. They also rehearse together in bands, each coached by an instructor, which perform around town Saturday afternoon and at a concert Saturday night. I’ll be teaching all banjo this year. Would rather be teaching various instruments, but they need more banjo teachers. (And I thought they were trying to be a good influence to the kids! )
… Continue reading ‘Off to Alaska! (The 2008 Cordova Music Camp)’
For as long as I can remember, there have been two super-tall palm trees near the cliff overlooking Cowell Beach in Santa Cruz. Well, a few months ago one of the ‘palm tops’ vanished. That right there is a 100% genuine, unedited picture. Yet, it looks kinda fake, eh? In fact, it would be so trivial to remove one of the palm tops in photoshop; I mean, dead-easy. It almost looks “photoshopped” when seen with the naked eye, it’s cut so cleanly. Reminds me of a certain comic:
Just took this picture from our roof. No danger for us down here near the coast, but seeing that cloud is a bit spooky. And this is literally only a fourth of the amount of smoke that was there three hours ago. Hoping our neighbor’s house in Bonny Doon isn’t taken by the fire.
It happened at around 10:30pm last night, just after hanging out a bit with a friend at Lulu Carpenter’s, a coffee shop downtown on Pacific Ave. I (Luke) was parked about a minute’s walk down a somewhat dark and deserted street, in the (likewise deserted) bank parking lot. I had some Smarties in my pocket from a jam-party I was at last Saturday, so as I approached my car in the deserted parking lot, I popped one in my mouth. Immediately, I got that nasty sensation of strong sour flavor mixed with a lack of saliva—I don’t know if other people have experienced this, but when this has happened before I’ll get a really terrible feeling in the back of my throat. Almost like some super-concentrated sour syrup getting caught back there.
Luke testing out the Abbotts’ newly-restored fiddle on the roof of their Santa Cruz home, with a couple traditional fiddle tunes, Angeline the Baker and Apple Blossom. And he *almost* manages to stay in sync with his foot…those darn triplets… [watch higher-quality version]
The thrilling conclusion to an epic five-part series. (See also parts one, two, three, and four.)
Part of the frustration with the stack of meeting notes from the past meeting was that I wasn’t clear how processing and recording them was helpful. Personally, I find it helpful to review projects and priorities regularly—helps keep me on track—but four weeks is too long a gap between reviews. So I started doing weekly reviews, which was very helpful to me. The problem is, if every project I was keeping track of was more-or-less “current” in my own system, what was I doing expending all this energy to keep it current in another system which I don’t use?
Moreover, what’s the point of having a regularly-scheduled meeting if we see each other all the time? Most of our most productive collaborations happen spontaneously anyway. Those are what I need to keep notes of—for myself. So why have a monthly meeting at all?
Papa was very helpful here. He helped me remember the true purpose behind the meeting:
Yeah, that’s right. There’s a reason I chose donuts for the masthead of this blog series.
So what was the solution to my dilemma? I fired myself from the job of Secretary. Kyle’s taking notes now. We’ve yet to see what his minutes will look like. Though I’m pretty sure they won’t have as much detail as mine—after all, I had to remind him several times that “You should be writing this down!”—I don’t care. I keep my own (very brief) notes now, and while the meetings are still kind of long, at least when it’s over, it’s over.
So we can enjoy our donuts.
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We’re the Abbotts
Brothers Kyle and Luke, and parents Leslie ("Mama") and Carl ("Papa"). This is our family blog.
This has been our main project for over seven years: helping folks to learn to play music.
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I had some 
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