Historical BluesBox recordings uploaded to web

[ttonon]

Greetings,

 

For those interested, I put up on the web some of my own very first recordings of the BluesBox, when I myself was evaluating two different prototypes, from a musical point of view. The recordings were made on cassette tape around 1997, and while coming across them recently, I realized that technology has evolved to a point where conversion of cassette recordings to digital is now very easily done.

 

I know this group focuses on concertinas, and the instruments played in the recordings were converted piano accordions, but the subject matter is still on topic for the simple reason that the BluesBox technology can theoretically be installed in concertinas. In any event, I hope some here find the sounds interesting. They are unlike any other made by free reed instruments, including the Asian free reeds, and including previous uploads by me.

 

I must add the disclaimer that I'm not a professional musician, so I ask the kinder and seriously interested listeners to please keep this in mind. I never meant these recordings to be regarded as a performance, but rather as a historical technical evaluation of a new musical invention.

 

The recording that uses a bassoon reed with internal mics was made in two sessions, and most of it contains musical explorations of themes around the minor key songs, "Anniversary Waltz," and "Two Guitars," as well as experiments with both slow and fast blues. I really can't explain why I chose the two minor key songs. I suppose they were the first thing to come to mind, and perhaps they also lend themselves easily to the kind of pitch bending experiments I was capable of.

 

I do want to emphasize that I had next to no previous experience with the invention. Thus, I ask the listener to have some patience with my learning curve that transpired as the tape rolled. I think you'd agree, the learning curve is very steep. Even though I do return to familiar themes, new bending experiments occur throughout both tapes, as I found new bending ideas to explore. Thus, I encourage the truly interested listener to bear through the slack periods in order to discover more new and different musical rewards further on.

 

The links are:

 

bassoon reed with internal mics. Minor key melodies, slow and fast blues:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/6q7qa9

 

 

midrange reed with SM58 acoustic mic. Acoustic blues, with vocal:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/rbazm5

 

Best regards,

Tom

www.bluesbox.biz