Hello,
We hope that you and yours are well and healthy and able to keep breathing during these strange and uncertain times, as well as finding ways to enjoy (or simply stay present with) this time of self isolation, social distancing, and distance learning. If you are an essential worker, thank you so much for what you do and offer to this world. If you are staying at home these days to help keep your community safer, thank you too, as we know trying to work from home, being furloughed, being out of work, learning how to home-school your kids and trying to be good parents, teachers, and workers all at the same time can be pretty rough. Not to mention the feeling of uncertainty that we all feel at different times to different degrees. Our family is still trying to find the new normal and wondering what that new normal will continue to evolve into, and we have been spending a lot of time hanging out in 6 year old play time.
Our son just turned 6 and we got him his first mountain bike with 8 gears and handbrakes (and his favorite thing to brag about: a kick-stand). We have made a fun single track for bike riding (with a little bumpy dirt park section) on the property we live on. We are feeling super blessed to be living on a few acres. With all of our work being totally canceled or postponed for the foreseeable future, David has been recording a fair amount of instructional video lessons and tutorials about music and percussion to help his students (as well as the local music teachers and their students) with this new distance learning plan we are all having to adjust to right now.
David has recorded a series of videos on how to make and play found percussion instruments from common household items, like mason jars, tin cans, boxes, bicycles, books, shells, buckets, etc.. He also has recorded a series of tutorials on modern applications to auxiliary percussion instruments like shakers, triangles and tambourines. And he also recorded a beginning series of play-a-long videos addressing snare drum warn-up exercises, stick control, stickings, basic sounds, flams, buzz rolls, accents,etc… Feel free to share these educational videos (especially the found percussion series) to friends, families and teachers that you know who might enjoy them and/or could use some fun musical ideas to inspire them to play music at home with common household objects.
Here is the Found Percussion play list (6 new videos + a few oldies): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XqwVciXa-w&list=PL76RMiBD2RnRjKO01QhYWUPdsoemUmLhx&index=2&t=4s
Here is the Auxiliary Percussion play list (4 videos– shakers, tambourine, triangle, snapping on a frame drum): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY1t034V6dc&list=PL76RMiBD2RnQKWTwUx3IJDMqYgsi-jxfy
Here is the Snare Drum and Stick Control play list (4 videos): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-gju76FAgk&list=PL76RMiBD2RnTKr17lqJdOPc-PybZEBOWt
Also, here is a new video of the Embodying Rhythm Marimba Ensemble playing an original tune featuring steel pan, drum set, bass marimba and trumpet from their last live performance on the World Music in Paradise Concert Series a few months ago: https://youtu.be/ZIHakKjj0_s
David has been booking some exciting groups for the World Music in Paradise Concert Series for autumn 2020, but besides those, all of our events have been canceled for the foreseeable future.
Our good friend,co-teacher and musical ally, Dlyan Fixmer. released a new CD this past month, a self-titled album from the project, Traditionish, which features original and traditional Irish tunes and songs. David got to play drums on a handful of tracks on the album. Here is a link to the whole album on youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmTNge7JHRo&list=PLugtsqRqzMAoyrIzE9rJBUbABLa52Mz7p. Dylan is a member of our Embodying Rhythm Marimba Ensemble and you can find our whole first album ‘Music for Everyday Life” here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0IkxmwsBDc&list=PLoKtmrOcfzb5J1Ku4804rKgraVRvbInqV We are planning on recording our second album this June, but we will see when we can actually get into the rehearsal room and the studio in the coming months.
Feel free to check in with us know and let us know what you’ve been up to and how music and embodiment has been serving your journey.
love,
-David and Arlyn
“The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.” ~Rumi
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” ~Maya Angelou