After a whole string of concerts, festivals, etc. last summer and fall, I’ve been pretty much focusing on getting my home studio set up so I can record more of my music better. What’s the use of calling yourself a songwriter, if only about ten of your songs are available…
The 2018 Dayton Porchfest is history now. If you haven’t heard of a “porchfest,” people in a neighborhood open their front porches or side yards to local musicians who play on a staggered schedule around the neighborhood. In Dayton, so far the porchfests have been in St. Anne’s Hill, a…
August tends to be a busy time for me. I have two and a half gigs left. On August 4, I’ll be playing a 2-hour slot at the New Carlisle (Ohio) Farmer’s Market. Yes, this is hardly a music tourism destination, but it’s good practice for me trying to capture…
I was recently explaining to a visitor why my really old autoharps have numbers instead of chord names on the chord bars, when they asked why the note numbers on these diatonic harps go 1,2,3,4,5,6,6,7? And why is the second 6 in a strange, dotted font? Well, Charles F. Zimmerman,…
I’ve been too busy to keep up postings here. Sorry about that. Summer is a good time for Folk singers and many other kinds of musicians to get in front of people. In my case, I spent most of the last thirty years playing 45-minute concerts in controlled environments, so…
One of the sites I started – SchoolOfTheRock.com – has articles about vintage saxophones, including C Melody saxophones, which some folks use to play in worship bands, because they are better suited for playing in the sharp-heavy guitar keys of most modern worship choruses. I have had many reader questions…
Several years ago, I wrote an article about Groundhog Day for a Christmas site, including some observations on the Bill Murray movie of that name. A friend who publishes a Christmas newsletter recently reminded me of it, and I re-read it to see if it needed any updates. But since…
As a Christian, I believe that celebrating Christmas is a valid way to express my faith. I’ve actually run into people who disagreed with that, even people who have attacked my family because of it. But that tends to encourage me to put up more lights, to write more articles…
I wrote this song with a children’s chorus in mind, at a time I was helping with a stage production of Dickens’ Christmas Carol, and my sister Tess Hoffman was writing a children’s opera based on the story. So the themes are largely the themes of Christmas Carol – Christmas…
I just received an Oscar Schmidt 6-string banjo I don’t really need in trade for another banjo I no longer needed,but which a friend really wanted. So I thought I’d review it for Amazon. While there, I noticed the following lone negative review: ——————————— Oscar Schmidt did a HORRIBLE job…
