The internet never ceases to amaze me. In my search for some information on making wind chimes, bamboo organs and aeolian harps, I happened upon what I can only call, a delightful delight! A clarinet made from a carrot by a certain Linsey Pollak. The inventor in me was immediately taken by this man’s creative genius and the musician in me rejoices at his talent and his spirit.

“Linsey has a reputation for making and playing instruments made from rubber gloves, carrots, watering cans, chairs, brooms, bins, and other found objects.” … “Linsey Pollak is one of Australia’s most brilliant and under-rated composer/musicians. He is wildly innovative in the use of instruments but never lets his experimentation get in the way of the musicality of a work.” … From Linsey Pollak’s Website

What follows are three amazing, unique and fun videos of Linsey doing what Linsey does. I am so glad that I found them. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did and that they bring a smile to your faces.

Linsey, if you ever happen upon our site, thank you for sharing your talent and making hearts smile.

A ‘Tasty’ Performance By Linsey Pollak On A Carrot Clarinet

Click here to view the embedded video.

Linsey Pollak Shows How To Make A Carrot Clarinet

Click here to view the embedded video.

A Rubber Glove Bagpipe Solo By Linsey Pollak

Click here to view the embedded video.

Visit Linsey Pollak’s You Tube Channel. You won’t be disappointed!

Photo Credit

Thumbnail is a capture from the video – Carrot Clarinet

A Clarinet Made From A Carrot?

A Clarinet Made From A Carrot? is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

It seems to me that there is an unfortunate coming together of events that seriously threaten our notion of art, culture and aesthetics. The Bush administration’s eight year pillaging of middle class assets, the proliferation of computer based artistic tools, the demotion of arts within schooling, the media’s shrinking of vocabulary and the corporations’ crocodile awareness that it is easier to sell to a consumer whose attention span is limited to a few seconds, has lead us to the brink of an unparalleled second-rateness.

If this was merely a temporary hiccup in taste, I’d be less worried, but I am afeared that we are looking at the extinction of not just the arts but artists themselves.

Whichever way I look and whomever I talk to within the arts I hear the same story. Our livelihood and income has gone, we no longer know how to make a living. The electronic environment changes so rapidly that creating work for platforms that are here today and gone tomorrow becomes pointless. Photography has become so diluted by the digital snapshot that beautiful well- composed photos are indistinguishable from the mountain of indiscriminate images produced by infinite clicking. Art, which was already suffering from the tyrannies of twentieth century doublespeak and gallery cynicism has split into two—the crafters and the blue chip traders, with gifted artists unable to find a market amongst the new order of polarized wealth and poverty. Musicians have been undercut by the internet and authors have seen the hard copy book lose its market hold as publishers stumble bum into the e-book universe not knowing how best to organize themselves.

Make no mistake, both art and artists are under a devastating assault. It is not a conspiracy or a temporary aberration. Historically we are looking at a vision that has been the precursor and signpost to the crumbling of all great empires.

Can we about-face, will the phoenix slowly arise of its own volition or is this an unstoppable headlong dash? I have no idea, I merely wish to play agent provocateur and point out that if we do not take this demise of culture seriously we will pass on to our children a world that is devoid of the capacity to exercise taste. All that is exquisite and wise will be replaced by a flat playing field of trivial distraction and bland repetition. The signs are scratched large, we can choose to acknowledge them or we can bury our heads in the sands and prey to the great god Mediocrity.

Photo Credits

Dice © Nick Bantock – All Rights Reserved

First posted at Nick Bantock’s Blog

Guest Author Bio

Nick Bantock
Nick was schooled in England and has a BA in Fine Art (painting). He has authored 25 books, 11 of which have appeared on the best seller lists, including 3 books on the New York Times top ten at one time. ‘Griffin and Sabine’ stayed on that list for over two years. His works have been translated into 13 languages and over 5 million have been sold worldwide. Once named by the classic SF magazine Weird Tales as one of the best 85 storytellers of the century. His paintings, drawings, sculptures, collages and prints have been exhibited in shows in UK, France and North America. In 2010 Nick’s major retrospective exhibition opened at the MOA in Denver. His works are in private collections throughout the world. Nick has a lifetime BAFTA (British Oscar) for CD Rom ‘Ceremony of Innocence’, created with Peter Gabriel’s Real World.

