Musical Interlude

Some of you may know that when Jenny and I moved to Wairarapa we found out that there wasn't a Folk Music club here. Since folk music is a real passion for Jenny and I love music of all sorts we started the Wairarapa Folk Club which has now been active for about 2 years.

In that time we have gotten a core of active playing members who come to most club meetings. From that core we have formed a gig band, tentatively called Vox Populi. During the summer months we play every Saturday morning at the Farmers Market in Masterton. Week by week our sound is improving and there are now quite a number of people who come to the market regularly to listen to us.

Some people like us so much that we have been asked if we have a CD out yet and we're also playing at a wedding on the 30th of January.

Last Saturday we learned that our bass player isn't able to make it to the wedding. So it has fallen to me to try and learn to play the bass in two weeks. My normal role in the band is that of "knob twiddler" which is controlling the sound desk so we sound good and occasionally playing harmonica.

I'm certainly no musical genius and while I can produce some sounds vaguely resembling music from most instruments I am not a master of any of them. In fact the only instrument I play reasonably well is the harmonica. And that is mostly because you pick the harmonica that is in the right key for the song you're playing. The great thing about that is that it is really difficult to play a wrong note.

So ... I am practising like mad at the moment trying to get this bass guitar playing up to a standard that is acceptable enough to play at the wedding. Which also means that I'm playing the bass at the Farmers Market ... in public ... for the first time this coming Saturday ... GULP!!!


Back to the practising now!

What a long time between posts!

Gosh, we must have been busy! I just looked a few moments ago and noticed that it has been nearly two months since I last posted an entry. So this is going to be a BIG one.

In the intervening time we've had all sorts of fun! It started with the mountain dulcimer workshop I organised in Wellington.

Earlier this year I got in touch with Neal Hellman who is one of the world's foremost mountain dulcimer players (see, read and hear more about Neal on www.gourd.com). Neal wanted to come over to New Zealand in December/January and was looking for gigs so I took it upon myself to organise a workshop in Wellington for him.

With the most incredible help from Peter Denee in Wellington, who moved mountains for me, we got the workshop organised and had a fantastic Sunday afternoon with Neal.

There were several brand new players there and the spare dulcimers that Jenny and I had brought along were pressed into service. Neal was so supportive of the new players that all of them became 'converts' and are now either already the proud owner of a dulcimer or are looking to buy one.


In the weeks leading up to the workshop I spent most evenings in my workshop pulling out all the stops to try and finish building another dulcimer. I managed to do so on the Saturday evening (very late evening) before the workshop. I still have some finish polishing to do and the string spacing needs a little tweaking but one of the new players had a grand old time playing my brand new dulcimer at Neal's workshop.


After the workshop Neal, Peter and his wife Phillipa, Jenny and I went out for a meal at Leuven. This is a Belgian beer restaurant and everybody ordered massive plates full of mussels (apart from Jenny and I because we had vegetarian meals). It was a wonderful way to finish off a wonderful day. Many thanks are due to Neal and Peter for making the day such a success.

And suddenly it was Christmas already, followed very shortly afterward by New Year's Eve. We celebrated both New Year and a neighbour's 50th birthday at his place with mountains of food, loads of laughter, playing music, a bonfire and fireworks.

And here we are nearing the end of the first month of 2009, having made hay on two friends' properties and our own. With making hay always comes the saga of getting the hay baler set up right. This year that took several weeks and the application of over $1100 but at least the baler ran very well with only minor breakages. Now all we have to do is sell most of our hay to recover the repair costs.

We also had lovely times soaking in the river on the days when it was 35+ degrees and I was busy making hay at home. We took the dogs with us and just sat on the river bed and let the cool mountain water wash over us.


We're looking forward to a more productive year; the potato crop looks good, our other vegetables seem to be doing well, there is the possibility of another haying job (a big one that should pay quite well) and we're about to start cutting and selling firewood.

Oh, and somewhere in amongst all of that activity I installed a satellite dish and receiver so we can finally get half way decent TV reception. I used a decent size dish (75cm) to make sure we don;t get too much rain fade. I've also protected the dish as much as possible from the very strong winds we get here by mounting it on the side of the house rather than on the roof. It's only taken nearly three years of living here to get around to fixing that.


So that is a quick and rough catch up of the last couple of months. More, and more regular, posts soon.