journal

As 2005 began a collection of demos was in place. Bryan had a CD of my material and was working on drum parts for the first couple of pieces. In the meantime I had 2 other projects to work on. In January I recorded a couple songs Gino had asked me to play on for his solo CD. Gino has become very much interested in World Fusion over the last few years. As a guitarist my right hand technique sucks often leaves a lot to be desired, so in order to get my chops up for the nimble jazzy soloing much woodshedding was required before pressing the record button. In the end though I think the pieces came out pretty well.

The next project on my plate was a request from my mother. A couple of years ago my wife, who plays flute, and I surprised my parents with a CD of holiday music for Christmas. Well she wanted a follow up CD for her 60th birthday. This little EP titled "Simple Gifts" took most of the Spring to complete. Below are a couple of pieces off it. Most of the material isn't my usual fair but Mom really likes it. Had we had done Rush's "La Villa Strangiato" and Yes' "Heart of the Sunrise" arranged for flute and acoustic guitar it wouldn't have made anyone happy.
Canon in D (Johnann Pachelbel)
Rhymes or Reasons (John Denver)

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In addition to those musical projects I had two other hurdles to get over before the record could get into full swing. Bryan now had a new born in the house so recording drums at his place was not in the cards. My project studio is great for what I do but as a live acoustic space it really sucks leaves a lot to be desired. It seemed like the best bet was to set him up in the garage and run cables into the studio. But even the garage has horrible acoustics (flutter echo and comb filtering abound). This is where the internet saved the day. I found a forum hosted by Ethan Winer where you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about DIY acoustic treatment. So I set out to build gobo like panels to surround the drums with and then one to hang from the ceiling. This was a massive undertaking for me as my carpentry skills are even worse than my right hand technique.

It took awhile to collect the materials but I finally found some inexpensive 3" acoustic foam on ebay, drove to hardware stores all over the state in my quest for rockwool insulation, got a bunch of warped lumber from Home Depot, and a whole mess of cheap fabric. Then armed with a handsaw, cordless drill, utility knife, and a staple gun I spent the next few weekends trying not to injure myself while building the gobos.

And the last hurdle to get over was this matter of bass guitar I brought up in the last update... well that is a long story and yeah, it is still another entry.