The First Video Is Up (And It's About Tone....Oooohhhhhhh)

I could posted anything for my first video.  I could have played some ridiculously high mess, or I could have growled, flutter tongued and techniqued my way through the video, but that doesn't really hold my interest.  I can do all those things, but I feel like Quigley.  I didn't say I didn't know how to do that, I just said I didn't have much use for it.

So, I started with tone:  The video is here https://youtu.be/uK3P3EYSuqs and it's just me playing Amazing Grave at the bottom of the instrument with a lot of resonance, a little volume and many styles and speeds of vibrato.  I would never release that as an album, but it is something that I would use to teach.

You have to get all the sound out of your instrument that you can, and it's kind of hard to do that when you are not actually blowing air into the instrument or thinking about it.  I blab for like 15 minutes in the instructional video (which is coming soon), so go watch if you want a primer in thinking about your sound (and yes, I've thought about it a lot.)

Happy hunting!!!!

From A Distance...I Record My Music

The idea of recording in a garage or some other kind of rustic environment is very appealing, but I want to make sure I record in a way that actually makes sense.  I have a recording device on my phone and tablet.  I have the computer software I need to cut together whatever I want, but I have to record at the right distance.  It is hard to record so close to a microphone with an acoustic instrument, but I don't want to create something that sounds like I'm in a tunnel...

Do I record intimately and reduce all the volumes I use?  I could do that, and I think that it would sound great...I'm just wondering if that actually makes sense.