This is the latest set to be completed. The antler was from a friend’s ranch in Kerrville, TX.

Here are two tunes done with a friend from Asheville on the guitar and myself on the border chanter. There is no reverb, no effects, no editing. Just a cheap mike and the instruments. It would have helped if we had played in a better acoustic space but it didn’t turn out too bad.

lark-tidy

Teribus was in the studio this past weekend and we got a lot of good stuff put down for the second album. I can’t post any tracks yet but there’s a great video up on the website and I got my picture taken with one of my very professional recording artists when I wasn’t paying attention.

Now back to Asheville to make smallpipes for my very patient friends who are waiting on instruments!

After many attempts I got the metal to pour correctly onto the chanter in the two bands you see in the middle. It doesn’t affect how the chanter feels to play, surprisingly. I’m very happy to have completed this project. It took a long time but I learned a lot.

It’s amazing how packed the days are while on tour. Somehow with all the rehearsal, playing, traveling, and hanging out with friends, there’s never any time for blogging. I didn’t even have much time for taking pictures but at the very end of the tour I got this video of Clandestine playing for a Scottish Country Dance just two days before I went home. The San Antonio Highland Games are very well run at a beautiful site at a wonderful time of year to be in Texas.

The weekend before I was playing with Abby Green at Texas’ newest Renaissance Festival, Sherwood Forest Faire. It was amazing to see a fully fledged festival arise 45 mins from Austin as if it had been there for 20 years. The weather that weekend was cold but there’s a two story Italian restaurant in the back, by the pub where we got some hot food and there was a bonfire lit during the day surrounded by some standing stones near our stage (really!).

On the following Thursday I got to play an outdoor informal concert at Things Celtic who became Teribus’ first retail outlet.

The previous Wednesday was St Patrick’s Day of course so Clandestine and Teribus played the Mucky Duck in Houston. I think it was the most fun I’ve ever had on St Patrick’s Day and we got everyone dancing towards the end of the night. Both bands are having some great times these days and it’s such a pleasure to play music I’m proud of with such good friends.

Now I’m back in the workshop in Asheville, it’s finally spring, and it’s time to get to work on some instruments!

on the way home from the Midland Scottish/Irish festival, on the way to visit the McQueen Ranch near Kerrville I couldn’t resist stopping for a picture since goats were featured in a love song I heard last week.

this is what blogs are for.

There are a couple of videos up on the Teribus Youtube page that I just love. One is of our studio day a month ago and one is from the North Texas Irish Festival last weekend. It is so much fun playing in this band and we’re going to be at St Patrick’s Day at the Mucky Duck on Wednesday March 17th all day long.

Check out the new videos!

http://www.youtube.com/teribusmusic

The more time goes on, the more I figure out how to make these things better. This is the best one yet and it’s going to a good home in a beautiful part of Arkansas. The bellows is cherry.

I am extremely grateful to the person who is paying me to learn how to do new things. When I talk to this person about certain techniques, like “oh, you just pour the molten pewter onto the chanter and then turn the shape true”, it seems so easy, so straightforward. There are about a score of steps that lead me to even get to this point and I think I know what to do now but I’m out of time. I’ve got to go to Texas tomorrow, it’s 3:30 AM and I need to pack. This will have to wait until April.

Who wants to see a boring completed project anyway? .Let’s see some late night pipe-maker blood.

This is eventually going to be a beautiful chanter with a silvery band between the E and D tone holes, seemingly impossibly fit between the sole and bulb. Not my idea but trust me it’s going to be awesome. It’s going to drive me crazy to have to leave this on the shelf for a month.

There are little pieces of tin everywhere in the workshop. Imagine molten metal being poured onto a spinning lathe.

I’m not that stupid, I just want you to imagine it.  There are pieces of tin everywhere though.