Last weekend I caught a great act performing at the Forst Park Nature Center in Peoria – The Cantrells. A husband and wife duo, he on fiddle, mandolin, and vocals (and the sound engineer). Emily played guitar and did the heavy lifting re. vocals. Both of them are great musicians/songwriters. – My favorites of the evening: Fallin’ Asleep, Quilt, and Half Empty. – Musical style was primarily a mix of Bluegrass and folk.
Their tour schedule is on their website – I would cetainly recommend catching their show if they are in the neighborhood.
This picture is courtesy of Tine Kindermann (From FaceBook) – The picture is from the website “Bell Percussion” although, I am pretty sure I’ve seen the exact same set up in another photo someone had sent me.
This rig takes the place of clamping the saw handle with your legs or feet.
Online Crowd Funding is a concept whereby people can put up small stakes to help fund creative projects. Two of the platforms I’m aware of are:
KickStarter.com
RocketHub.com
and there are probably others. It’s a neat idea – you can review the various artistic endeavors soliciting funding and put forth a small amount. If success is important to you, you can parcel out your contributions over a greater population of recipients to maximize chances that one of your fundees will be a success!
The NEA and most Arts’ Councils have scaled back considerably – so if Arts Funding is important to you, you’ll have to step up! – and here is a convenient way to do so.
That being said, here is an Arts project I have helped:
….and in the interest of full disclosure – one of the members of this band is my cousin’s son.
Watch this video – pretty compelling to see how powerful music can be. This guy is catatonic – barely one step away from the grave. As soon as he is given music to listen to he comes alive. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to load up my IPOD with Musical Saw Music just to get ready for when I check in to a Retirement Center.
In the video, this guy tells us that Cab Calloway is his favorite musician. Cab Calloway was in the African American Big Band scene – playing at the Cotton Club.
Here is another Musical Saw composition entitled “Sonata for Musical Saw and Electronics”. This composition is by Marcus Rubio. For more information please visit Marcus’ web page. You may also click below to listen to it.
The Saw Festival is free and takes place at Roaring Camp in Felton, California. The first festival was in 1978, this year will be the 35th.
We have had participants in this festival from all over the United States, and from Canada, China, Japan, Czechoslovakia, England, France, New Zealand, and Australia.
There will be a gathering of sawplayers at 1pm on Saturday near Tom Scribner’s statue at the Pacific Mall, near 1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz.
On Saturday evening until 10pm there will be a jam in the Roaring Camp Parking lot (free overnight parking for self-contained RV’s)
ROARING CAMP is located between San Jose and Santa Cruz just off Hwy 17 at 1 Graham Hill Road in Felton.
The main stage will have continuous music from 10am until 5:30pm including the saw contest and other entertainment featuring individual sawplayers as well as bands which include musical saws, guitars, mandolins, fiddles, accordion, bass etc. You’ll hear a wide range of music: Old-timey, Bluegrass, Classical, Blues, Folk…
The MUSICAL SAW CONTEST (The “Saw Off”) will start at 11:30am.
To assure your space in the contest please mail the following form by July 1, 2011. Also, please register at the festival by 10am. The entry fee for the contest is $5 and there is a $20 annual fee to become a member($25 for families).
There is more information as well as signup forms at the Festival Website: www.sawplayers.org
