Woodstock

Some time back David Lange started a thread on the message board about the anniversary of Woodstock, that seminal event wedged into the psyche of a large percentage of people my age and above. And in reading the messages I started remembering stuff that I hadn’t...

Words

Words are tricky little things. They can seem so unimportant and yet sometimes even tiny words can have huge meaning. “Fiddle” for instance is the biggest word I know and yet it only has 6 letters. The interesting thing about words is that songs are full of them....

Working with acoustic and electric instruments

I’m happy when readers send me questions about topics they are wrestling with, especially if the answers might interest other folks as well.  Long-time Bay Area musician Tomás Enguídanos wants to know about combining acoustic and electric instruments for a...

Working with acoustic and electric instruments

Working with acoustic and electric instrumentsI focused much of last month’s column on questions raised by Bay Area musician Tomás Enguídanos. Tomás said he’d had difficulty blending the sounds of acoustic instruments with electric instruments while producing...

Workshop Etiquette

I like to drop in on workshops when we’re at a festivals. Many well-organized events schedule a series of hour long workshops conducted by well-known and highly skilled musicians designed to teach and/or demonstrate a few skills to less skilled people eager to...