Summer, Meet Fall

Leftover summer flowers are facing chilly nights these days as we're just beginning to see the glory of fall on Signal Mountain. Angie and I have been keeping ourselves quite busy with outdoor projects that were supposed to be completed over the summer.

We also gutted and reorganized my studio in preparation for my latest project which I'll tell you about in a moment. In the process of cleaning and rewiring (with the help of Alan Shikoh) we decided that the only way I was going to be able to keep the space organized was to get rid of anything unnecessary for recording and the creative work that takes place down there.

That process made it clear that I simply needed more space, so I added a room for recording drums which is also where I teach lessons now. It has been a couple of weeks since we completed this and so far so good, I'm still organized and I've done several small projects. This feels good.

My current major project is my first hammered dulcimer teaching book. It is based on the 40 Percussive Arts Society (PAS) drum rudiments. I've been teaching bits and pieces of this for years but this is the first time I've organized it into book and DVD form. It looks as if it is going to take 2 DVDs to handle all the demonstrations and I'm glad to have Philip Luckey and Jody Cox working on video portions. They are pros and great friends so I'm anxious to see the final product which is scheduled for release in early December.

There's lots more to write but the ZitherjaZ guys just showed up for a recording session (our CD won't be ready until early next year) and I have to run.

Make sure you stop by the forum and sign my guestbook. ¶ 10:45 AM