Produced artwork for over 300 book covers (including works by Roth and Updike), illustrated Viking Penguin’s new translation of Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’.

For 20 years he’s spoken and read to audiences throughout North America, Europe and Australia. He’s also given keynote and motivational speeches to corporations and teachers state conferences.

Follow Nick On Facebook

Blog / Website: www.nickbantock.com

The Blind Corner is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Although many people choose to spend their holidays in Cape Verde for the sandy beaches and crystal-clear seas, there’s another reason these islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean are well-loved by visitors from around the world.

Cesária Évora – better known as the “barefoot diva” because she liked to perform without wearing shoes – became famous for singing in the blues-style of Cape Verde, known as Morna. Achingly beautiful, these melodies are said to be influenced by the country’s history owing to Portuguese occupation from the middle 15th Century to 1975.

Placed in an orphanage at ten years old, Évora’s is a rags-to-riches story, particularly when she was persuaded to sing in a sailors’ tavern at the age of sixteen, and from there began singing on Portuguese cruise ships stopping at Mindelo, a port city on São Vicente. She spent her younger years on Cape Verde working and singing on local radio.

In 1985, when Évora (Cise to her friends) was 44, she was invited to accompany another Cape Verdean singer to perform in Portugal. While singing in Lisbon, her rich contralto vocals entranced musician José da Silva, who invited her to record her first album “La Diva Aux Pieds Nus” in Paris.

Renowned for pausing her concerts for a smoke and a draft of beer, Évora never wandered far from her island roots. In 1992 she sold 300,000 copies of her fourth album, Miss Perfumado, and went on to release a total of ten albums in all. In 2004, she won a Grammy Award for her album Voz D’Amor.

Described by Cape Verdean President Jorge Carlos Fonseca as “one of the major cultural reference of Cape Verde”, Évora died on her native island in December 2011, sparking two days of national mourning.

Photo Credits

Cesária Évora – Wikipedia Creative Commons 

Guest Author Bio

This post is brought to you by the writers at Holiday Hypermarket, one of the UK’s leading internet travel agencies, specializing in great value package holidays.

Barefoot Treasures Of Cape Verde is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

I may have been ten I am not sure. My brother was perhaps fifteen or sixteen. I often went along with him to his guitar lesson. We lived in the “burbs “so a trip into town was very exciting especially for me. But more importantly the trip into town was an experience, a life lesson.

Escorting my brother to his guitar lesson enabled me to see him at his best, and at his most vulnerable. It gave me an opportunity to witness the artist and the master, the teacher and student together. For my brother there was nothing else to life except the guitar.

Walking up the dark narrow stairway of an old Notre Dame de Grace apartment building I follow my brother in silence. The dark oak wood engulfs us. He is holding on tightly to his black guitar case. The creaks and squeaks of the wood as our feet fall make a kind of music of its own. We don’t talk. This is serious business.

Music consumed him, as very young child music was engrained like the dark stain of that old oak staircase; music was the color of my brother’s soul. I remember him telling me when I was very young while playing his own hand made guitar that our parents were going to buy him a real one. I recall the joy in his eyes and a broad smile made its way across his face almost making his freckles dance. That was when he told me his secret; he was going to be a musician.

He started taking lessons and became extremely disciplined at his art. Practicing hour after hour. His guitar placed upon his knee as though it were a child or a lover.

He played the notes and they flowed, the scales repeated over and over again. His hands delicately, consistently working their way up and down the neck of his guitar, like it were the neck of the most beautiful woman in the world.

He studied classical. His obsession was jazz. His idols were the likes of George Benson, Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis. These were men he admired. Men to be reckoned with.

We are at the top of the stairs now. The doors open and we enter the inner sanctum. The master’s domain. My brother is young. His face is hairless, a creamy, milky complexion outlined by thick long black hair pulled back behind his ears. We sit and wait. He looks anxious. It is a dark room we are waiting in. The windows have no curtains. The view is less than appealing; another building is all you can see. The room feels joyless, colorless. It is bare and empty except for a few chairs. In that moment I decide that music is a very serious business indeed.

