Shortly after I put up this excerpt from Victory of the Hawk, in which Kestar gets to see a sketch of his great-grandfather Riniel playing what is essentially a cittern, I decided “well hey, it’d be nifty to actually show the Internet one!”
My plan was to point you all at the joint site of Éric and Simon Beaudry, which they’d put up a few years back to promote their album Le sort des amoureux. There were some loverly pics there of the Beaudry boys, and in particular some featuring Éric with a cittern. That plan, however, failed miserably when I discovered that the site had gone down and the domain had gotten snurched by a registrar in Japan. (That the site is down is known to the Beaudrys, as I discovered in a conversation on Facebook that involved words like “the next album”, words that are highly relevant to my interests, but which digress from the immediate point of this post.)
BUT, my friend Ellen, who y’all will remember is participating in the work on the Bone Walker soundtrack, dropped a bomb on me. In that she does in fact own a cittern. And this past weekend, when she came over to do some recording work, she brought it with her! And told me we could babysit it for a while, since she hasn’t played it in ages! So check it out, this is what a cittern looks like!
And for those of you who are instrument geeks, the instrument’s a Sobell. Made by this gentleman, or so I am informed.
My immediate goal with this: try to figure out how the hell to tune it. Ellen said she had no recollection whatsoever of how it had been tuned before, so I had to turn to the Intarwebz for help. That led to learning that there is apparently quite the range of ways people tune their citterns, including GDADA, GDAEA, GDAEB, CGDAE, DGDAD, DADAD, and more. I thought GDAEB sounded promising, since that’d be adding an extra fifth on top of the GDAE tuning I already know.
Only problem there: B, apparently, was too much for the high course on this thing. It popped one of the strings when I tried to make it up to B. AUGH. And Ellen ruefully admitted that the current set of strings was probably older than her 13-year-old, so the instrument’s long overdue for a restringing regardless.
So Plan B: take it to Dusty Strings, ask for advice on how to tune it and what strings to use, and go from there. (Oh DARN oh DARN an excuse to go to Dusty Strings! Whatever was I to DO? I know you feel the burden this placed upon my soul, Internets.) This proved highly instructive. The guy I talked to at the store promptly took measurements of the strings currently on the instrument so he could identify their gauge, and then measured the length of the scale on it too. That led him to recommend that I tune it in DGDAD.
And I wound up buying individual D’Addario strings of his recommended gauges, which turned out to mean a mix of light and medium strings. So this’ll be an interesting experiment all around.
Once I get it restrung, then I get to figure out how to play it. Hunting for chord charts for a cittern turned out to be a Challenge, as the only chord charts I could find on preliminary Googling were for different tunings and therefore not immediately useful.
BUT! I discovered an app called Fretter, available for both Android and iOS, which I daresay will solve this problem nicely. This app’s a clever little beastie and will let you specify all sorts of different tunings for all sorts of different instruments, including custom tunings. The Android app (which I can now play with, thanks to my new Nook HD!) appears to be cleverer than the iOS version in that it can let you do truly custom instrument settings, as opposed to the iOS one, which just lets you specify custom tunings on the instruments it knows about.
So I’m going to play with this app and see if I can get it to generate enough basic DGDAD chords to cover the various Great Big Sea songs I know. If I can get it to give me G, C, D, Em, Am, and Bm, that should be a lovely start.
This is going to be fun. :D
(And oh yes, if the Beaudry boys do ever put out another album, buy the hell out of it. Especially if Éric breaks out his cittern.)
Victoria/Cumberland 2014 Trip, Day 4: Le Vent du Nord at the Cumberland Hotel, 3/11/2014
And now, O Internets, the second to last post of my Victoria and Cumberland vacation series–in which Dara, , , and I all had the supreme pleasure of getting to see Le Vent du Nord play at the Cumberland Hotel!
Previously in this particular adventure, Dara and I saw Le Vent in Victoria! And then we explored a bunch of rocks before Dara sang that night! And then we explored Cumberland and sang some more!
It’s truly fitting that we wound up the trip with one hell of a gig out of les gars. Because don’t get me wrong, you guys–I enjoyed the symphony show immensely, but even after only four shows’ worth of experience, I’m here to tell you that the best way to enjoy Le Vent du Nord is in a tiny, cozy venue. Preferably front row center. With a MAMMOTH.
Continue reading “Victoria/Cumberland 2014 Trip, Day 4: Le Vent du Nord at the Cumberland Hotel, 3/11/2014”
Victoria/Cumberland 2014 trip, Day 1: Le Vent du Nord at the Royal Theater, Victoria BC, 3/8/2014
And now, to start documenting my and Dara’s recent excellent trip up to Victoria, to see Le Vent du Nord! Saturday the 8th was when the adventure got underway–when we headed up to Victoria in the morning, for the symphony show to take place that night!
