Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Happy Halloween

No audio to post tonight, and I didn't do anything fun or exciting for Halloween either, but I did spend way to long carving this pumpkin out. A week ago I bought the Pumpkin Masters tiny knife carving kit, and I waited untill tonight to do anything with it. I did have a pretty bad case of carpultunel which just started feeling better recently.

Anyways, hope you all had a ghoulish good time this halloween.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

In a Gospel state of mind

Yogi Tea Cafe Summer '05
Snatam Kaur Khalsa and Friends

A few days ago I stumbled on this old recording that I never did anything with. This track really demonstrates the potential and magic that the Yogi Tea Cafe is capable of. It's really awesome to see a whole group of musicians and vocalists do something together totally impromptu and unrehearsed. This is a recording of Snatam at YTC in 2005 accompanied by Guru Ganesha Singh, a bunch of other singers, and some drummers that you can't hear to well because they weren't miked. I've been thinking about initiating some kind of Gospel project and this track is a great inspiration. It does a small jump at the beginning because I recorded this with my old laptop that had issues with Pro-Tools. It caused me to miss a few seconds of the song. I creatively tried to cover it up, but it still sounds weird.

If you have any other ideas or inspiration for a Gospel fusion concept, let me know.



Amazing Grace

Download

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Spirit Voyage Idol

Tej Kaur

If any of you check MrSikhnet.com reguarly, you'll know that he posted clips of Dileep Kaur from the Spirit Voyage contest at Summer Solstice. You may wonder why he didn't post more of the performances from the competetion, since so many of them were so uplifting. If you know anything about video though, you know how long it can take to proccess hours of DV tape, especially for the web, and Gurumustuk already puts so much time into this stuff, he can't do everyting. I agree with many of you though, that these recordings should be shared and available, so I took it upon myself to borrow the original tapes from Gurumustuk and do what need to be done to put them on the web. The quality of these recordings doesn't really do the singers justice, mostly because the audio's a little distorted. Their ability to express their devotion to the Shabd Guru through music still shines through though.

I'm going to post Tej Kaur's first, because she was one of my favorites and, in my opinion, one of the most humble as well as powerfull contestants. I beleive she deserved to win just as much as anyone there.


I Am

Download Audio


Guru Ram Das Guru


Download Audio

Monday, October 16, 2006

New Mexico Ballon Fiesta

Hello all. This post has nothing to do with audio, but I was talking to my friend Hari Singh today, and I've thought this before: I'm just as much of a visual person as I am a sound person. I just relate to have put more energy into my passion for audio. I can't deny my love of that which is aesthetically pleasing to the eye though.
A blog that has nothing cool to look at is boring

And so, here's a picture


Saturday morning a big group of us, having spent the night at a friend's in Albuquerque, got up at 4 AM to beat traffic and went to The Ballon Fiesta. I don't own a camera, so I stole this picture from my friend Gurumustuk; photographer and webmaster extrodanare. He has plenty pictures posted here MrSikhnet and here flickr I could tell you how awesome it was, but Gurumustuk and his pictures do a better job than I could.
Let me just say it was quite an experience.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

A Master Visits EspaƱola


Towards the end of August, we had the privilege to have master tabla player Murli (Hari Mander Jot's and all the tabla students at MPA's teacher) visit our community, teach, and play in Gurduara. He accompanied Chardikala Jatha members Hari Mander Jot and Sada Sat Simran, both singing.
I hope you enjoy.

Download
Sunia Haraare Sajan

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Music Nights

I've decided to start at the beginning (double meaning) and work my way to the present with my first few posts, and show some of the significant audio as well as compositional things I've done. This post is reflecting from March until the Summer Solstice of this year. You may wonder what happened in the year and half between "In The Beginning" and this. All that stuff can be found either on my Website or my Myspace Music account (links to the right). Those were more formal recording and multitracking projects, while I see the purpose of this blog as a chronicle of some of the more spontaneous things I've been able to participate in or even just witness and record.

And in that spirit, this post is dedicated to Music Night.
Earlier this year between February and May, a group of us here in Espanola would get together almost every Tuesday evening in the Gurduara and just Jam. It was open to anyone who wished to come, and we never came with anything prepared. We would just play things we knew and also come up with stuff on the spot. This sometimes didn't go anywhere, but often it would lead to some great evolutionary composition. The first track below is a Wahe Guru chant where the tune evolved from the Raag of the Shabd we had just played (a Raag is a set of melodic guidelines, and a Shabd is like a devotional poem put to music). The second track is the same chant and tune played months later for Sadhana at Summer Solstice. It's really awesome to be able to record this organic creative process. I hope you enjoy.

Download
Wahe Guru - Music Night


Download
Wahe Guru - Summer Solstice Sadhana

The first thing I ever recorded

I've been messing with recording audio for more than 2 years know, and this recording dates back almost exactly 2 years ago. I was taking the basic Audio Production class at SFCC at the time (Audio Production I) and a guitarist from the class Micheal Herman, my tabla playing Siri Chand and I all got together to just record ourselves jamming and see if it lead anywhere. Take a listen to the end result.

Download
In The Beginning


Download
And then there were two

Monday, October 09, 2006

First Post

Hello all. I'm new to blogging, so bear with me. I decided to do this as a way to give people a chance to listen to some of the uplifting and cool things that I get the opportunity to record. I don't expect to write a whole lot, except regarding the audio I post, but who knows.