I was in the bath this morning practicing. Luke came to the door and asked if everything was okay. “Yes”, all was well. I was practicing my yodeling. Yes it sounded like I was dying but I’m gonna get it someday! The affable, energetic and sweet Maura O’Brien has gotten me going by giving me a yodeling lesson.
Archive for the 'Music' Category
Deliciousness!
This morning, we decided to recreate some Cinnabons with one of the many copycat recipes online. In the end, while the icing was 100% bang on, the buns turned out 90% identical. I think if we remedied a few things, it would be absolutely perfect. What are those modifications?… Continue reading ‘Pour on the Fat!’
Last year, Luke took an improv course at cabrillo college to, you know, meet babes. Anyway, he enjoyed that and so did his fellow students. So much so, that during the summer, they held improv “training” at our house. It was a little odd hearing all the loud screams, elephant imitations, and thumps emanating from downstairs. The neighbors didn’t … Continue reading ‘The Scene of the Rubber Ducky’
Kyle and I played a gig at Phil’s Fish Market on the 31st with our friends Billy, Sarah, and Pete. Here are a few snippets from a few songs Mama recorded.
A couple weeks ago, I was in Grass Valley, CA at the California Bluegrass Association’s 32nd Annual Father’s Day Bluegrass Festival. Here’s the full report:
The Grass Valley stage area, where I spent about 1% of my time...
Wednesday
I got there in the afternoon, set up my tent and then walked around reconnecting with people I hadn’t seen since last year. You meet so many nice people from so many different places through this music — but I pretty much only see most of them at bluegrass festivals (meaning, a couple times a year). Needless to say,… Continue reading ‘Grass Valley Bluegrass Festival Adventures’
I’ve made an amazing discovery! So, I was mixing a new recording of Worried Man Blues for a CD. Sometimes I record extra instruments on after and “fill in the holes,” so to speak. In this case, the mandolin and guitar and all voices were done in one take, banjo and fiddle were added on separately after.
What’s the discovery? My audio equipment has the nasty habit of recording overdubs out of sync, usually ‘late’. The fiddle track on this particular recording was clearly late and off-sync, but it happened to be exactly the distance between the on and off beats in the measure (about 0.3 seconds, I think). You’d think it wouldn’t fit so well — the backup chops certainly didn’t — but listen to my break (first the normal version, then the out-of-sync):
[audio:2007/06/two-fiddle-breaks-on-worried-man-blues.mp3]
Cool, eh? I think it actually sounds better the “wrong” way! More old-timey. I especially like the part around the 4 chord. I gotta learn to play like that! 
Papa’s been wanting to incorporate dancing into the Abbott Family Band’s performance. The only problem is, none of us know how. Another problem is that we want a non-partner old-time dance and most of the old-time dances (contra dances, square dances, etc.) we’ve seen require partners.
Personally, I’ve never been on the dancing wagon. Bouncing around like an idiot just never really appealed to me—although I know it did in my younger days. However, if I don’t loosen up, then like the drop-out who’s forced to go to military school, eventually I’m gonna have to go to dancing class or improv class so today, I shook my feet out a bit as Papa and Mama were trying a few dance steps while Luke was fiddling. That’s a good start.
I think for most dances, like fiddle tunes, you have to be actually doing it to enjoy it. (And even then, I still don’t like it.) Watching a dance has never been particularly barrels of fun for the eyes. That said, the only dance I’ve really enjoyed watching is Bharatanatyam. Now if there was a way to do that without being a woman and spending a bakers dozen+ years doing it, that would be up my alley! (From there, it’d be a piece of cake incorporating it into bluegrass or mountain music.)
Anyhow, we took our first stab at clogging/square-dancing, as you can see above. Dancing With the Stars, here we come!
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