Being versatile is good

Today, I was hired to play on some 30+ musical vignettes. These are apparently to be used for Radio-Canada's 2010 Olympic promotional advertisements. Fortunately, the studio I was recording at had a nice drum set for me to play. However, seeing as I also play all kinds of hand percussion, I had also brought along the kitchen sink. Well, lots of other cool sounding toys and drums...

The versatility thing is very appropriate reference. I literally had to play the following styles: Funk, Blues, Jazz-Fusion, Jazz (ECM style), Ska, Punk, Hard Rock, Rhythm and Blues, Hip-Hop, Big-Band Jazz, Country Swing, World Beat, Ambient.

It was fun! and challenging. Being in the studio means having to operate on 'max' concentration, staying focused and paying attention to detail. This session also meant I had to really on my versatility game, as I needed to sound as different for each style as I possibly could. This meant frequent changing of snare drums, cymbals, sticks, brushes, whatever was needed.

Looking forward to hearing the end results (and seeing). The producer showed us a couple of the video vignettes and they're pretty amazing.

Today's art feature from Aarona comes from Aug. 08. It's titled 'Stage Fright':

Unfortunately is hard to see all of the detail. If you can't make out the caption, it reads: "Uh-oh, I think I need to use a litter box. Nothing wrong with her sense of humour...

In the future, I'll post some of her earlier art, which my sister refers to as 'future primitive'. Aarona was about 4 and a half, or 5 when she started. I don't think she knew or cared about 'future primitive', however she apparently is/was good at it. More to come...