As a special treat for Halloween, Lane and Tristan perform “Classical Gas For Two Chairs” which involved exorcising the spirits that possess our counter stools. Lane is First Chair and Tristan is second chair. I added a percussion track and an “on-hold”, “elevator”, Muzak-like track for counterpoint. Happy Halloween!
Coyote (Canis latrans)
I recorded coyotes yipping and howling in the bosque and wrote a song to go with the canine chorale. It was dark when they went off on their bosque flashmob; however, whenever the coyotes start yipping and howling right at sundown we never see them as they are hidden in the brush and undergrowth in the bosque. The coyotes do flashmob howling quite often, and they sound close and often howl from all sides. I don’t have videos of coyotes; therefore, I used photos I’ve done of coyotes, plus videos of me and the guitars I played on the song.
About the guitars. I finished building the Black Tele last week. I built it with standard Tele pickups, so it has a nice twangy sound to it. The blonde jazz guitar is a Guild A-150B with a DeArmond Rhythm Chief 1000 floating pickup.
COYOTES
Lyrics and Music by Timothy Price
Coyotes
howling in the night
Canine chorus
Offers up a fright
Binomial chorale
Reverbs through the trees
Like a bosque flashmob
Surround sound and for free
Dusk falls
Latrans he rejoices
Yipping, screeching, howls
A cacophony of voices
Chile season is upon us. We put up a sack a green chile from Wagner’s Farm here in Corrales this afternoon, and while we were waiting for the them to steam after bringing the freshly roasted sack of green chiles home, I got inspired to finish the music video for my Capsaicin Cub song. The video is meant to be funny, so some aspects are a little different.
Below is a photo of the chile guitar and chile bass I used in the video. They are built by Dean, but I had a photo of chiles printed on a skin by Curtis Osborne at The Village Printshop here in Corrales earlier in the year, and we stuck the chiles skins on the guitar and bass. I got the guitar and bass on eBay at very good prices; therefore, I was expecting to use them mainly as props. As it turned out, the guitar and bass are very good instruments. I played the chile guitar on the recording of Capsaicin Cub used in the video, but Ron Blood played the bass line using his own electric bass guitar. However, I have played the chile bass on many of the recordings I have posted this year.
After pealing, cutting off the heads, and removing the seeds and veins from the green chiles, we normally put them in quart-size Ziploc bags, flatten the bags and freeze them. Since we have a lot of recipes that take three quart-size bags of green chiles, we decided to freeze some of the chiles in gallon Ziploc bags with the same amount of green chile as three quart-size bags in each gallon bag.
The Conservancy tore the beavers’ dams out of the clear water ditch again. As you might imagine, the beavers are upset. The Angry Beavers asked the AWB to post “Bite ‘Em On The Old Shin Bone” again to remind everyone about how unjust the Conservancy is destroying the beavers’ hard work. Let alone messing up the ecosystem the beavers create with their dams.
If you would like to read about the video and the lyrics, you can visit the original post at https://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2017/11/bite-em-on-the-old-shin-bone. If you are curious about the leg with the “Do Not Throw” tag on the toe, you can read about it at https://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/7/tales-from-my-youth-do-not-throw.
Oriented strand board (OSB) is made using heat-cured adhesives to press together irregular shaped wood strands, oriented in crisscrossed layers into sheets of engineered boards. While OSB is used heavily in building construction as an alternative to plywood, it works well for most woodworking projects that require sheets of wood. OSB is not as pretty as plywood (plywood is made from sheets of veneer glued and hot pressed together in cross laminated layers), however, OSB has the advantage of being very consistent with little or no gaps or voids in the finished sheets of engineered wood (plywood often has gaps, voids and soft spots).
Not many people would consider OSB a suitable material for a guitar; however, Jimmy Smith of the StratAcademy thought otherwise. Jimmy built a Stratocaster style electric guitar that is 100% OSB except for the hardware, e.g., tension rod in the neck (used to adjust the neck), frets, bridge, nut, string guides, machine heads, pickups, volume and tone controls, switch, jack, strap buttons, and strings. Jimmy’s OSB Strat is beautiful and it sounds great.
Jimmy said that he’s not the first luthier to build a guitar using OSB, but in videos he had seen of OSB guitars, the builders did not play them, so he had no idea of how they sounded or played. Since Jimmy didn’t want people having to ask “Well? What does it sound like? How does it play?”, he made a video of himself playing his OSB Strat; therefore, not only do you get to see my photos of it, you can watch the video to hear how it sounds and see how it plays.
Today’s video is original music I wrote using a prayer by fellow blogger Michelle Marie for the lyrics. On December 7, 2018, Michelle Marie posted Still… Small… Voice on Tell Me About It at https://tellmeaboutit.co/2018/12/07/still-small-voice/, and I had a feeling there was an issue with her daughter, Alex, who has serious health problems. I commented that her prayer was beautiful, but sad, and asked how Alex was. Michelle Marie responded that she had been very sick and in ICU the week before. Michelle Marie mentioned that Alex just wants to lead a normal life. I could certainly relate to that having had a lot of health issues myself over the years. I didn’t realize the gravity of the situation until Michelle Marie emailed me with details. Alex almost died.
After getting the full story, I was inspired to write a song using Michelle Marie’s prayer for the lyrics. I was trying to imagine what is was like for Alex to be in ICU clinging to life, and started working on creating an etherial lullaby. I finished recording the song on December 15, 2018, and sent it to Michelle Marie. When I learned that she plays piano, I transcribed a short version of the flamenco guitar into piano and sent her the sheet music. She sent me images to use in a video, but I had to think for a long time how to do a video to go with the music. I finally came up with what I believe is a suitable video. Here’s my version of Michelle Marie’s Still… Small… Voice.
http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2017/11/bite-em-on-the-old-shin-bone
Note: You might want to click on the link and watch and listen to the parody music video before liking this post.
Off Center & Not Even 