I wrote earlier about how impressed I was with Keith Cary’s Commodium, a resonator mandolin made from a stainless steel bedpan and other recycled materials. I’ve put in an order to buy one. As one might expect, Keith has a backlog of requests for his instruments. At present, I’m fifth in line for the commode, as it were.

The instrument will likely use the neck profile from my old F-2, as that’s my favorite mandolin neck. The scale length will be slightly longer, closer to my A50. I look forward to playing it.

For more information on Keith and his instruments, visit his web site.

There’s an interesting documentary posted on the The Bluegrass Blog following the Infamous Stringdusters on their recent tour of Colorado. Check it out at www.thebluegrassblog.com/four-days-of-infamy-infamous-stringdusters.

Here’s a fun way to practice and learn some new tunes, courtesy of the BBC:

The Virtual Session

It’s a flash-based learning tool, with musical accompaniment from some top-notch players. Choose a set of jigs, reels, or hornpipes. The music will start, accompanied by a transcription of the tune. When the tune changes, the music changes. Nicely done.

The tunes include such old standbys as:

• The Teetotaler’s Reel
• The Salmanaca
• St. Anne’s Reel
• The Rakes of Mallow
• Soldier’s Joy

About ten years ago, my band the Kennett Brothers was asked to provide soundtrack music for a Norwegian fishing show. Always keen to break into the Scandanavian market, we holed up in the Champaign loft that Ed Burch shared with Jay Bennett, and spent a day recording a soundtrack.

Everyone contributed material to the sessions. This song, dubbed ‘Hank’s Fishin’ Song’, was what I used to use to warm up on steel guitar. We recorded several different versions of this tune over the course of the day. One was a slow waltz that featured Ryan Jerving’s excellent yodeling. Tangleweed adapted that waltz version on our last record as ‘Last Call Waltz’. This version was the first, done as a straightforward stomp, called ‘Hank’s Fishin’ Song’.

The personnel:

• Edward Burch: acoustic guitar
• Ryan Jerving: baritone ukulele and electric guitar
• David Wesley: bass
• Kenneth Rainey: pedal steel guitar and drums

Hank’s Fishin’ Song (MP3)

Edward Burch engineered the original recordings. The mix is mine, done “in the box” with CoolEdit Pro about five years ago.

Sound on Sound magazine has an excellent article on live sound, which includes some good illustrations of different monitor placements for different types of microphones.

This information is especially important for acoustic bands, as they are likely to have a large number of highly sensitive microphones onstage, and may have a mix of cardioid, hypercardioid, and supercardioid mics in their setup:

Monitors should always be placed as close as possible to facing the ‘dead zone’ of the mic, which in the case of a normal cardioid mic means the foldback speaker should be aimed directly at the back of it. Note, however, that hypercardioid mics have their least sensitive zones around 30 degrees away from their rear-facing axis, and so the foldback speakers should be positioned accordingly.

Read the full article at SoundOnSound.com.

Previous live sound articles:
Handy article on speaker placement
Know Your Mic, Part III
Know your mic, part II
Know your mic, part I
Plugging in

Onstage magazine has a short article that is very helpful in understanding the effect that speaker placement has on live sound. Monitor placement is particularly important for acoustic bands that have a large number of sensitive condenser microphones on stage. To achieve the best-sounding results and avoid ear-splitting feedback, you should understand the most effective monitor placement for the type of microphone you are using:

Purists will note that supercardioid mics like the venerable Shure Beta 58A have a very narrow front-pickup pattern, but they achieve this by sacrificing some of the rejection pattern directly behind the mic. Supercardioid mics are designed to work well with either a pair of floor wedges split 15 degrees off the center rear of the mic, or a single floor wedge slightly offset from the rear of the mic. If you point the back of a supercardioid mic directly at a monitor speaker, it will feed back more easily than if you offset it by 15 degrees or so.

To read the full article:
Location is Everything Courtesy of Onstage Magazine

Previous posts:
Know Your Mic, Part III
Know your mic, part II
Know your mic, part I
Plugging in

Here’s a very clever bit of instrument construction that reminds me of Paul’s SuitBass: the Commodium, a mandolin constructed from a recycled stainless steel bedpan. It’s the work of California-based luthier Keith Cary.

There are a lot of clever details here. The tailpiece, for example, is made from a recycled fork. The instrument top is made from a Reverware pot lid. The source materials, Cary writes on his website, make for a mandolin that is exceptionally loud and directional. I may have to get one.

To learn more about the commodium, visit his website:

http://www.keithcary.com/commodium

Previous SuitBass posts:
The SuitBass, part III: the SuitBass is good for the environment.
The SuitBass, part II
Paul’s new SuitBass

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This has always been one of my favorite old-time recordings. Bate was an actual physician, and played harmonica on this recording, and, I assume, provided the vocal as well. The group was the first to perform on what became WSM Radio’s Grand Ole Opry.

The group’s original moniker was ‘Dr. Humphrey Bate and his string quartet of old-time musicians’. Their rechristening as the ‘Possum Hunters’ was part of a much larger trend of rebranding this music as hillbilly music. This rebranding has been the subject of many unreadable academic monographs, and will get no further mention here.

The tune itself is quite simple, comprised of a fiddle tune and sung verses. The fiddle tune portion is a conventional AABB form in the key of ‘C’. The sung verses follow the same harmonic pattern as the ‘A’ and ‘B’ strains, but break up the AABB form. The key, ‘C’, is relatively uncommon in traditional fiddle tunes.

My Wife Died Saturday Night (MP3)

Courtesy of the excellent site Juneberry78s.com