Coming home one night from a gig my brother was hit by a motorcycle on Sherbrooke Street. He and his girlfriend were getting ready to cross the street when a guy on a bike came out of nowhere and knocked my brother to the ground. The accident resulted in the loss of the use of his right hand for some time. We all hoped and prayed that he would make a full recovery and have full use of his hand again. For him not to be able to play the guitar would have been a loss to great for him to deal with. Over time he made a complete recovery.

His teacher calls him into the room down the hall. Picking up his guitar he quietly walks down a dimly lit hallway to the music room. I am left to wait. As I get up to look out the window I get a glimpse of my brother and his teacher for a moment. My brother looks up from his guitar and our eyes meet. What do I see? I feel as though I am a voyeur. I feel as though I have just witnessed something sacred, the master and his pupil at work. I feel as though I do not have the right or the privilege to witness the secrets of the inner sanctum. It is a world all too difficult and complicated for me to understand. Yet this look on his face is familiar. I have seen it before; no doubt will see it again. Perhaps it is the look of an artist willing to sacrifice anything for perfection. It is the look of a young man giving up his self in the pursuit of a craft. The door is shut and I am left to my own thoughts down the hall. The music lesson is an hour. I wait and wonder what it would be like to have such talent, to follow one’s bliss.

Today my brother struggles to pay his rent and buy his groceries. Working clubs and studios is behind him. He wants to write, to compose and create. To produce music that has filled his heart and soul for decades. His gifts are abundant. His hair is grayish now; streaks of it like snow on his head. His face has lost its creamy complexion to stubble and a moustache. Music is still the color of his soul.

The guitar lesson is over and we descend the dark oak staircase. My brother is calmer. His guitar is a part of him now, like a companion it follows him everywhere. I rarely see him without it. They are inseparable. “How was the lesson?” I ask him. “Fine.” He replies.

Photo Credits

Guitar And Case – Public Domain

Guest Author Bio

Martha Farley
I am a daycare Technician at the Lester B Pearson School Board and when I am not working I write.

I have had several articles published in the Montreal Gazette as well as the West Island Gazette.

I also received the honor of being one of the writers published in a book that Mark Abley edited featuring many writers from the Pointe Claire area celebration the 100th anniversary of our city.

I have also had several poems published in anthologies.

Follow Martha: Facebook

The Guitar Lesson is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

The day we unloaded it from our horse trailer was the day I knew I loved it. It was a deep brown with many scratches and nicks; you could tell it had been well-loved. The keys had small dents in each of them, the edges slightly worn down in memory of the tiny hands that had learned to play upon them. It was an ordinary piano, the stand up against the wall kind that they always had at the small town churches by my town. When I would lightly press on the keys, it would make a rich sound that to my unrefined ears, sounded like a choir of angels held on high.

Aunt Laurie, (LoLo, as we all called her) unloaded the piano bench and set it with a thud by the front door of our little farmhouse. “So, in this bench, there are the instruction books, Christmas music, and the church music.” As soon as my burly uncle brought the bench in the house, my little brother, sister, and I tore open the bench and began pawing through the sheet music. Morgan and Samuel went for the bright, exciting looking books, but a worn, gray leaflet caught my eye. On the front, in a fancy script, it said “Auld Lang Syne”. We fought like tigers over playing it. We compromised by all playing the poor thing at the same time, producing a terrific and terrible thunder.

When the little ones finally went to go watch a movie, I sneaked back into the music room, (as the front room had come to be called) and tenderly laid my fingers upon the keys. I softly turned the pages of my sheet music, until I came to my chosen song. As I began playing the classic melody of New Years, an energy flew unto me that changed my outlook on life. I felt in control of what could happen, and everything seemed a little brighter.

That was about 4 years ago. To this day, whenever I feel like the world is trying to do me in, I run to the ebony and ivory. I’ve never been musically talented, but when I get behind that old piano and my fingers clumsily fly, I am unstoppable.

Photo Credit

The Piano Provided By Jackie Phillips

Feature Image – Microsoft Office Clip Art Collection

Also posted at La Fille Fada

Guest Author Bio

Jackie Phillips
Jackie Phillips is an aspiring writer who especially loves telling stories about life, love and anything that pops in her brain. She enjoys riding horses in the mountains in Southern Idaho and driving around an old Chevy truck with her large family. She also enjoys the political clash in her family that occurs on a weekly basis and French. For more about her and her random life, visit her Blog at Tumblr.

