Monday 21 August 2006 by ramuji
Below is a picture I took with Emmett Chapman while visiting him and his wife, Yuta, at their home in Los Angeles a few years ago. It was a pleasure to finally meet and get to know the two of them a little better, even for the brief time during my two-day stay in LA. I received the grand tour of their beautiful home, which includes the electronics workshop for adjusting/repairing Stick pickups (garage), the wood workshop for sanding and finishing Stick bodies (garage), final setup workbench for stringing and making minor adjustments to finished Sticks (large room on the second floor), and packaging area for boxing, labeling, and sending out finished Sticks to anxious customers (front room on the first floor).
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Friday 18 August 2006 by ramuji
Below are the posters I’ve designed for my performances in September. I had a bit more trouble than usual this time, because the photos available to me just didn’t work well together. The background photo for the Jimo Cafe gig is a snapshot my wife took several years ago that I’ve always liked (and used before, actually). For the Rakuza gig, Izumi provided a very nice portrait of herself that I ended up using as the background, and then superimposed our individual photos on top of it, adding a bit of blur to her photo so that it more closely matches the natural blur in mine.
Addendum: I just remembered that the photo of me in the poster with Izumi was snapped by Stick player Bob Culbertson while he was visiting Hiroshima in November 2005.
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Thursday 17 August 2006 by ramuji
Last Friday I had my first rehearsal with a drummer friend. I suppose it went well for a first rehearsal; we spent the two hours with three of my songs, taking our time as he learned them and just generally getting a feel for how each other plays. Our plan is to rehearse together once a week, and I’m hoping we may be able to perform together for at least one of my gigs in September.
The link below is an excerpt from a song I call “Jive”. It was recorded at the very end of our rehearsal on Friday.
Jive with drums (11 August 2006 rehearsal)
I’ve been invited to perform and talk about the Chapman Stick at the Hiroshima Branch of Musicians’ Institute Japan on Saturday 16 September. The seminar is open to the students and faculty of MI Japan anyone who would like to attend.
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