Sidingsound

About that package

In case anyone is gagging for me to put them out of their misery regarding the mysterious package I kept dropping enigmatic hints about (well, I can dream ;-)), your wait is over...

You may have noticed in previous posts that I made a couple of mentions of saving for an electric mountain dulcimer. Basically, I ordered one late last month, from the Texan dulcimer builder Tom Yocky, who is well-known in the dulcimer 'community' for building very nice instruments which pay homage to tradition whilst not being bound by it.

To "cut to the chase": the dulcimer arrived last week, and I'm sorry to say had been damaged in transit. Obviously, I was pretty disappointed, but at time of writing I'm working out with Tom how to proceed, and am confident that one way or another, I'll have an intact electric dulcimer in time for Christmas (and quite possibly with some time to spare).

This may have a knock-on effect with regard to the 'concept album' I've been trying to complete by the end of the year. I'm not sure I'll be able to keep to the deadline anyway—the recording is probably about 85% done—but I was planning to use the electric dulcimer on two, maybe three tracks as the main accompaniment. I may have to leave these tracks until last in the recording plans, so that I can still feature the instrument on the album; still, that leaves a good few songs that need finishing off, and a couple which I haven't even started recording yet. Then, of course, I need to decide what on earth I'm going to do with the completed product...

I am giving some thought to another idea: using the Qik service to 'webcast' a solo gig from my home. If it goes ahead, I would 'showcase' some of the songs from the album project (the name of which I'm thinking of finally revealing during the show), as well as a couple of other songs of mine from further back in my writing 'career'. I'm considering doing this next month, so I'd better get practising!

(Just a reminder that for more regular updates from me, you can subscribe to my Twitter feed, which I generally post to a couple of times a day, most days.)

See you soon!

Labels: conceptalbum, dulcimer, recording

posted by Tim @ 16:25