solarbird | also, music

Woo!

silussa is the latest sponsor for my CD project, which has been coming very slowly these last couple of weeks because mostly Norwescon. Yay! Thanks! My next step is to buy some more PVC and make another gobo, this one for the studio window, because now that it's suddenly summer, there are lots more barky dogs outside. To wit: foo.

I got the bouzouki! I have spent dollars. Some from some of you! Thanks! ^_^ His name is Kohaku (spelt 琥珀) and he's awesome. He's also a monster - almost a metre long, larger than some guitars, and with wider fret-spacing too. So that's a learning curve. (F is suddenly Difficult. So is Em.) Here's a little pocket-recorder recording of me screwing around with him yesterday just so you can get some idea what he sounds like (at least, when played one particular way); I think I'm going to experiment with different tunings just to provide contrast with Summer and maybe make some chords easier.

Also, my Craigslist vulturing finally paid off! I have a midi controller; it's a Roland A-30, an older but durable semi-weighted keyboard with aftertouch, which will be another learning curve, but that's okay. (I was surprised that the aftertouch worked with GarageBand, but that was convenient because it let me do a quick test with my laptop.) I really didn't think I'd manage to get anything with aftertouch for my $100-or-less budget, so I'm really pleased about that. Strangely, given its age, the thing is pristine - the seller wasn't the first owner but basically never played with it, and I don't think the person she bought it from ever played out with it, even though it's built for that. It's bigger than I wanted (srsly it takes up more space than I'd like) but I have software that works with it and so on.

So I've spent lots of money, no doubt more than I should've. And I'll be buying PVC tomorrow, but that's cheap. Now I go to work on lyrics. ^_^