Continue reading “Victoria/Cumberland 2014 trip, Day 1: Le Vent du Nord at the Royal Theater, Victoria BC, 3/8/2014”
De Temps Antan at the Rogue in Vancouver BC, 3/2/2014
When you go to Canada for two consecutive weekends, Internets, you tend to get behind on posting stuff to your blog. Which means for you that I got delayed posting my writeup of the MOST excellent concert by De Temps Antan at the Rogue. But I’m home again, and posting again, so here you go!
Previously in our adventures with Festival du Bois 2014, yours truly got to chat with both Éric Beaudry AND André Brunet after the close of official festival events on Saturday night! And y’all may recall that SOMEBODY got a little creative with how he did his signature on the inside of my copy of Ce monde ici-bas!
So what happened? Full concert blow-by-blow behind the fold!
Continue reading “De Temps Antan at the Rogue in Vancouver BC, 3/2/2014”
Festival du Bois Trip, Day 2: Sunday!
Previously on Festival du Bois 2014: Geri, Dara, and I saw Bon Débarras, De Temps Antan, La Famille Léger, and Vishtèn! Poutine and maple syrup on a stick were nommed with great glee! And I discovered that there are fewer things more musically scary than being in the same session room with Yves Lambert!
And now, this post’s installment of Festival du Bois 2014: Sunday!
Continue reading “Festival du Bois Trip, Day 2: Sunday!”
Festival du Bois trip, Day 1: Saturday!
My belovedest Dara and I have done the trip up to Vancouver quite a few times at this point–but still, it’s a bit rough getting up at stupid-o’clock in the morning in time to get on an early bus, go all the way down to King Street Station, and get on a train to go all the way up to Vancouver. There was quite a bit of yawning involved.
But then, with Festival du Bois waiting on the other end, I was quite willing to spend my Saturday morning snoozing on a train!
As always, our friends Geri and Rob kindly put us up for the weekend at their place. This time around, we brought Rob a bottle of Scotch by way of a “thank you for letting us snooze here!” gift. (That, and I’m sure their dog was happy to have two extra pairs of hands to throw the ball down the stairs.) And, this time around, Geri elected to come to the festival shenanigans with us on Saturday!
My only regret? Realizing only after we were on our way north that I’d totally forgotten to bring Jean-Claude. AUGH. For the best, though, since the weather was wet and cold and let me tell you, Internets, there’s nothing quite as pungent as the smell of wet mammoth.
(Full deets and pics behind the fold!)
Continue reading “Festival du Bois trip, Day 1: Saturday!”
In other news: a present for ME!
YOU GUYS. Remember this blog post, in which I described how I had this picture in my head of all of my various fandoms over the years having a kitchen party in my head?
My friend Yngvar in Norway, crafty devil that he is, commissioned no less an august personage than Sonny Strait to sketch it for me, as a combination Christmas/birthday present! Sonny Strait, comma, who’s best known to me with his background in Elfquest! Behold!
And that’ll be Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer referenced in this sketch for my TV fandoms, as well as Great Big Sea and Elvis being the most obvious musical fandoms–but with the baby!me babbling in French being a callout to my Quebec trad fandom, not to mention my rampageous affection for learning French in general. :D I particularly like how baby!me looks a lot like the pic of baby!me I’ve posted before! Somebody was clearly given a reference source!
All hail Yngvar and Sonny Strait for making this happen! Thank you, gentlemen!
A LOT of visitors coming by to read about Sean McCann
I’ve had a massive uptick lately in people hitting my three previous posts about Sean McCann leaving GBS, here and here and here. And what I’m sensing here is quite a few people who might perhaps be looking for answers as to why exactly Sean bailed on the band–and what Great Big Sea’s fate will be now that he’s out.
On the latter question, there has still been no formal announcement through official GBS channels. I’ve seen nothing posted on the site’s news page, and nothing’s come across the newsletter either. The most official thing I’ve seen on the matter is Alan Doyle’s most recent post to his personal blog, From the Road, which you can see on the Great Big Sea site here or on Alan’s site here. Alan basically says that the band is on hiatus again, and goes into some detail about what he, Bob, Murray, and Kris are up to. He does also mention Sean’s leaving, that Sean is about to release a new CD (today, in fact, as of this writing, up on his bandcamp page), and that he wishes him well.
