Following a nice lunch at a nearby French cafe that Chicaco and I really like, we spent the rest of Sunday taking it easy at home watching TV and listening to music. Chicaco found time to watch Zatoichi today; I’ll have to find time in my schedule to watch it this week before returning it to the video shop on Friday. We also spent a good part of the day watching the Olympics. We’ve been hooked on the judo competitions, and Japan has faired well with 3 golds and a silver.I’ve never quite been able to work out the left-hand bass motors that Emmett describes in Free Hands. I simply haven’t put enough time into practicing and getting it up to speed while soloing with my right hand. A few days ago, I was playing some quick 16th notes in the bass, and after a friend commented how he liked how it sounded I realized that it was something of a modified version of what Emmett was teaching in the book. So, I’ve been reading through those pages of Free Hands again, and also watched Hands Across the Board again today for some visual input. Now, I just need to spend some serious time on practicing it.

I found this picture of Greg Howard on the website of Sound House, one of my favorite music equipment suppliers in Japan. Apparently they send staff members to the US every year to attend and report on the NAMM events, and had the chance to speak with and photograph Greg at this year’s Summer Session in Nashville. Greg was demostrating the graphite model Stick XG at the booth exhibited by Moses, the company that provides the graphite bodies to Stick Enterprises.