A Little Ukulele…

Hello folks!  I’ve been doing a little experimenting with (1) my new ukulele, (2)  the amazingness that is soundcloud.com and (3) my Fourtrack iPhone app.  The results are the two quazi-decent tracks below, each recorded with 1 take per track.

The first is a little 45-second test track, seeing how a harmonica jives with the two ukulele tracks.  I made it on a Thursday, so I call it “Thursday.”

The second is a much longer test track, this time seeing if I can actually record something while using an iPhone and those tiny little white earbuds.  Turns out it’s more difficult than it sounds (it’s sometimes hard to hear the base track, so I – as you’ll hear – will miss a coupe of notes here and there), but it’s still a pretty powerful tool.

In the spirit of my ever-pervasive creativity, I named the song “Monday”, because I…err…made it on a Monday.

Yay for music!  And for ukuleles!  And for iPhones!

…And for procrastinating and not doing Hebrew!

Music, Video, and More Music

Two things:

First: This past week I was fortunate enough to a make a little excursion to Newport, RI with some old college friends.  Our destination was the Newport Folk Festival, a chill-yet-bigtime festival held in and around an old colonial sear fort.  Acts included the Avett Brothers, the Swell Season (the guy from Once), O’Death, The Low Anthem, Yim Yams (the Dude from My Morning Jacket) and the David Wax Museum (wo were easily the best show I saw there, but who are WAY better live than on their album), just to name a few.

Simply speaking, it was flippin’ awesome.

Amidst the musical wonderment, however, I took the opportunity to play with the video capabilities of my new iPhone 4.  It was nothing fancy – I literally just held the dang thing up and pressed “record.”  Still, the results were pretty fantastic, as can be seen below.  Note: while raw video from the iPhone is SUPER high-quality HD video, my “basic” account with Vimeo only lets me upload videos at a certain resolution, and the exporting process from iMovie took some quality out of it as well.  Still, it’s a fun little proof-of-concept for things to come.

Here’s a higher-quality example of my clip of a tide pool.  This is still significantly lesser-quality than the original video, but it gives you an idea.

Second: In prep for the festival, I held a little jam session in Harvard Yard with a friend (Daniel Harper) from undergrad.  I recorded it as a vertical movie (which can be seen in its full glory here), but I just thought I’d share my jamination with you all. (and if you need a harmonica player in Boston – let me know!)

Techno Jeep

Now if only I could do this with my Honda…