Category: Music

Big Empty Space

This short, 4-track, 2019, Anderhill EP, Big Empty Space, starts out with a different sound. A very sparse and bluesy looped guitar and vocals with simple hand claps, not much more. The second track is a wide-open ambient piece. There’s a big sense of space on the EP, thus the name.

The third and fourth tracks are both heavier, but still lend that sense of wide-open space to the music. The EP marks a willingness to try new things musically while still maintaining a sense of the original Anderhill sound. – dse

Make Do

People often make excuses about why they can’t do one thing or another. I’ve heard them over and over. I want to write a book but I don’t have a good computer, or I have a guitar but it’s old and hard to play, so I don’t play it. If you really want to do something, you will. You’ll make do.

I played trumpet in high school, but after I graduated, I wanted to play the drums. Drums were expensive. Instead, I bought some drumsticks and found a big cardboard box in my parent’s basement. I practiced for hours a day down there. In time, I saved enough money and bought a used drum set.

I was poor in my teens, 20s, and even my 30s. I learned to make do. That included sacrificing having TVs and cars at times. It included buying the $50 electric guitar at the pawnshop instead of the $300 guitar that I really wanted.

To save space in my home, I sold my drum set about five years ago. I make do. When I want to practice drumming, I use five-gallon buckets and a practice pad. The buckets cost me $1.00 each at the paint store.

This concept of make do applies to your skills as well. Don’t tell me you can’t write a poem or play a musical instrument because you don’t have the skills. No one was born with a pen or a guitar in their hands. If your skills need work, practice. Make do with where you are now. Practice only leads to improvement.

Life isn’t always easy, but most of the time, there is always a way to make do. – dse

Wild Ponies

No, I wasn’t borrowing from the Rolling Stones’ Wild Horses. This Anderhill EP is titled Wild Ponies because the music was inspired by some research I’ve done on Iceland, Scotland, and the Shetland Islands.

On this recording, I sample a simple whistle for the opening track. The third track, “Moder Dy” is a reference to an old form of ocean navigation. When visibility was poor, sailors would ride what they called the mother wave, or moder dy. I attempted to compose a soundscape that might raise the feeling of what riding the mother wave might have been like. – dse

The Volume

What is “the volume?” It’s both physical and mental.

Years ago, I bought some handmade Turkish cymbals. One day, I started playing them very softly with mallets. That’s when I discovered something profound. When I played softly, I could hear much more variety in tone. I tuned into the subtle vibrations and frequencies. I even became more aware of the sounds around me.

Ever since my experience with the Turkish cymbals, I’ve realized that we can often hear more detail when we turn down the volume. And when we hear more, we can create greater subtleties in the textures of our work.

This idea of lowering the volume lends itself to anything creative. I used to use more profanity in my writing, but I’ve realized that that was simply too loud. It didn’t allow me to stretch my vocabulary as much as I could. A painter or photographer might select more subtle color combinations.

There’s another kind of volume we have to deal with. All the stuff going on in our heads. I won’t tell anyone to meditate. I don’t. However, I do use walking as a way to clear my head. Often, a short walk is all I need.

Turning down the volume helps us to focus on the real work at hand, the core. Almost anyone can plug in an electric guitar in and strum a power chord. Only a select few can play Bach on a classical guitar with proficiency. Why? Because the latter takes much more attention to detail, including the quiet parts.

Sometimes it’s good to turn down the volume. – dse

Alaska

On the EP, Alaska, Anderhill adds a new element to the music. Starting with my second recording, Out of the Radio Static, I’ve used sampling. However, until Alaska, I was primarily sampling white noise by using everyday objects like dishwashers and ceiling fans. This EP marks the start of sampling and looping musical instruments.

The first track, “Ylenol,” samples slide guitar, the second track, “Midnight Serenade,” a djembe drum. Sampling bits of musical performance within Anderhill music adds a new element to the music, opening the door to new ideas and creativity. – dse

Rudimentary Elements

Rudimentary Elements, Anderhill’s longest album when it was released, has eight tracks. As you might guess based on the title, the music gets back to basics. Rudimentary, my dear.

The 11th Anderhill release is sightly different from much of my previous work. There are more beats and arpeggiated parts on this album, more drive. Although the music is less ambient, the second track, Garbage Out, is an exception, which is based on the sample of a garbage truck dumping my garbage.

There are many other samples on this album, including drumming on a bucket and blowing into a beer bottle. The last track, Tales of Atticus, was written after learning an old friend had lost his daughter shortly after she gave birth to his grandson, Atticus. – dse