From very humble self-taught musician - to Global Web STARDOM...it has been quite a journey!!! My 3 totally unique albums of mystical, magical, meditative lyre music, are dedicated to restoring once again, for literally the first time in HISTORY, (since the tragic destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Roman Legions under General Titus in 70 CE), the sound of the 3000 year old Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews! This Lyre of Biblical Antiquity, is known in ancient Hebrew as the 10-string "Kinnor": כנור For full details of all the research and amazing historical background, please visit the link on the left to my brand new, "Official Website".
My 5 albums available from cdbaby, literally started off as nothing more than my countless experiments on my "Klezfiddle1" Youtube Channel - with nothing more than a cheap & nasty PC mic and webcam (courtesy of my bargain basement "Argos" catalogue!) to record my videos with! All these myriads of mainly "Semitically Surreal Madness" seen on my "Klezfiddle1" Youtube Channel, were recorded in my grotty spare room, in the dank, dire, rising-damp-ridden little "Coronation Street-Style" terraced house where I have the misfortune of living - in darkest, dismal Salford, near perpetually "Rain-Ravaged" Manchester, UK!
THE STORY OF HOW MY ALBUMS WERE ACTUALLY RECORDED...
When I first experimented with my newly acquired replica Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews, in front of my "bargain basement" webcam/PC mic setup on my "Klezfiddle1" Youtube Channel (which first broadcast to the unsuspecting world from my grotty spare room, Salford, on 29/08/06!), I never once imagined that from these humble beginnings, 2 years later, I would have 2 CD albums recorded for global distribution!!! The very first seed of inspiration to actually find a proper recording studio, was thanks to the suggestion of one of my growing "Youtube Fanclub", at the start of 2008...
After much frantic Google searching, I finally found a studio I could get to on the Manchester "Metrolink" tram service...alas, the last time I took a driving lesson, 20 years ago, I mistook the accelerator for the brake - in the Emergency Stop!!!! OY VEY! As a musician, it is soooooo frustrating not being able to drive - although I have taught myself to play approximately 20 different musical instruments, this is neither use nor ornament...if one cannot physically get one's gigabytes of gear to a single, solitary gig!!!
Anyway, I finally found "The Cutting Rooms", a few minutes walk away from Crumpsall Metrolink Station, and in March 2008, my lyre and I went on our first "Tram Ride to STARDOM!!" It proved to be a long journey...the marriage of 3000 year old replica lyre, and 21st century digital recording technology, nearly ended up in divorce!!! I will always be grateful to the infinite patience of my maestro sound engineer, Tom Winstanley...in my 6 month long quest, to find just the right "ethereal, ancient sound" and delicately balanced EQ settings which I for so long, desperately sought!!
The main problem we encountered, was the softness in tone of my lyre...compared to the screeching Thrash-Metal rock bands who usually stalked the studio building!! I would be half way through an intricate improvisation on an ancient 3500 year old Egyptian scale....when some spiky-haired, leather-clad, unwashed, axe-thrashing YETTI would slam a door - and I would have to start all over again!
The most technically challenging piece on "King David's Lyre; Echoes of Ancient Israel", was track 10, "Odessa Bulgar" (which after "The Music of Moses", happens to be my own favourite track!). In my arrangement for solo lyre of this fantastic traditional Klezmer classic, I experimented with an ancient style of lyre playing still heard in Eritrea, East Africa, known as "block and strum" - this entails the initially mind-boggling technique, of blocking with fingers of the left hand, notes not required to be heard, and leaving open for strumming with the plectrum in the right hand, notes which are required to be heard - by this technique, it is possible to strum different chords on the lyre, just as on an acoustic guitar - despite the fact there is no fingerboard to actually form these chords! It is like tying to play the guitar backwards - instead of holding notes down with the left hand to form chords, in this technique, one is holding down notes not required to be heard to form chords! The final result of this mind-muddling mental contortion, sounds like some kind of totally cryogenically cool "Klezmer/Flamenco FUSION"!!
Recording "Lyre of the Levites" was thankfully, a much more straightforward affair - I paid a bit extra for the bigger, mercifully more sound-proof studio, and managed to record the entire album in one session! I then simply added the delicate EQ balance/subtle "ancient ethereal" digital effects" I so painstakingly sought for 6 months to find, during my recording of "King David's Lyre; Echoes of Ancient Israel". The result is that there is a very subtle difference in the overall sound of the 2 albums - please buy BOTH of my albums...and see if you can "spot the difference"!!
"AN ANCIENT LYRE"
Sadly, "The Cutting Rooms" was yet another victim of the current global recession, and closed its doors in May 2009. However, having finally learnt all the "ins and outs" of digital recording, in July 2009, I managed to record & digitally mix my NEW MP3 ALBUM, "An Ancient Lyre" myself - consequently this new album is, in my option, my most amazing "Musical Adventure in Time Travel" to date...
This album includes my arrangements for solo lyre, of some of the ACTUAL 2000 year old music of Ancient Greece, including the "Song of Seikilos" (c.200BCE - 100CE) & "The First Delphic Hymn to Apollo"(c.138BCE). I also evoke the sounds of ancient Egypt, through an improvisation on a 3500 year old ancient Egyptian scale, and through my arrangements for solo lyre, of traditional Egyptian folk songs. The "crowning jewel" of this album, is the 3400 year old "Hurrian Hymn no.6"(c.1400BCE), from Ancient Mesopotamia - the oldest fragment of written music so far discovered, in HISTORY!!!
I have initially released "An Ancient Lyre" as an MP3 album - but if ratings/reviews of the album from CD Baby customers who download either the whole the album, or any individual tracks from thje album are satisfactory, I plan to manufacture a small batch of limited edition, physcial CDs...
"THE KLEZMER FIDDLE"
This album is my attempt to recreate the wonderful sounds of the traditional Jewish Klezmer fiddle, which once wafted through the many Shtetls of Eastern Europe, prior to the ravages wrought on Eastern European Jewish musical culture by the Holocaust.
Most poignantly, this album features my arrangement for solo Klezmer fiddle, of "Khosid Dance" & "Dance from Maramaros" - two precious remnants of the centuries of exquisite Jewish music and culture which once blossomed in Hungary for centuries, prior to the virtual annihilation of Hungarian Jewish culture, during the mindless murder of the Holocaust. These tunes were thankfully preserved in the aural memory of a handful of Hungarian Gypsy musicians, who used to play this piece at Jewish weddings in Hungary before the War. Other surviving Klezmer & Yiddish classics on this album, include "Odessa Bulgar", Papirorosen" and a slection of my other favourite Klezmer fiddle melodies.
"THE NORTHERN EMERALD - TRADITIONAL IRISH MUSIC"
A collection of pricelss Celtic musical Gems, arranged for solo Mandolin, Celtic Clawhammer 5-string Banjo and Davidic Lyre...
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