My New Instruments

Hi, Folks,

A couple of months ago I returned from France with a small inheritance. I used most of it to lighten my debt load, and squandered the rest on musical instruments and such. I bought a Roland MP 60 piano, an Edirol UA 4-FX Recording interface, (which I still can't get to work with my computer,) and these two folk instruments: an Ome Juniper openback banjo, and a Walnut Creek mountain dulcimer:



I took a little ride to Bar Harbor, Maine, to try out the Walnut Creek dulcimers at:



The folks there are very nice, and have a great array of folk instruments at reasonable prices.

I bought my Ome banjo online at:


John there is also very nice. Anybody who sells banjos and unicycles can't be all bad.

Here are a couple of tunes I laid down quickly to give everyone a chance to hear these wonderful instruments, (albeit clumsily played):

The Cruel War / How Can I Keep from Singing
Dulcimer
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Shady Grove / Pretty Polly
Banjo
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Road Rage Handbook: Turnsignals

Q. Why doesn't anybody use their turnsignals anymore?

A. Because using your turnsignals gives your opponent the advantage.

a day late and a dollar short

Richard, our ezFolk guru, some time ago started a patriotic song project on the ezFolk forums to coincide with the approach of the Fourth of July. My contribution is late, as usual.

I knew that I wanted to do something with Woody Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land.

I also knew this:

"The anthem of unity and beauty which so many children learned in school was actually written in response to the equally reverenced "God Bless America". ... Woody was infuriated with the lack of realism and the message of complacency in this song which infiltrated the nation's air waves. In response, he wrote "God Blessed America For Me" which later became "This Land Is Your Land"."

from AMERICAN STUDIES at the University of Virginia

So I endeavoured to create a sort of a medley:

It took me awhile to put it together and teach it to myself. I still can't play it all the way through without a noticeable mistake.

It's a day late; it's a dollar short; it's crude, but here it is:

This Land Is Your Land / God Bless America

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HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
______________________Thomas Jefferson