Blog / Website: La Fille Fada

The Piano is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Influenced by the music of others, my journey as a musician has taken many interesting turns. As a young child, my earliest influences were French musicians like Sacha Distel, Georges Brassens and the amazing Django Reinhardt. I was also exposed to Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin.

When I started playing the guitar, I was learning to strum songs by The Beatles, Gordon Lightfoot, Three Dog Night, Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel and Tom Rush.

Then came the 70s and everything changed. During those years, I was exposed to and developed a love for progressive rock and eventually fusion. I started listening to bands like Gentle Giant, The Strawbs, Supertramp, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jeff Beck, Steely Dan, Frank Zappa and Yes. There was also Elton John, Cat Stevens, Spooky Tooth, Manfred Man, King Crimson … I could go on and on.

Recently, I was thinking about which of these had the greatest impact on my guitar playing, song writing and vocal style. I thought I’d take a stab at a top 10 list. I decided this list should not just be the bands or individual musicians, but specific records that had the greatest impact on me. Let me assure you, it was no easy task. The 70s was an amazing time for music that featured a great many ground breaking albums showcasing new forms of musical expression. Growing up in Montreal was great in this regard. Progressive rock bands were constantly coming to town so I had the opportunity to see many excellent concerts.

So … with all of that said, in no particular order, here is my top ten list from the 70s. Many of you will recognize some of these albums. Life long friends of mine may be surprised at some albums I have omitted. Like I say, it was no easy task but it was very enlightening.

Yes – The Yes Album
Released February 1971 By Atlantic

The Yes Album was one of my first introductions to progressive rock. As a guitar player, Steve Howe’s amazing and unique playing had a huge impact on me. As a writer, the band inspired me and does to this day. For me, this still remains one of the best progressive rock albums ever produced. It was difficult to pick this particular one as their following 2 albums, ‘Fragile’ and ‘Close To The Edge’ are also perennial favorites of mine.

Yes epitomized to me the definition of a great band. Tight and flawless execution of some very challenging music. I spent countless hours playing along with this album learning every lick that Steve Howe played. Doing so helped me to develop good technique and a much better ear! Through the 70s, along with Genesis, Yes was my favorite band.

Steely Dan – Aja
Released September 1977 by ABC

Sonic perfection! Aja is a blend of superb engineering and masterful musicianship. Like most Steely Dan albums, every song is tastefully executed, tight rhythmically, lyrically interesting and very strong melodically. And WHO is that guitar player? This album introduced me to Larry Carlton who I will mention a little bit later.

So well produced was Aja that it was a goto album when I worked in the stereo industry and wanted to demonstrate high-end systems. Do you remember McIntosh amplifiers, Linn Sondek turntables, Dayton Wright speakers? Aja sounded incredible on those systems. All these years later, this album is as musically relevant as it was the first time I heard it.

King Crimson – In The Court Of The Crimson King
Released October 1969 By Atlantic

Considered one of the most influential albums in the history of progressive rock, this album, along with ‘The Yes Album’ and Emerson Lake & Palmer’s first album ‘Emerson Lake & Palmer’ was lent to me by a senior student (thank you Andrianna Santini) on the way home from school on the bus one day. It was the first of the three I listened to and I immediately liked it. Pete Townshend (The Who) was quoted as calling the album “an uncanny masterpiece”. Greg Lake who would later join Emerson Lake & Palmer was the singer and Robert Fripp the guitar player.

Robert Fripp had a huge influence on me in the 70s especially his work in ‘Larks Tongues in Aspic’ and ‘Starless and Bible Black’. However, this album remained my favorite King Crimson effort of that era. I can still sit and get lost in its haunting melodies and great lyrics.

Emerson Lake & Palmer – Trilogy
Released July 1972 By Island (UK) and Atlantic (US)

Has there ever been a better 3 piece progressive rock band? With all due respect to Rick Wakeman, is there a better prog rock keyboard player out there than Keith Emerson? And what about Carl Palmer’s drumming? This band was quite simply awesome. I saw them live and they were ‘note for note’ with the recordings. One of the most commercially successful progressive rock bands ever, ELP focused on combining classical pieces with rock music.

