Andy McKee demonstrates some great harmonics in a piece called Heather’s Song.
Andy is probably the most popular fingerstyle guitarist to emerge in recent years. There’s an interview of Andy on IntrumentalCase.com where he talks about his recent success:
“I had been teaching guitar for the last 10 years but recently stopped due to all of these gig opportunities. I was on the late night show Last Call with Carson Daly back in February. Someone there had seen the YouTube videos and emailed me… I performed in England, Germany, and Austria a couple months ago, and will be in Portugal in June, Canada this summer, Japan in September… I’m really living my dream, making a decent living playing music! It’s all I’ve wanted to do since the age of about 14.”
Blues harmonica done right! It’s fun to listen to. I love music with an aggressive attitude; played by a musician with an opinion of how it should sound. Bluesy music sounds better played by people with a ‘bad attitude’. What am I trying to say? What does that mean? It’s more than just bending a few notes, or adding more cowbell. At the heart of grooveology is improvisation; taking a risk.
I’ve been pondering the mysteries of musical creativity (innovation, improvisation) as it relates to creativity, and risk taking in other domains. This is a huge topic; it won’t fit in one article — but let’s get started and see where it leads.
“Musical improvisers often understand the idiom of one or more musical styles — e.g. blues, rock, folk, jazz — and work within the idiom to express ideas with creativity and originality. When done well, it often elicits gratifying emotional responses from the audience.” - from Improvisation, Wikipedia
What do you think of Andy McKee’s style? Would you say Andy has an unconventional style? People are fascinated by his musical style because his methodology is new, unique, and innovative. He takes risks. He innovates. He improvises. He abuses the classical guitar methodology so badly, that one can barely recognize it. Andy has an amazing attitude, and a unique opinion about how the guitar should be played.
Here’s a piece is called “Guitar Drifting” - perhaps a reference to car drifting.
This great music video of the amazing guitar player Andy McKee has racked up an incredible 13,101,129 views on YouTube (as of 18-Apr-2008). Nonetheless, there are still a few billion people who have not yet seen or heard this incredibly gifted guitarist. And yes, you really should see him perform on video, or on tour, to get a deeper understanding and appreciation for his wonderful guitar hammering style.
Until recently, Andy was just a great guitarist (from Topeka, Kansas) that most people would never hear about. But now Andy is another great example of a talented, and persistent musician, who successfully used the power of the Internet to bring his music directly to the people. Quoting from Andy’s website:
Andy McKee is one of the world’s finest acoustic soloists. After receiving over 20 million views collectively for his Youtube videos which were posted by the independent record label “Candyrat”, Andy’s success is a testament to the changing nature of the music industry as well as people’s desire for something new and interesting to listen to. At one point, Andy held the #1, #2 and #3 positions for Top-Rated Videos of all time on the hugely popular website. His videos are still among the highest rated on Youtube. Consequently, Andy has performed to sold out shows all over the world.
Andy’s teenage influences from Dust In The Wind; attending a guitar clinic by acoustic master Preston Reed (when Andy was 16), and sudden rise from obscure guitar teacher to international guitar phenomena is chronicled in a November 2007 Lawrence.com article.
The day it snowed, err or rained soap suds in Miami…
New commercial for Sony featuring city streets fully of soapy bubbles and foam — filmed in the streets of Miami, with 5 tons of foam. No - actually, it looks like a lot of foam, but it probably only weighs about 12 ounces … Looks like fun!
This video features Raga Shivranjani playing the Bansuri (Indian Bamboo Flute), and Sudarshan Sidhaye on the Indian bongo-like drums. You might want to play the video twice; first time watching the video, and second time with your eyes closed and meditating.
The video clip runs about 9:30 minutes and is an excellent example of Bansuri music. The sound from a bansuri comes from resonance in the air column inside it.
“The bansuri is a transverse alto flute of India, Pakistan, and Nepal, made of a single length of bamboo with six or seven open finger holes. An ancient musical instrument associated with cowherds and the pastoral tradition … the North Indian bansuri, typically about 14 inches long, was traditionally used as a soprano instrument primarily for accompaniment in lighter compositions including Indian movie soundtracks.” - Wikipedia
One of my daughters will be traveling to India this summer to do some volunteer work in rural villages. Perhaps she will hear music like this.
Back in 1981, when I first became interest in computers, I was talking to a salesman about an Apple 2 computer (way before the Lisa or the Mac had been invented). The salesman was demonstrating how the Apple II could play music… and I said: “Wow! You could study ethnomusicology with that thing!” He gave me a funny look and said, “Well I guess you could.” Anyway, I never bought that Apple 2 computer, but here is proof that you can study ethnomusicology on your computer.
The original sound track of Spider Boy dancing (the day we filmed) was garbled and had a lot of wind noise, so we remixed and released this video with a sound-track from Kevin McLeod.
