|
I try to promote a casual request-friendly environment when I play. It's great if people want to join in too. There tends to be a bit of a mellow, happy feel to most of what I do. I also have a paradoxical fascination with silly/funny songs and incredibly sad ones. Oldies. I definitely like oldies. If it's been around for a few hundred years, who am I to resist it? I enjoy most Pop, roots, country, blues, celtic, funk, maritime, reggae, jazz, rock, alternative, whatever. I definitely favour a rootsy, wide-ranging folk...Paul Simon, Neil Young, Jack Johnson, Jim Croce, John Prine, Tom Waits, Stan Rogers, Neil Finn, but after a few years playing in pubs I've learned a lot of other stuff too. I like to use alternate tunings (DADGAD, DADF#AD, open G, mainly) on my 6 or 12 strings.. I'm mainly a rythm player with a bit of fill, or a short solo here and there - nothing too fancy..
I love playing harmonica along with the guitar. It's unbelievable what a difference that tiny instrument makes. Most times I'm in first position, but I do some blues/funk stuff in cross-harp. I have some mp3 samples of my live playing below... |
|
|
Probably my favorite thing to do is arrange music. I've done a good part of the arranging or co-arranging in most of the bands I've been in, both for instrumentation and for vocals. I'm sure that one of the reasons I've tried to learn a number of instruments is that sometimes a song just needs a different voice then say, guitar for example. Below are links to some songs I arranged and recorded. They're just portions of demos to give you an idea of how I sound. One is a song I know as a CCR tune, and the other is a song I wrote. The last is my arrangenment of a traditional sea shanty. I call it my show-off song as I sing all four parts in it. Ah, the wonders of multi-track recording...Anyway, it's available on CD at the Semaphore website if you're interested. I've changed the link, so that these all link to the same download page.
Guitar, Mandolin, Harp (541K)- As Long As I can See the Light
Bass, Guitar, Percussion (753K)- Awake
A Capella Vocal Arrangement (275K) - Haul Away Joe |
|