Trilogy was and still is an incredible work of art. Greg Lake’s lyrics and singing style had a significant impact on my writing and approach to vocals. 

Pink Floyd – Meddle
Released October 1971 By Harvest/EMI

From Wikipedia – With no material to work with and no clear idea of the album’s direction, the band devised a series of novel experiments which eventually inspired the album’s signature track, “Echoes”.

With a running time of 23:31 and taking up the whole second side of the album, Echoes features long instrumental passages, great sound effects, and creative improvisation. This song could literally take me on a journey every time I listened to it.

Meddle was my first introduction to David Gilmour. In my opinion, he is one of the most creative and complete guitar players and he continues to influence me to this day. Whereas Steve Howe inspired me to better my technique and dig into some theory, David Gilmour’s playing taught me the importance of the spaces between the notes.

Genesis – Selling England By The Pound
Released October 1973 By Charisma, Atlantic

As I write this piece on my top 10 influential albums, I find myself unable to briefly say just how much Genesis meant to me. Music as art! Amazing story telling. Sweeping melodies. Masterful execution. This album, and it’s predecessor ‘Foxtrot’ are perhaps the most influential albums on my musical journey through the 70s.

Every member of the band was an inspiration to me. Steve Hackett’s melodic approach turned solos into stories. Peter Gabriel’s superb vocals and story telling. Great drumming by Phil Collins. The fabulous keyboard work of Tony Banks and Michael Rutherford’s tasteful bass playing and acoustic guitar work. All of them weaving this album into a musical tapestry to delight the ears.

As far as performance goes, the best concert I have ever seen (hands down) was the ‘Lamb Lies Down On Broadway’, another great album which was released in 1974. 

Elton John – Elton John
Released April 1970 (UK By DJM) and July 1970 (US By Uni)

While Sir Elton John has certainly cranked out many hit albums, this one remains my favorite. Nominated for a Grammy Award in 1971, this album features great lyrics by Bernie Taupin and moving renditions of each song by Elton John. The album featured no less than 26 fine musicians each contributing their gifts to its great success.

If you have never heard this album, do so. ‘The King Must Die’ and ‘Sixty Years On’ are songs that spoke very deeply to me. This album not only impacted my musical journey, it also had an impact on my thinking processes at the time.

Gentle Giant – In A Glass House
Released September 1973 (UK only release) By Vertigo/WWA

Gentle Giant was by far the most interesting and fun band I listened to in the 70s. Amazing musicians experimenting where no one else would dare venture.

From Wikipedia – Gentle Giant’s music was considered complex even by progressive rock standards, drawing on a broad swathe of music including folk, soul, jazz, and classical music. Unlike many of their progressive rock contemporaries, their “classical” influences ranged beyond the Romantic and incorporated mediaeval, baroque, and modernist chamber music elements. The band also had a taste for broad themes for their lyrics, drawing inspiration not only from personal events but from philosophy and the works of both François Rabelais and R. D. Laing.

I am still grateful to my best friend at the time (Richard Edwardes) for getting me a copy of this record. Their label, Columbia Records rejected the album as uncommercial for the US market. The upside was that I got the imported copy which was a sonic masterpiece. In A Glass House and ‘Octopus’ before it, really opened my mind up to new musical possibilities and gave me a new appreciation for other styles of music that I had never really explored. ( Hi Kevin Feres … AKA Robert! )

Jeff Beck – Blow By Blow
Releases March 1975 By Epic

By now, you have probably noticed that I had not included any ‘rock’ or ‘blues’ bands. Well ok, I did mention Steely Dan. The truth is, until Blow By Blow, I really was not into those genres. Then along comes this album introduced to me by Mark Delahanty, a great friend I use to jam with for hours.

Jeff Beck is regarded as one of the most innovative guitar players of all time. He has received the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance … six times! Blow By Blow totally opened my mind up to rock, blues and fusion. A door that was once firmly closed, was suddenly wide open. While I did not bother trying to emulate his style (only Jeff Beck can play that way), I did learn a few of the songs because they were so much fun to jam with.

