Women make up the soprano and alto sections of the chorus, while men sing tenor, baritone, and bass. Testosterone in the bloodstream can make for some low, low notes. So the assumption might very well be that the lower notes always belong to the men, that they are the musicians to play the tuba, sousaphone, […]
Music is impossible without silence. There is silence between every note. The best musicians learn how to play the silence as well as their instruments. There is empty space between every solid object. Even the atom itself — the building block of the so-called solid world — is 99.9999% empty space. Emptiness is an essential […]
Hello Troubadourians! Have you ever found an instrument that was “almost” perfect, but that one little thing that made it “almost” also made the purchase a non-starter? Yeah, me too. Usually I get around that “almost” scenario by buying custom-spec instruments. Obviously, that can get expensive and it is that expense that has prevented me […]
Whenever I think of San Diego, I think of fun. We have the beaches and sunshine. We have the mountains, Sea World, the Zoo, and have gone macro over microbrews. Our biggest shindig every year is Comic Con, when we have all kinds of fun with comics, movies, and cosplay. And ever since I moved […]
Does the thought of hearing and seeing great bluegrass bands at a festival right here in San Diego sound appealing? If so, the Summergrass Bluegrass Festival held at the Antique Gas and Steam Engine Museum in Vista is for you. Held over the weekend (Friday through Sunday) of August 14-16, Summergrass presents 12 top bands […]
I love cooking. Not fancy things, really. And not from recipes. It’s more the act of spontaneous creation that I dig. You know, you’re hungry. So you go to the refrigerator to see what you’ve got. In a short amount of time, an onion, a potato, two slightly ‘mature’ Roma tomatoes, a bowl of leftover […]
San Diego singer/songwriter (by way of County Durham) Dave Humphries has assembled a new collection of songs titled No One Like U. Written in collaboration with lyricist Stephen Kalinich, and produced by keyboardist Wolfgang Grasekamp, the trio have dubbed themselves the Hollywood Project. The ten resulting tracks are lyrical food for the soul, laced with […]
Starting in the early 1990s in the band Liquid Groove (later 34Below), Steven Ybarra started making his mark on local music. The band snagged three SDMA awards with him as the front man, and Ybarra began getting recognition in songwriting contests. After an EP, he released a full-length 2008 CD that included pop and Christian […]
