I’m a huge fan of underappreciated traditional instruments, including Appalachian dulcimers, autoharps, bowed psalteries, and zithers. For several years, I’ve been doing banjo, autoharp and dulcimer clinics, demonstrations, and workshops at regional Folk festivals and similar events. Mostly folks who’ve never had their hands on one before, so having several…
If you’ve seen the Jesus Revolution movie, know that it’s pretty accurate in what it presented, if you allow for the fact that other things happened that would be hard to keep in perspective in a 2-hour movie. I became a Christian during that era (Nov., 1972), and the fact…
Okay, I haven’t been updating this like I should have been. My bad. MOST of my day-to-day music activity gets posted on my FB music page https://www.facebook.com/paulracemusic. To complicate things, GoDaddy recently caused me to break this site by giving me bad instructions when I needed to fix another site…
Folks who’ve checked this page out recently have realized that some of the add-ons are broken and a lot of stuff I post on my FB page doesn’t get over here like it should. Still playing music, writing songs, encouraging others. I DO need to have some more videos and…
On another forum, I saw lots of complaints from people who show up for an open mic or a gig only to have everyone talking through it all the time. You can’t always avoid that. And usually it has NOTHING to do with the quality of your songs or your…
This is just a note about picking up bass guitar again after a 20 or 30 year virtual absence. In my 20s and 30s, I often played in “pickup bands” and other casual ensembles where we would pass instruments around depending on who was singing lead on that song. So…
Just ordered a device that is supposed to let me run my new digital piano into my vintage tone generators without having to go through a computer. (I’ve ordered two devices that were SUPPOSED to do that, but were really only ways of plugging a MIDI instrument into a computer’s…
On a private saxophone page, I accidentally started an argument over whether two saxophones from the same factory had the same bore. (Bundy I and Bundy II, in case you wondered). All agreed, as I had always claimed (based on my personal experience with these horns) that the Bundy I…
A note about saxophones in case you ever thought about picking one up to learn on. Alto, Soprano, or Tenor? A quick run-down on which horns are easier to start off on or to transition to. Soprano (what Kenny G’s recordings usually feature) is high-pitched and hard to start out…
Last month a new “member” showed up at a singalong I’ve participated in for several years. She sang and played very loudly, but always a half a beat behind. When the people who were closer to her than to the songleader would slow down to match her, she would drop…