Blow By Blow is also the first totally instrumental album I ever owned. While I have not recorded them (yet), I have written 3 instrumental songs that were inspired by this album.

Larry Carlton – Larry Carlton
Released 1978 By Warner Brothers

And then, there’s Larry.

An American jazz, fusion and rock guitarist, Larry Carlton has produced many solo recordings and worked as a session player with many well-known bands, like Steely Dan for example. Over his career, he has won four Grammy Awards for his performances and compositions. While I have been influenced by many guitar players, this album raised the bar … a few notches! Not only is Larry Carlton a great player in every sense of the word, he is the definition of ‘tasty’.

Featuring some great musicians to back him up, Larry Carlton plays what I consider some of the best extended guitar solos ever recorded. I can listen to them over and over and hear new things all the time. His sense of timing, his technique and mostly, his command of dynamics make him one of my 2 favorite guitar players of all time. I’ll introduce you to the other one when I follow-up with my post 70s piece.

Larry Carlton had a huge influence on my instrumental CD, Old Dog New Tricks.

I’d love to hear from you if any of these albums spoke as much to you as they did to me. If not, which albums had the greatest impact on you?

Photo Credits

All Images From Wikipedia Or Scanned By Gil

My Top 10 Most Influential Albums Of The 70s is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Mike Vardy rediscovers music he almost forgot existed when he tunes into his favourite online streaming station.

I’ve fast become a fan of streaming music services, basically because they allow me to listen to songs that I don’t actually own — nor would ever buy to have on permanent file. The other joy of these streaming services is that I occasionally happen across songs that I almost forgot about. Rdio, my service of choice, gives me this joyous feeling regularly. So regularly, in fact, that I have listed below 10 songs I almost forgot about.

1. “Lonely Boy” by Andrew Gold

 This guy also wrote the “Golden Girls” theme song. But this hit came far before it, and was less entrenched in my brain than that other song he was more famous for…the Golden Girls theme song.

2. “Cult of Personality” by Living Color

 This one was accessible as a result of me having an Rdio account, but it wasn’t where my ears got a taste of it again. That honor goes to professional wrestling programming. This tune is the new theme song for CM Punk, and I’m sure glad it is. Because he’s so going to win back that championship now that he’s got it blaring as he makes his way down the ramp.

3. “Amnesia” by Chumbawumba

 Fitting that this one made the cut. It’s their other one hit wonder — TubThumpin’ being the one you want to forget.

4. “The Remedy” by Jason Mraz

 This song was played to death when it first came out, so much so that it got played out pretty quickly. I loved it when it came out, hated it when it got played out and remembered my initial love for it when I heard it last month for the first time in ages. I’ve since played it out again.

5. “You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast” by Spin Doctors

 After hits like “Jimmy Olsen’s Blues” and “Two Princes” it’s no wonder that this song off of their next album was “let go too fast” by my memory.

6. “Misogyny” by Rusty

 Sounds better than it reads. During my days working in campus radio at CFMU, I was able to subject my ears to some of the best alternative rock at the time. Rusty made some of the best then, and it’s still music to my ears now. Literally and figuratively.

7. “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield

 Much like Cult of Personality, the resurgence of this one is not Rdio’s doing. A blasted shampoo commercial was what brought this one back to life.

8. “Down” by 311

 One of the first (and less memorable) bands to try to combine rap, ska and rock into a melting pot of musical magic, 311 scored big with this song on the college charts back in the day. Whenever that was. What followed was a career trajectory that could only be described as going in one direction: down.

9. “Alone Again (Naturally)” by Gilbert O’Sullivan

Much like Klaatu sounded like The Beatles, this guy sounded very McCartney-esque. This song makes regular soundtrack appearances, and it wasn’t Rdio that reminded me of it as a result. It was, oddly enough, while watching the film MegaMind. Go figure.

10. “Your Favourite Thing” by Sugar

 Bob Mould is a musical genius. I can’t believe I almost forgot about this song, as I’d remembered everything from Copper Blue and nearly everything by Husker Du.

Maybe I should just chalk it up as the rediscovering of almost forgotten music being one of my favourite things.

