This week’s episode started with a short Merle Travis style improv, borrowing from one of his most famous tunes for a couple reasons, the main being that Muriel Anderson did a workshop for us recently and spent quite a bit of time talking about ‘real’ Travis Picking. Possibly more on that as we develop the film.
Next I took a little self indulgent time to run through Pat Metheny’s Last Train Home, which is finally coming close to finished. Maybe a lesson in the works if there is some interest.
In the last part of the update I went into some interpretation ideas on making things more musical by being flexible with the rhythm and separation of bass notes and melody notes that are written on the same beat. I used a bit of Romanza as an example, along with an old composition of mine, First Impression #1, the first of a set of 3 abstract pieces that I recorded for my album On The Horizon. That and all my other recordings are still available at the TG Audio Store if anybody is interested.
I finally got to spend some time on the short video with Muriel from last week, it always takes much longer to edit 2-camera stuff as I have to watch it! We had a great time, and quite different from last year. This year turned into more of a Fly On The Wall session where I was the student. Next week we turn the tables a bit.
Another new, or at least revived thing here at TG was getting back into the podcast world with my spot at KKUP radio. I know many people were not able to catch it live so we added it to our iTunes channel. This reminded me that I have a bunch more like it but since there is no video I dropped the idea of getting some very old appearances out in public, warts and all. That may change now.
I did play just a little today, mostly short snippets of things I played on the radio last Friday but did try to remember what Muriel showed me on Close To You.
KKUP is a listener supported community radio station based in Cupertino, California. David Stafford hosts a Friday afternoon show called the Friday Folk Off. David and Neil have been friends for over 40 years and Neil has made appearances on David’s show a few times over the years, although the last was in 2001.
They talked about old times and new times, and Neil played some tunes, including Blues Land, Sylvia, Josie, White Bird, Hula Blues, and Last Train Home. Some went well and a couple flew off the rails but a fun time was had by all (or at least both).
