Hey, so in case yu think I've only been obsessing about the recording (which I basically sort of have), here's what else is happening at Rancho Beth:

1. TRAVEL CAJONS RETURN. Thanks to enthusiastic response, I ran out of travel cajons at the end of my June New York tour. Between rehearsing for High Holy Days and preparing for recording the album, I haven't paid much attention to anything beyond making music. But today I'm starting on a fresh batch of travel cajons, which I will bring with me to the URJ Biennial in December. If you're going to Biennial and want a cajon, put in your order early and pick it up in Chicago to save on postage.

2. Other percussions! I've expanded my offerings with various shakers, mostly from things I've taught about in my Junk-To-Funk workshops.
Starting with this cool shaker, I'll be expanding my offerings a little bit. I hope to bring a few of these to Biennial as well. (Video will be shared later on Facebook.) I will also be offering my Junkyard Sistrum on a limited basis (ONLY at live shows).

3. Stickers! Based on requests, I'm going to run one more round of stickers to bring to live shows. If you buy something else you'll get a sticker for free. If not, they'll be a buck each. They'll look great on your briefcase, or more ideally, the top tube of your bicycle.

I do not plan on making up t-shirts, patches or anything else. I'm staying with what I know, and more importantly, with what I can do from as many repurposed materials as possible. I hope you'll understand and appreciate my choices and the reasons for them. I'm super-excited about what's coming up, next week and in the next couple of months. Thanks for coming along on the ride!

To all my fellow Members Of the Tribe: Happy Jewish New Year 5780!
May you have a year filled with sweetness, possibility, hope and peace.

Now that I'm home from Bremerton, I'm plunging full steam ahead into preparations for recording The Watchman's Chair next week. In between rehearsals, I'll be prepping the exclusive 'Zine for supporters who backed the project, building a small sukkah and putting the garden beds to bed for the winter.

Fall swooped in quickly and early here in Portland. We had our first frost this week and the leaves are turning an amazing range of golds, reds and oranges. The world turns and turns some more, and we move through the seasons with aplomb, picking up surprising speed as we get older. The scenery along I-5 took my breath away this morning as I returned form Bremerton, with bright flashes of red and gold peeking out from between the evergreens, and freshly-white Mt. Rainier and Mt. Hood peeking from above the hills to the east.

I feel incredibly blessed to make my life here in the Pacific Northwest.

I'm looking ahead to a recording, mixing and mastering my album, and after that a couple of trips to California before heading east to perform at the URJ Biennial in December. I'll make a few visits to local open mics in between to stay sharp and focused, and to meet up with musicians outside the Jewish scene.

I cannot wait to share my new songs with you all later this fall and winter! Stay tuned for more details as we get closer to releasing the album.

Happy fall and enjoy thecolors and the crisp air of these rare, golden days.

(cross-posted from my drumlove blog)

So I tried to set up and VERY lo-fi sort of testing situation with one of my songs from the upcoming album, using the few resources I have at hand -- my laptop with a rough vocal-guitar demo of the song, an iPhone to take video of me adding experimental drum beats, and a couple of old Xymox practice pads to get the snare sound I'm looking for, all so I can hear what it will sort of sound like.

It went something like this.

The challenges of living low-budget mean that I don't have lots of fancy recording equipment at my disposal. The challenge of having grown up playing concert and marching percussion before electronic amplification for those disciplines was in use means that I lack a lot of basic knowledge about electronics.
The result is that I have to cobble together potential studio scenarios using lo-fi, low-equipment approaches like the one above.
It's good for learning purposes, but perhaps not something I'd employ in the studio.
Still, it's good to try and expand my ears this way because it helps me clarify exactly how I want to play and sing a particular song when it's time to go into the studio -- where I'm paying an hourly rate and cannot afford to waste time. Experimentation happens before I record for real, just like it happens before I perform in public for real.

Signing off now until after the Jewish High Holy Days, which start tonight. Cheers!
(And if you're an MOT, Shanah Tovah!)

Just for fun, and because the amazing singer Hadar Orshalimy challenged me in response to a video she posted, I decided it was time to create an instructional video for something I came up with years ago.

During the semester I spent in grad school, I had a job as a Music Specialist at a nearby synagogue.
Every Sunday, I'd be sent to a different Hebrew classroom for forty minutes to teach a song to that week's class. Then, after a short break, I'd return to my classroom, where I'd have another group of kids for an hour. This second class contained the same kids each week -- kids the Rabbi and Cantor had decided could not be integrated into the "regular" Hebrew school classroom because of emotional and/or behavioral challenges.

The synagogue had primarily hired me to babysit this second group of kids whom the clergy didn't want to work with. My job was to keep them occupied, ideally with music, but I could do almost anything if it had Jewish content. (The synagogue set a pretty low bar for me, and frankly for the kids too, which was a shame.)

When it came time to talk about the High Holy Days, I wanted to teach the kids about the shofar. The synagogue had no shofarot, not even cheap plastic imitations, for me to work with. So, thinking on my feet, I came up with the idea of the Pocket Shofar. The kids loved it (phew!) and I have used it in every religious school setting I've worked in ever since.