Photo Credits

Flickr Creative Commons.   Some rights reserved by Ferrari + caballos + fuerza = cerebro Humano

10 Songs I Almost Forgot About is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

The moment you roll into Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, you’ll feel a buzz. There’s a year-long Yarmouth 250 “celebration of community” and the party’s just begun.

Yarmouth is known for its historical treasures, architectural delights, and the legacy spawned by Canada’s earliest peoples, including the Mi’kmaq, Planters, Loyalists and Acadians. Toss in some stunning scenery and it’s hard to resist the lure of this region.

Already the list of community programs and special events is well over 150, and more are added every week. Parades, re-enactments, fireworks, ghost walks, amazing house tours, a shark scramble, tuna tournament — the list goes on and on.

Phil DeMille, a force behind a score of musical events over the years, has lined up 80 bands for the Coal Shed Music Festival. Mind-boggling, eh? The Minor Music Conference took place this in Yarmouth. It featured master classes, a tradeshow, song-writers workshops, concerts—and more. As well, Nova Scotia Music Week (Nov 3  to 6, 2011) is returning for the third year in a row. With over 700 delegates you can imagine the number of musical events revving up.

And where else will you find a community theatre with a playbill that offers everything from an Elvis Presley Tribute to the Maritime Concert Opera’s Madame Butterfly and the Rocky Horror Show?

Heritage teas, Acadian kitchen parties, a Geocashing long weekend and a giant rappie pie cook-off are all part of “coming home.” Oh yes, Lieutenant Governor Mayann Francis will be visiting in August for a garden party to top all garden parties.

But it’s more than events. It’s all about people you’ll meet, like Ernie and Brian Williams at Stanley Lobster Co. in John’s Cove where having a steamed lobster is an event unto itself. They love to give guests details about lobsters, including how to tell the difference between a male and a female. (By the way, if you don’t know what size to order, go with a 1.5 to 2 pounder; it’s the best value for money.)

Bruce Bishop is a big fan of having steamed lobsters at Stanleys. He’s also the destination marketing coordinator for Yarmouth 250 and he’s pumped. But it doesn’t have as much to do with his job as it does with the fact that he chose to come back “home” seven years ago and waxes poetic about Yarmouth every chance he gets. For Bruce, it’s all about diversity, cultures and lifestyle. “It also has to do with the natural things that bring people here: our lakes, rivers, and a coastline with fantastic beaches,” he says.

Bruce finds that compared to other places, winters are like being in a banana belt. “But summers are warm, with cool evenings and that enveloping, sometimes frequent fog that many actually appreciate. Just come and see us; you won’t find a warmer, more hospitable people anywhere in the Maritimes. I guarantee it!” says Bruce.

I second that. You see, Yarmouth is also my home turf. Biased you say? Come see for yourself, says I. So there you go. A personal invitation from Bruce Bishop and yours truly.

For more information, visit www.yarmouth250.com

Photo Credits

All photos © Sandra Phinney. All Rights Reserved.

Yarmouth 250 – One Giant Homecoming in Nova Scotia is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Darcy Rhyno gets to know guitar maker Russel Crosby who, with his beautifully-made instruments, excels at his craft — yet he struggles to get the word out from his house in the Nova Scotia woods.

Beaming, Russel Crosby unlocks the guitar case on the floor by his couch. “Let me show you this one.” He pulls out a small, eight-string tenor guitar he’s just built. The lines and finish are crisp. The curly maple wood grain on the sides glows with some inner light like an abstract hologram. Even before he touches the strings, I’m ready to be impressed.

And I am. Playing finger-style rather than strumming, Russel gets the sound box to resonate with rich, sweet tones. As he plays, I look around the sparsely furnished room. Four finished guitars hang from pegs on the wall behind him, their exotic finished woods gleaming in the light from the window. Beneath them, another three rest on guitar stands. Each has taken Russel 70 to 100 hours to build.

After about half a minute, Russel stops abruptly, and says, “I have no natural talent at all,” and sets the guitar aside. I ask him what he means. “The more guitar players I meet, the more I know I can’t play.” He shuffles through some pages of music strewn across his coffee table. “I can sit down and learn a piece of music, but if I leave it alone for a while, I have to learn it all over again.”

