The cats are tear-assing around the house like a Bithlo destruction derby. But that's okay, today, because I shot three Dulcimerica episodes yesterday and they weren't doing that. It doesn't take long for all four of them to wear out and flop on the bed, anyways.

Sliding into the new year, I kinda feel like flopping on the bed after a super-busy holiday season, too, but now's the time to dig deeper and keep forward momentum at maximum velocity. I'll get a slight break in seven weeks and, man and woman, am I ever-so-much looking forward to it.

The work I'm doing now seems almost selfish after writing two instructional books last month ("Discovering Native American Flute" and "Method For Bass Mountain Dulcimer"), producing four episodes of Dulcimerica, conducting four 2-hour online masterclasses, playing a handful of gigs and giving private lessons.

This is sitting down with a couple of new studio acquisitions and just screwing around with them to see what they're capable of.

The Korg KRONOS and the Boss SY-300 are two mind-boggling pieces of gear that I didn't expect to have at the beginning of this year. I wrote a two-part piece on Patreon about it and, I'd re-post it, but I worked so hard on all the photos and they were a pain in the ass. So, I give you:

Pushed To The Next Level (Darn!) Part One

Pushed To The Next Level (Darn!) Part Two

It's a lot of synthesizer geek stuff, so if you're into that sort of thing, it's a fun read. Suffice it to say that I haven't even begun to anticipate scratching the shiny surfaces of these two extraordinary machines. I took them for a test drive on my Twitch channel recently and you can see/hear the results, with multiple cameras, here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/213758904

Follow me on Twitch! You'll get notifications when I go live, and these are usually very informal bits where I just go about my business occasionally answering questions from whomever's in the chat room. It might be composing a new song or recording voice-overs, but there are always multiple cameras capturing the moment.

It's part of my "fifth gear plan".

If my life could be seen as the entrance ramp to a freeway, then I'm at the fifth gear stage, having gotten up to speed after making the turn from the state road. Drop the clutch, pump and shift, hammer down, Claim The Lane. You know what I mean? With authority, you are entering the freeway and you've got to stake your claim on a space between other cars, you've got to be moving at the same speed or faster. Slip right in, but you gotta claim it. You can't tootle along at a glacial pace and feebly straddle the shoulder and the number one lane. You'll get everybody killed. Or at the very least, dreadfully annoyed at you and who wants that?

Since I don't drop books often, I'm riding the wave of production in its wake, right on into the album projects. Things are beginning to cook with the MIDI dulcimer project, more on that soon.

Hope you're having a happy new year so far, staying warm and claiming your lane.

Like this guy. Seriously, O'Malley?

Claim Your Lane