Delacre Biscuit Rag

Hi people!

I finished another homemade lap steel. I improved the design a bit, using more wood and placing the tuners in a different position. I also used a better looking tin box from Delacre Biscuits, a famous Belgian brand.

You can listen to the guitar on these two videos:

Jammin' at the Geriatric House

Last Sunday I was invited by my sax player to join a few musicians at the annual party of his workplace: a geriatric house near Antwerp. He invited a fabulous Hammond player and a drummer too. No rehearsals, the organ player would call songs and we would follow, if possible. We played in the chapel. It was a very nice experience, although I'm no real jazz player, just a blues fellow.

I put my tiny recorder machine (Boss MicroBR) on the floor and got near to two hour music on mp3, 64kbps, quite bad sampling quality. Anyhow, I uploaded a few track so you can listen to what we did. We had fun and I hope you like it. Here:

My last gig in 2007: Nursery Blues

The last gig I played last year was an acoustic one, in the nursery where my children go every day. The principal asked me to play a few songs for the children and I found the idea very appealing. It's the first time I play live at 9h30 in the morning! A very nice experience. I just played five songs, prewar blues and a couple of own compositions. No amps needed, old fashioned way.

Here a few snap shots to show the atmosphere:

Homemade capo

As easy as it looks:
And it works well. :-)

How to build a Biscuit Box Lap Steel Guitar

I published a small document explaining how to build the Biscuit Box guitar I showed in a previous post. The document can be downloaded for free in here:

http://www.lulu.com/content/1971988

Have fun!

Cancer

Due to illness, I'll not be able to work giving lessons nor concerts during the next months. Sorry. I'll keep you up to date.

Je suis malade et pourtant je ne donnerai pas des lessons ou des concert durant les prochâins moins. Désolé.

Ik ben ziek en onder behandeling. Ik zal dus geen les geven, optreden ook niet, tot binnen enkele maanden. Sorry.

Salut!

Biscuit Box Lap Steel Guitar

A clip to show how this Biscuit Box Lap Steel Guitar sounds. It was made in around four hours work with cheap materials bought in the local DIY shop. Only the tuners (and the strings) are specifically designed for guitars.

The purpose of this project is to insert the construction of such a simple instrument as a prelude to a workshop on how to play lap steel guitar. That way the students will build their own instrument in a few hours before learning some chords and techniques.

The book & video are for sale

So, I published the book, Acoustic Lap Steel Guitar, together with its video on lulu.com. I set a quite low price, I think. I'll get a profit of one euro per item sold. Soon I'll be rich. :-)

Here's the shop: http://stores.lulu.com/deferre

Pub: Atelier Guitare Lap Steel Gitaar Workshop

Voici une copie de la pub que je distribue par le magasins et les écoles de musique, avec mon gsm pour me contacter si vous êtes intéresé.

Hier toegevoegd een kopie van het zoekertje dat ik hier en daar verdeel, met mijn gsm-nummer in het geval dat u geintereseerd bent.

J'ai decrit le livre et le video en question ici:
Ik heb dat boek en die video hier beschreven:
http://deferreneris.blogspot.com/2007/09/acoustic-lap-steel-guitar-workshop-for.html

Acoustic Lap Steel Guitar, a workshop for beginners

This is the title of a pretty small book I've written about how to play Acoustic Lap Steel Guitar, a.k.a. Hawaiian guitar. It's intended for really beginners on the instrument and I plan to use it in the workshops I'm organizing in the Benelux area. It's not a thick book, just around 40 pages, but that's fair enough as an introduction to the instrument and for the lessons I give.

I'm thinking about publishing it through lulu.com or some other print-on-demand service. Would you be interested? Is there such a service here in Europe? I just wonder. I would offer it as pdf and on paper for just almost nothing... but I'm still working on the idea.

Je travaille aussi à la traduction en français du livre. Dans quelques semaines il sera pret et je le ferai verifier par quelquien competent. Mon français n'est pas mon point fort, je dois admettre. :-)

Zou ik ook met een Nederlandse versie aan de slag moeten gaan? Ik denk van niet, want jullie mensen beheersen het Engels vrij goed. Zou ik moeten? Zeg maar.

Anyhow, I'll give you a hint about how the book looks like. Here you can take a look at a few snapshots: the cover, the contents and a randomly chosen page. Hope you like it!

Ah! I almost forgot it: there's a video disc together with the book, where I play all exercises and songs. It's homemade and, once again, nothing fancy, but I think it's fairly useful for the student. Here you can watch a couple of the clips included, and that I've uploaded to YouTube: one of the first lessons and one of the songs the student would be able to play at the end of the lessons.