Guitar maker Russel Crosby playing tenor guitar

Russel never aspired to performing. For one thing, he’d die of stage freight if he ever played in public. Russel lives alone. “There wasn’t really a design,” he says of his 30-year-old house. “I just kind of built it.” Russel’s shop is a few steps from his front door. His is the last house down a winding driveway in near Lockeport on Nova Scotia’s South Shore. His brother Donnie – a fine finish carpenter and a keyboard player – lives in the house up the lane.

He built his first guitar for himself. “It made me happy at the time,” he says. “It sounded better than anything out of a store.” Then he built a second one to improve on the first. “It’s a constant battle,” he says. “I’ve built over a hundred now and I still haven’t built the perfect guitar. I never will, but I’m striving to make each one better than the last.”

A Crosby guitar being made.

Russel’s curiosity, intelligence and quiet drive to perfection have led him in some interesting directions. For 20 years, he was an award winning bird carver. For many years, he made his living as a carpenter, highly respected locally both for his construction skills and his finish work. He’s one of those people who would excel at anything that catches his interest.

Since 1996, guitars have captured Russel’s imagination. For the past three years, he’s worked at building them full time. “People have stopped calling me about carpentry,” he says. But he’s not had an easy time of it. He’s had to cash in RSPs and draw on his line of credit to make ends meet while building up his stock, his business and his reputation. He now has a web site, takes his own promotional photographs and does what he can from his house in the woods to get the word out.

He doesn’t sell through music stores because of the mark up. A lot of people just seek him out at home. It’s a lucky guitar player who does. As if he were a fine tailor, Russel fits the guitar to the needs of the player. “A lot of it’s just talking to your musicians. Not all of them know what they want. Sometimes I have to steer them.”

Rosette in Crosby guitar.

Russel’s are gorgeously handcrafted instruments. Several different woods go into each guitar. The top is almost always a softwood, usually spruce. “Different spruces have different sounds,” Russel explains. “Engelmann spruce is suited to finger style guitars because it’s more responsive. It takes less effort to get sound out of it.” It’s not suited to what Russel calls the heavy attack style of some strummers. “Sitka spruce is for guitars that are going to be more flat picked. You can play it hard and the sound doesn’t break up as much.”

The back and sides are made of hardwood. Russel uses a lot of curly maple and curly walnut, but many of the woods are exotic like African Bubinga and East Indian Rosewood. “You buy them as two book match halves,” Russel explains. He gets them from a supplier in California. He makes most of the necks from mahogany. The rosette around the sound hole at the centre of the guitar body is often Cocobolo wood and abalone shell. “It’s a nice contrast, the reddish brown with the dark stripes in it and the abalone.”

Every sound box resonates at a certain frequency depending on the size and shape. Generally, the bigger the box, the lower the frequency. Russel explains that the larger guitars called dreadnoughts with larger bodies and wide waists are favoured by the flat pickers like bluegrass musicians looking for that big, thumping bass sound.

Russel builds a lot of dreadnought-style guitars. As with many other guitar types, the dreadnought came from the famous Martin company. Because the dreadnought body was deeper and larger than most guitars made at the time of its creation – 1916 – it was named for a type of super battleship, the best known of which was the HMS Dreadnought. Russel gives the Dreadnought his own twist like the cutaway at the top of the body “to leave room for those who like to play up the neck.”

Russel’s fine craftsmanship, his attention to detail and his ability to suit the guitar to the player is gaining him a reputation. “People are recommending me,” he says. A representative from a retail musical instrument chain recently told Russel about a customer who complained about a brand name guitar he’d recently purchased on line. The rep suggested he return the guitar for a refund and go find a Crosby instead. This is the kind of slow, word-of-mouth promotion that will give Crosby Guitars the wide spread reputation it deserves.

Guitars in the Woods is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

You really have to watch this to believe it.

Hawaiian musician Jake Shimabukuro rips into a cover of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” on the ukulele. This stunning  performance from TED2010 — it’ll make you think again about this “underdog” of an instrument.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Visit the TED Talks for more about Jake Shimabukuro and his amazing performance.

Ukulele Player Rips into a Cover of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”. is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN