Hello everybody on HIVE and especially those of the Music Community! I am writing to you from Cape Town, South Africa. The two hobbies I tend to post the most about on HIVE are my music and song writing (usually performed these days with fellow HIVER @clairemobey – please follow her!) and surfing.
Now usually when I get up on stage to play my/our own music or some covers, my main instruments are guitar, vocals, harmonica (played simultaneously on a rack) and, more recently, stomp-box. I’m trying to plan around at least one live song performance that uses a loop pedal as well.
However, I do love to mess around at home with other interesting sounds on whatever zany instrument I can find… or even make. With that in mind, part of my contribution posts to the Music Community will focus on the topic: Wacky Instruments!
PART 3 – Wine glasses and a pair of chopsticks
Yes, I’m getting desperate… until I follow through with my plans to acquire (or make!) some new instruments! Haha!
It’s a funny story that led to this topic. Before the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns happened, I was working hard and not making enough time for music. Then March 2020 happened, and like many countries around the world, South Africa was pushed into a strict lockdown. Unlike many other countries, our lockdown lasted the whole of 2020, and there seemed to be no end in sight as 2020 was coming to an end!
Because I was stuck at home nearly all the time, I was picking up my guitar much more often. I decided to set myself two challenges:
•Learn a new song every day for 100 days and send a recording of each to my mom!
•Start a Youtube channel and share a modern cover on Mondays, an older “throwback” cover on Thursdays and one of my original songs on Saturdays…
Well, I sent 100 songs to my mom – everything from Bob Dylan to Aha to Tina Turner! She started to really look forward to them…
I also did the Youtube channel for quite some time, sticking strictly to the Modern Monday, Throwback Thursday and Original Saturday schedule!
Eventually there came a week towards the end of 2020 where I asked myself if I would be able to cope and make the three videos for the week… without playing my guitar? Now guitar is my main instrument… I’ve never had a piano, keyboard or any other normal accompanying instrument besides guitar!
So, I got creative and started digging around the house for whatever I could find!
For the modern cover on the Monday, I managed to tune an East African bamboo zither (called a valiha) someone had given me, and play a Maroon 5 song on it… (@jasperdick/music-live-video-wacky-instruments).
For the throwback Thursday cover, I played the Cat Power version of an old song called “Sea of Love” on my grandfather’s old autoharp! It’s a song that my wife and I love so much that we used it as her entrance music to walk down the aisle to at our wedding! (@jasperdick/music-live-video-wacky-instruments-0f64a3f48feb8)
Now, besides guitars and harmonicas, which were not allowed, I was starting to run out of unusual instruments, and still needed to write something original and play it on a new instrument for Saturday!
I had a flash of inspiration and meticulously filled five wine glasses with water to get 5 different notes when tapped with chopsticks. That, along with a rattle in my sock, was enough to make a bit of a vibe! Now I just needed lyrics…
I started to think about how tough the 2020 lockdown had been for many people with businesses, or looking for work, and wrote the following lines…
So long Twenty-Twenty
When it came to hard times, you gave us plenty…
Now I’ve got no money and I’ve got no band
So I made this song, entirely by hand…*
So long Twenty-Twenty
We are down to our last cent(ie)…
And there’s only more… lockdown in store…
Are they trying to make us all equally poor?
So long Twenty-Twenty
Most of us can’t pay the rent(ie)
And it’s been so hard to tell fiction from facts
But what’s going to happen when they get no tax (next year)?
Hello Twenty-Twenty One
Have the hard times only just begun?
Unfortunately, the hard times had only just begun – by July 2021, the country suffered almost apocalyptic rioting in two of its main economic provinces due to people’s hunger and desperation. This made things much worse as most of the malls were destroyed and would take time to rebuild by whichever shops that wanted to take the risk of starting all over again…
You can watch my wine glass and chopstick original song here:
THE END