Sidingsound

Landing

Well, we're all back in sunny (or more likely soggy) England, and with September about to arrive and the year two-thirds through... well, I'm trying not to think about it!

The Korea trip went very well, and now as we prepare to launch ourselves into the final third of the year, I thought I'd let you have a few updates here at last:

• Whilst I haven't been posting here very frequently, I've got myself hooked on Twitter, the "microblogging" service. If you haven't encountered Twitter yet, imagine a cross between blogging and instant messaging, where posts are limited to 140 characters so there's a similarity to texting. I just don't have the time to write big blog posts most days, and Twitter forces you to use those 140 characters wisely, so I like the discipline and the convenience of the service. Even better, I can post "tweets" to Twitter from my mobile, and do so fairly regularly (though obviously less so during work hours), so my Twitter page is probably the best way to keep up with what I'm up to.
• Before I left for Korea, I managed to do some more work on the largely-dormant concept album project, and believe I might actually be able to complete it by the end of 2008 (as I announced in January I intended to do). The track listing might be a song or two short of what I planned, and in true "Sgt Pepper" style the "concept" might end up looser too, but we may well have something to show for this particular New Year's resolution!
• My music tastes seem to have taken a decisive shift lately, arcing back towards the British folk music I liked during the 1990s. It was initially triggered by some of the tracks on the children's song CD I produced this year, but the shift accelerated once I found some clips on YouTube of Steeleye Span, and in particular this one of the 1970-71-era lineup performing "The Lark In The Morning".
  What brought me up short was seeing/hearing Tim Hart playing the main accompaniment of the song on what I soon realised was a solid electric mountain dulcimer. The instrument had a jangling tone like an electric 12-string guitar, but with a persistent "drone" effect caused by the open "accompaniment" strings—interestingly, Roger McGuinn sometimes plays guitar this way (melody on one string, open strings providing acompaniment). Anyway, to cut a long story short, I was smitten, and have started saving up for an electric dulcimer (as well as trying to find the actual instrument to go for, as they're quite hard to locate in the UK).
• Oh, and the Proporta USB Mobile Device Charger was worth its weight in gold on the Korea trip :-)

Anyway, best wishes for September!

Labels: dulcimer, instruments, koreatrip, music

posted by Tim @ 18:06