Posted by jerry on May 1st, 2006 — Posted in Journal, Music
This would have to have been one my more successful swap-meet scavenges… About 2 weeks ago I spotted a mandolin for sale at the Woden swap meet – but I was ina rush and didn’t try it out. This time the mando was back, so I sauntered up – casual like – so as not to seem overly interested, after all this was a flat back mandolin and I had tried a few AU$250 mandos in a couple of music shops, so I knew what I should expect for the money.
I picked it up and had a quiet pick at it hmmm – then I asked the bloke for a plectrum and went through a few chords – this was not a $250 mando – though that’s what he was asking for it, no, it sounded much better than that. After parting with AU$220 and ensuring the nicely-made case and a new set of strings came with it, I walked away with a Greg Bennett MA3 McCoy mandolin worth AU$469 – I think this might be just what my daughter Eve might be looking for 🙂
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on September 18th, 2005 — Posted in Journal, Music, Technology
Well, if the blog has been a bit quiet lately, it’s not because life has been quiet! After five years with the graphite iMac the technology is starting to show its age – or rather sound its age. The disturbing whining sound coming from the hard drive made us think about the way we have continually pushed our home technology until it is well past its use-by date, by upgrading RAM and buying ever bigger hard drives. So the time had come.
We actually went shopping for a big hard drive so we could back up the formerly big one and still have room for growth. That was quickly solved when we found the price of 500GB drives were down to about half what the 250GB drive had cost us before. But we couldn’t easily work out whether itwas the external or the internal drive that was the problem. Hmmm time to look at other computers.
With our interests well into the graphics and music software, there was really no comparison to make – it had to be another mac, and then it came down to which model would be right for us.
The result was a bit of a dent in the plastic fantastic but we walked out with a couple of boxes – a 20-inch G5 iMac (big flat screen) with 1.5GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive and DVD burner built in. And an Epson stylys photoR210 printer – the latter because we can use it to print directly onto CD/RW – good for the Band’s demo CDs.
And it matches the electric fiddle! While the iLife GarageBand software looks good, I chose to upgrade to Mackie’s Tracktion2 for recording. The screen size is great for recording – everything is a good size. And the processor is quite a bit faster than the G3 iMac – and the whole lot a far cry from the machines we started on – the 512k mac and the mac plus. Those and the color Classic and the PowerMac all still work – each year we fire them all up. I reckon we need to start a tradition of Mac Day and fire up all the old macs on the anniversary of the launch of the Apple Macintosh back in 1984!
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on July 30th, 2005 — Posted in Music, Travel
One of the highlights of Copenhagen was the musical instruments museum. It is broadly arranged along a timeline from ancient instruments to the beginnings of electronic music. But the biggest drawcard was the variety of unusual and experimental violins. Some of these I have seen as images elsewhere, but I always thought they had been photoshopped and distorted. But having seen for myself, I can attest that each of these fiddles is as I saw them!
This is a ‘Violinarpa’ made around 1800 by Carl Claudius Samling
It seems that Samling was a particular violin maker in Cpoenhagen in the early 1800s who liked to experiment with different shapes, and a number of his instruments have ended up in this museum.
A ‘philomele’ violin made arond 1800 by Carl Caludius Samling
The National Museum of Copenhagen had a good collection of hardanger fiddles, including these four
Hardanger fiddles (hardingfele)
I was told in no uncertain terms that hardanger fiddles are Norwegian instruments so I would not find many in Denmark. The Danes are very much Danish rather than Scandinavian, and took great pride in the distinction.
Adjacent to the National Museum is the violin maker Emil Hjorth & Sons in Copenhagen – of some distinction – and found that he had a fine example of a hardanger on the wall – but it was not for sale! The violin maker was good natured and allowed me to photograph the instrument. This was the closest I would get to a live hardingfele – no glass to impede the view. This gave me an excellent opportunity to photograph the bridge in some detail – because the photos from which mine was copied were not sufficiently clear to allow the luthier to cut a fully traditional one.
Hardanger fiddle (hardingfele) photographed in Copenhagen violin makers shop Emil Hjorth & Sons
Hardanger fiddle bridge (hardingfele)
More soon on this fascinating place
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on June 27th, 2005 — Posted in Music
The Queens Birthday weekend saw about 15,000 people descend on the small coastal town of Portarlington in Victoria, Australia. The band Full Circle performed with Will-o’-the-Wisp fire circus which provided a spectacular series of three main line shows during the Festival. The band was fully integrated into the show – our wireless gear enabling great freedom of movement among the fire twirlers – including fire sweeping under the fiddler’s feet, and musicians being incorporated into human pyramids…
and some great interactions with the fire performers – how about this as a way to keep the coastal chill out of the air!
Members of Wisp also performed on stilts and delighted the festival crowds throughout the weekend.
The music sessions were great, and there were some excellent workshops, including the fiddle workshop by talented Irish fiddler John Carty – it was great to get some insights into his approach to playing. The best workshop I attended was that run by the Fiddle Chicks – hands-on seven/eight timings and playing chords and counter melodies – one of the best learning experiences I’ve had for a long time.
Three solid days of music and singing saw me return home with sore finger tips and a hoarse voice – and a …er…. burning desire to get back there again next year! Many thanks to Eve Everard and her talented fire circus troupe Will-O’-the-Wisp!
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on April 29th, 2005 — Posted in Music
Well we took the band (Full Circle) down to the muso’s night at The Pot Belly Tavern in Belconnen, Canberra and it went down a treat! Great crowd, wonderful atmosphere. We trialled a couple of new (for us) pieces like Old Joe Clark – an Appalacian fiddle tune and the crowd loved it and called for more. So a good night was had by all!
cheers
Jerry
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