Saturday

02009-09-12 | Uncategorized | 4 comments

Friday afternoon I worked on new guitar arrangements for the Villa Montalvo show and for the upcoming solo concert tour in October. Wrote a new Rumba in the process. Current list of project ideas:

1. Trio album – with Jon Gagan and Michael Chavez. Flamenco guitar, bass guitar + drumkit. Few if any overdubs. And, no synth – like La Semana.
2. Solo album. Mostly Flamenco guitar, with some Zither sounds (((that is one hard instrument to play!)))
3. Movie: mixing performance, such as this one, timelapse video like this and this, and stuff from my slideshow – like this. I think a good balance might be 30-40 minute of live performance and another 30-40 minutes of other visuals. The question is whether to mix it up, meaning cutting from live performnce to a time-lapse and to slide-show and back, or whether to keep the live performances uncut? The former would be more poetic and film-like, but arguments can be made for keeping the performances pure.

Well, the question may be academic. As of last month we had to cut off our CD distributor – meaning we stopped shipping CDs to them – because they owe us too much money. As a result some of my CDs might be in short supply in some stores, but we can’t let the debt get too large. I hope this has a happy ending, because I like our distributor and would hate to have to look for a new one. So, really, I shouldn’t think of making a movie, when I don’t even have CD distribution for certain. But, it may be fun. Certainly a long-term project as I have to learn how to edit movies first… :-)

In the evening I spent a couple of hours in the studio, making changes to the Lava mixes (((previous Lava mixes can be found here, here and here))) I had done Thursday evening. I noticed that the Ultrasone headphones have some strange bumps in the low-end reproduction. One guitar in particular sounded fine on 3 pairs of loudspeakers as well as Sony and Stax headphones, but rather ugly on the Ultrasones.

Rode the Mariachi Bullitt to Whole Foods this morning. I ran out of Illy Beans at home and the coffeeshop I rode past was still closed, so I made some drip coffee when I got home after grocery shopping. Yes, I left home un-caffeinated! That was a first in many moons.

Oh, the Bullitt behaved very well with four grocery bags. Getting up my hill was good exercise! When I arrived home I realized I haven’t taken my car out of the garagen since picking up Bella at the vet on Tuesday evening. Nice.

The manual coffee grinder was handed down from my grandmother to my mother and then to me. Cleaning tip for grinders: fill up with white rice kernels and grind – that removes most of the oily coffee grime in the grinding mechanism. Should work just as well with electric grinders, I think.

By the way, if you want to view, or download, the 10,000+ photos I have on Flickr you should read this. Joining Flickr is free and easy. Just noticed that only about half of you have added me as a Flickr contact.

4 Comments

  1. Matt Callahan

    Ottmar says: “but arguments can be made for keeping the performances pure.”

    The great thing about being the performer is that you get to define purity.

    Reply
  2. Adam

    A new La Semana-like album is *always* in order ;)

    Reply
  3. Panj

    Get Well Soon, Bella!!! Happy Creating Ottmar!!!

    Reply
  4. Carol

    I love La Semana. I play the album twice and it makes the trip to Rapid City so enjoyable

    Reply

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