So here's a little something you can have fun. It works with almost any age group (preschoolers have ridiculous fun with it, but so do parents). Try it and see for yourself!
Special thanks to Hadar for the nudge.

unseen While I am spending a pretty good chunk of time preparing for the High Holy Days, I also need to take time out to do other thing; the balance between my facets is still an important part of my month of Elul.
So most days I try to get in a bike ride, even if it's just to and from the grocery store. I also spend some time hanging out with a drum pad and sticks each morning, mostly as a meditative practice but also just to blow off some steam. Even durung times of intensive preparation and/or performance, I need to maintain some kind of balance or I'll teeter off some edge and actually lose focus.
So tonight, after an afternoon spent studying texts of the High Holy Days liturgy and practicing some Avinu Malkeinu, I enjoyed dinner with my Sweetie, and spent some time blowing off excess energy by chopping out randomly on a pad for half an hour. If I keep it short and stop before I get carried away, I find it can make it easier to calm down for bedtime.

Some food for thought as we navigate the back half of this preparatory month before Rosh Hashanah --
What rituals do you do to stay balanced? How do you maintain your sense of self and calm when things get crazy? There are lots of ways to do it without sitting cross-legged with your thumbs and forefingers making little O's.

Hope you enjoy some balance this week.

The Jewish month of Elul begins tomorrow night at sundown.
This is the month when we turn inward, to consider how the past year has gone and how we have responded to the challenges life has brought our way during this time.
It's also the month when we turn outward, reaching out to those whom we've wronged, whom we've hurt by our action -- or inaction -- to own our mistakes and to ask others for forgiveness as we begin the work of repairing the fractures from the hurt we've caused.

Elul is not for the faint-hearted. But it is for everyone. And so it's a time of year when, at the end of the whirlwind of summer fun, we pause. We fall silent, and we ponder what has been, what is, and what might be. This is why Elul is the only month in the Jewish year that has no fast days or feast days, no distractions from the task at hand, which is "At-One-Ment" -- atonement.

All of this is preparation for the High Holy Days, which begin one month from now. Ideally, we'll spend this month of Elul making amends with those people in our lives, so that on Rosh Hashanah, we can begin the ten-day process of getting right with God, or the Universe, or what I've come to call The Is-ness.
We can't do the latter until we do the former. That's just how it works. And it makes sense, if we remember that each of us is a reflection of B'tzelem Elohim -- the Divine Image.

So I'm going quiet here for a little while, and also on my Facebook-Music page, while I prepare for my own t'shuvah -- returning -- to the cleaning out and and sense of renewal of the soul that is required each year at this time.

During the month of Elul, Jews refer to Psalm 27, many reciting it daily during this month.
I leave you with a musical setting of a couple of lines from the Psalm, "Achat Sha'alti".

If you are observing the rituals and customs of this quiet month, may your contemplation and actions of atonement bring you closer to peace.
If you are not observing these customs, consider taking some time anyway -- to stop, look and listen.
Stop the hustle-bustle of your everyday life, for a moment, or ten, or an hour.
Look at what's around you -- the smiling faces of family and friends, the sadness of those in need, and the steps you might want to take as you react to this juxtaposition of realities.
Listen to the world around you -- birdsong, car traffic, children's laughter, the cheering crowd at a sporting event, or the breeze rustling through the trees outside your window. How do you react to these sounds? What feels like it's missing? What do you want to hear more of in the coming year?

May the coming month provide all of us with insight, wisdom and peace.

So I'm going to put this out there again.
It has been a dream of mine for awhile now to create a mini-tour in the Louisiana/Mississippi Gulf Coast area. While it would be great to find a synagogue or three to host me, it would also be really, really cool to play a string of 2-3 house concerts or small-venue shows in the area.

I have a standing invite in Bay St. Charles, MS to come and hang with a friend.  Above is a little video of what he does. (You can see him towards the end of the vid, playing quads and wearing a green trucker hat.) It's a youth music program for otherwise unoccupied kids in his town, and he gives them something cool, fun and constructive to do. I'm a happy supporter of his program and of all arts orgs that focus on teaching music to kids -- especially those kids who cannot afford music lessons on their own. Believe it or not, I was once one of those kids. My folks couldn't afford private lessons, so I had to learn everything by participating in my school band and choir..
I was lucky. My school -- and most schools, back then -- had band and choir programs. Many schools have had those programs cut in the last decade and now more than half of schoolchildren in this country do not have access to arts programming through public school. So this program and others like it are what's left.

I would love to see Brian and meet his students in person.
AND I'd love to combine this with a few gigs to help make it possible, and to meet some new friends along the way.

The beauty of music is that it has so much power to bring people together. And that is really why I keep touring my music, and composing and teaching music when and where I can. Music matters because it makes us better people, period.

So -- I have dates available January through March 2020 (there are some blacked out dates already, so check with me); OR I'd be happy to look at Fall 2020 too.
If you can introduce me to someone who owns a really big house or cool little pub, or who helps run a synagogue of any size, HIT ME UP at the address below:
www.beth-hamon-music.com/contact

And thanks for supporting Jewish Music Made By Hand!