music

Illustration by Kate Koenig

Ready to try cutting guitar tracks as a freelancer on your DAW? You’re joining a rich tradition, and a trio of domestic shredders are here to help you sound your best.

Do-it-yourself recording is a great musical tradition. Machines for capturing sound were available for home use as early as the 1930s. Famously, in the late ’30s and early ’40s, ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, a lover of folklore and American music, followed in the footsteps of his father, John Lomax, and drove a 1935 Plymouth sedan across the United States with some tapes and a recording machine in the trunk. In August 1941, he captured musicians on their front porches and in living rooms across the American South, including one 28-year-old McKinley Morganfield—better known by his stage name, Muddy Waters. When Waters heard himself on tape, he was deeply moved. “He brought his stuff down and recorded me right in my house, and when he played back the first song I sounded just like anybody's records,” Waters told Rolling Stone back in 1978. “Man, you don't know how I felt that Saturday afternoon when I heard that voice and it was my own voice.” Lomax’s field recordings (trunk-recordings, perhaps?) are a significant jewel in the American Folklife Center’s treasury at the Library of Congress.

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Oh no—it finally happened! Now the big question: How long before my verve for guitar recovers from Covid?

This past Sunday I awoke to a very un-Sunday sensation. Hovering on the edge of consciousness, as yet still incapable of contemplating what Sunday mornings are for (lounging in bed till coffee’s made and lunch plans are set, of course!), I was suddenly struck by a godawful stench. As one does, I wrinkled up my nose, lifted my head to look around in disgust, and took a couple more sniffs to see if … I don’t know—maybe I’d dreamt it? Or woke up incontinent? Then I tasted the putrescence. Then … nothing.

Fuuuuuuuck.

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Some see a rusty oil drum—a byproduct of Trinidad's oil industry. Others see a musical opportunity.

The steel pan orchestra proves that bass is more than an instrument. It’s an experience.

I’m here in Trinidad and Tobago, and I’ve been exploring the bass role from the perspective of my parents, grandparents, and great grandparents, who were bought here as slaves from Africa. Looking back, there is no doubt whatsoever that my Trini roots helped shape the bass player I became, because T&T is a bass-centric place. Trinidadians might sing the bass line or melody, when it comes to recalling a favorite song. As a child, I, too, found myself constantly fascinated by whatever the drums and bass were doing.

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