Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
Great stuff Keira! Personally I'd probably cut the high end on your singer and add a bit more highs to the guitar, but I know where you are coming from. I love the brush, but can't figure out how it doesn't get in the way of your fingerpicking - I'd expect to lose the use of at least one finger, probably two. You could add the pinkie, but that still loses you one finger...
What's your exact foot setup? You have a kick drum and pedal and kicking the tambourine too? Have you tried using ankle bells instead of a tambourine (I've seen Roger Lucey do that to great effect)? 'Scuse all the questions, but I've been considering working on some foot stuff myself (hats and kick, probably electronic).
mmm as for highs to the guitar .... me i like the warmer rolled off tops sound....... remember it's nylon and even though i love flamenco and perform it i keep my guitar warm and never go to that sharp sounding treble nylon soundscape.............. flamenco players love so much........
as for the foot setup...... i have devised a kick for myself where i've doctored a microphone to give me the thump..... and the other foot plays on a straight tamborine( heheheh not a gay one....) they call em jingle sticks...rigged up in a unique way that i can keep my one foot on a footstool (i sit and play) and then have access to the tamborine....
as for the attatching to my leg ..i never got into the african stomping thing ...this way i just lightly tap my foot.and obviously it's mic'd up too.......
triggering electronic kick is cool too. but i try avoid the technology......... deliberately so........... my act is all about me being acoustic and mic'ing everything where possible........ so the only technology is the basic microphone.... rest is some ingenuity on my part .........
although when i recorded my solo cd ... i got the soundguy to assign a midi key to my analogue recorded kickdrum and replace it with a digital one......after the recording was done ...he used some analogue to midi program ...takes all of 30 seconds to do................this i know they did for sure on my solo cd..........but on this jazz recording the sound guy said he might do that too.... but my self designed bass drum mic adaptation sounds convincing so i can't tell ...i'll have to ask him.........
and yeah i'm constantly evolving the setup....... and at moment got bass drum/ tamborine(which sounds more like hi hats the way i play it) the brush (which by the way allows me to use all my fingers i don't lose anything to holding the brush ...........it sits wedged inbetween my index and ring finger and i have 100% use of both of them.again it took a while to master but now it's second nature and i'm doing some cool percussive parts with it ...) i also have a cowbell rigged up for the latin grooves and a splash cymbal and chimes too.... then i also do the conga/bongo thing on the body of the guitar ...... with my righthand ..heheh and of course not forgetting the bass lines and chords and when i play solo ... i play all the lead lines/melodies and improv to the songs to replace the vocals........... so yeah whats that about 10 parts in all i can do simultaneously or at least drift between whenever i like......... took me almost 2 years to get this style together ......... well the percussion side of it ......... but now i'm playing songs like this with full multiple parts just as easily as most others strum chords......... it's no problem and takes no working out anymore........ although i must say the one area i want to improve is getting the bass drum doing more complex parts.......... my hands are cool and i can do anything percussively ... just the feet still need to be totally independant......
but yeah the things we do to avoid playing with backtrax hehehehehh
i often think if i was blessed with a singing voice it would be the cherry on the top.. and totally complete it ...but afraid thats one gift i do not have....... and i could not bear to work with sub standard vocals.........
