Archive for January, 2008
I’ve heard many stories about the surprisingly large and huge amount of failures that many ultimately successful people have faced in time (Abraham Lincoln comes to mind), and comparing these anecdotes to my own experience, it appears that I am on the right track. It has been difficult to make time for creative and scholarly work amidst my other more “squeaky” job requirements, but somehow (I still don’t know how, really), I managed to complete and submit an extraordinary (for me, at least) amount of creative and scholarly work in and around the month of December, 2007. The speedy onset of new projects hasn’t died down and given me a real chance to breathe yet, but I did take a moment to reflect on the results of that “mensis mirabilis” and see how it turned out. (more…)
The diatonic harmonica can be a gorgeous and expressive instrument. Its standard Richter tuning cleverly allowed players to get the right notes and decent harmonies just by knowing the basic contour of the melody and the difference between tonic and dominant (I and V) harmonies. However, its design allows for a lot more than that. (more…)