Sean himself in the meantime has started talking to the media. So if you haven’t seen it already, an interview he did on the matter is over here. He’s saying pretty much what I expected, which is to say, creative differences. And he, like much of the fanbase, is going a bit “buh?” at the silence on greatbigsea.com about his departure.
‘Cause yeah, you’d think they’d have issued some sort of formal announcement by now. o.O
But, be that as it may, I’ll continue to relay any news I come across. If you’re on Facebook, you might consider dropping by the OKP group there since that’s become the more or less de facto replacement for the OKP forums that used to be on the Great Big Sea site. This is where I’m getting my most recent news. You can find that group here.
Help me out here, Internets
I’ve been bitching about this on the social networks, so a lot of you know this already–but here’s a post on the general theme of It’s Official, Surgically Enforced Early Menopause Sucks. By which I mean, the vicious hot flashes that’ve been swamping me for the last few weeks. My sleep’s been shot to hell, and I’ve been waking up at least three or four times a night.
Which has meant I’ve been pretty much thrashed, physically and mentally. I’ve been just functional enough to keep making it to work, but not much besides that, including getting any decent progress done on the writing or music. It’s very hard to write a book when you have an inner dragon doing this.
So what have I been doing about this? A few things.
One, I’ve been horribly snorky lately as well, so at Dara’s recommendation I’ve been hitting some first-generation antihistamines before going to bed. Specifically, the stuff in Benadryl, diphenhydramine.
Two, at the recommendation of my massage therapist, I’ve been taking an adrenal supplement to get my system to stand down out of crisis mode (due to having to recover from surgery), and decrease the amount of cortisol running through me.
Three, most significantly, reading around on the Internets (and in particular, skimming the forums on hystersisters.com) pointed me to references about how it’s common for Asian women to not have hot flashes nearly so badly, due to high-soy diets. I deemed this as requiring immediate investigation–and discovered, after ordering a tofu dish from the Chinese place near our house, that two nights’ worth of using that dish as dinner tamped down the hot flashes HARD.
I have since been able to replicate this with another tofu dish, and am therefore now deploying an emergency soy surge to my diet for the next few weeks until my scheduled physical with my primary care doc, and my followup with my oncologist as well. We’ll be discussing a proper game plan for dealing with these symptoms, as well as whether dietary changes are a feasible plan long-term.
For now though I’ve got some soymilk for putting on cereal and into my tea, as well as some soy-based yogurt. And I’ve been having miso in the morning AND in the evening. It’s helping. It scales down my inner dragon to this.
Either way, Internets, this is where YOU all come in. Tell me about your favorite tofu recipes! What are interesting things to do to tofu?
Also tell me about your favorite soy-based snacks as well! And thank you all in advance for any pointers!
A few things make a post
Some good reading on the Intarwebz today! First up, I bring you today’s Big Idea column over at the Whatever, where Mr. Scalzi brings word of Brad Meltzer’s new children’s books about Amelia Earhart and Abraham Lincoln. Parents of small children, especially daughters, go check this out. Especially if you’re fans of Calvin and Hobbes. The art for the Amelia book looks adorable.
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Meanwhile, Jim Hines has put up a good post today going over a writing advice question I hear time and again: i.e., whether you should try to write to the market. I said over there, and I’ll say here too, that even though “don’t try to write to the market” and “be aware of the market” seem contradictory on the surface, for me they’re actually kind of not. You want to be aware of what people who aren’t you are writing, so you aren’t writing in a complete and utter vacuum, and accidentally writing stuff that people lost interest in reading five or ten or even more years ago. Plus, you never know what awesome ideas you may have spark for your next book.
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Fellow Carina fantasy author Shawna Thomas is talking up her work over at Eleri Stone’s place, and in particular about coming-of-age fantasy. Go give her a look, ’cause fantasy by Carina is love!
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I’ve been following the news posts on TheOneRing.net for a while now, because hi, yeah, Tolkien geek, yo. But this post of theirs made me up and join their message forums for the express purpose of voicing my appreciation to their forums member who wrote some nice fanfic about Dís, the mother of the dwarves Kíli and Fíli, the only female dwarf Tolkien ever named. Looks like Cirashala’s getting her epic on with further fanfic about the character, too, based on what she’s saying in the thread that the news post links to. I approve!
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And last but least, speaking of Tolkien, I’m posting about reading fantasy in other languages over on Here Be Magic today! I talk up the Trilingual Hobbit Reread, but also a couple of the novels I want to read out of Quebec SF/F as well, like the ones by Élodie Tirel I’ve been talking about, as well as Esther Rochon.
C’mon over and tell me about nifty non-Anglophone genre works English speakers should know about, won’t you?