Antler Harpe or Antler Harp...played by Dagan, with a salt shaker slide.

Hi folks,

Here is the latest vedsion of my first Antler Harpe, so graciously demonstrated by Dagan, whose talents are many.  One od the finest Antler Harpe players to date.

Also see Dave Gould of Canada, who has a unique version tbat predates this one by many years, his having cello strings abd s custom pickup, and electronic effects he inherited from his father who was an inventor for the Canadian Government, and rigged up the first sound chips for card games with knobs, as a sound effects synthesizer.  A youtube search for antler harp and Dave Gould will lead you there.

A radio host from his town of Hamilton Ontario interviewed him, and in the intedview, he tells about a performer who played the caribou antlers with sticks, so the musical range was limited.  

On a tour of schools in the Yucon, where Dave Gould performed home made musical instrumemts for the students, a janitor showed him a caribou antler and said he could have it and make something...and the idea of using cello strings was proposed, and it took off and became one of his more unique show pieces, besides the antique loo(toilet) which he plays with drum sticks, to great comedic effect.

Preludes with Parakeets Day 4 - Ain't Misbehavin'

Let's see how the Parakeets like this old Standard. See link below to a New York Times article that discusses whether birds listen when you plan music to them. Q. Do the songbirds on the wire outside my window listen when I practice the violin? A. In all likelihood, they do, said Timothy J. DeVoogd, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, who has long studied both human and bird brains, particularly how the brains of birds encode learned behaviors like song. He said he was aware of a good study from 2012 that suggested that bird brains respond to song in the same areas that human brains do. “As a shorthand way of thinking, if a bird song sounds musical to human ears, odds are that similar human music will sound songlike to the bird,” Dr. DeVoogd said. He said there was a lot of research finding that “when a reproducing male hears another bird singing, and it’s a good song, he gets angry.” question@nytimes.com

Preludes with Parakeets Day 3

Hi Folks, Another day playing for the parakeets. Another round of Chopin, to see how they react to some romantic era piano. What do you think? Is music the universal language, that birds put some kind of meaning to?

Prelude with Parakeets Day 2

A second nightly piano serenade of a Chopin Prelude for Dino and Sky, my pet parakeets.  Dino is green and yellow, and Sky is blue... I wonder what they think of Chopin... Is music the universal language?

Prelude with Parakeets Day 2 via YouTube

Prelude with Parakeets Day 1

What do parakeets think of piano music?  Join my experiment as we watch Dino and Sky, our pet Budgies, chatter away while listrning to a little Chopin Prelude before going to sleep for the night.  Actually, do birds sleep?  Let me know in the comments!

Prelude with Parakeets Day 1 via YouTube

26 in 32 - Phalen Park Auto

Michael is Mercedes Certified.  He and Quan do good work, at a fair price.

Connies Creamy Cone

This is the go to place in my neighborhood.  It marks the seasons.  It is one of those places that closes for winter and opens back up in spring, and it is sort of a milestone when the banner goes up...opening....

Burton the Baby Bronze Buffalo Freee-bikes

Royce has started a GoFundMe campaign. 

https://www.gofundme.com/e-bike4royce

Nomadic Press

Kent is a cool cat.  His collection of presses is quite impressive.  I drove by the other day and looked through the large windows at them.

Slo-Mo Tug of War. A Short Film starring Royce and school friends.

Click here to see the movie.

An Art Book Fundraiser for Royce's Pedal Assist Bicycle

Royce's Hand Bound Blank Book 2018-03-09 (1)

26 in 32 No.1 (A) Caydence Coffee

Ask these guys what its like the three of them living above their Coffee Shop/Vinyl Records and turntable sales, and Performance Venue, and you will get the story of guys pursuing their passions fully. 

House in Maiden Rock

Here is a home I drew construction drawings for when I worked with David Goehring at International Market Square in Minneapolis.

You can read more about my process at http://www.croonerdean.com/residential-design.html

Ethan Iverson and the Bad Plus at the Dakota

I knew I has to see this amazing band- the last performance in Minneapolis, their home turf with their original lineup.  Ethan is moving to New York, plans to work on his piano concerto.  Two brothers and their dad were in the same booth as me.  It is their longstanding tradition to buy a ticket to the Bad Plus concert at holiday time.  A "selfish present".  The one son worked at the Columbia Jazz station and once interviewed Dave on his radio show.  The biggest performer he had on the show. 

Dave King, Drums with his Dave King Trio - Also of The Bad Plus.

Live sketch of the Dave King Trio at the Dunsmore Room, Crooner's Lounge, 2016, pencil on vellum paper.

Dave King is from Minnesota, and is perhaps best known for his jazz group The Bad Plus - which has done covers of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and a version of the Rite of Spring by Stravinsky..  Their original pianist is moving to New York to pursue other things, and I went and saw their last show last Saturday at the Dacota Jazz Club.  4 other friends of mine happened to be there as well.  I did a live sketch of the pianist in black watercolor pencil, and then came home and did a painting based on that in gouache using only black and white.

I get a lot of inspiration and tips from James Gurney's excellent blog, GurneyJourney.blogspot.com

I Take a Photo Break while Dad Rolls up the Hose, and Mom Types the Card.

I am always thinking of other things more creative to do than clean gutters, when I am cleaning gutters.  Enter the Smart Phone.  I have a Samsung Note 4, that I just love, as it has a stylus which can come in handy for a quick sketch.  But I love some of the effects built into the camera, like this fish eye lens effect.  You can use it like a magnifying glass.  This was on the sidewalk that goes up to the front steps of a house that we clean every year in the Fall.  We had been spraying the gutters, and some spray must have gotten on this leaf.  I took a few of these closeups and this was the one I liked best, showing the droplets acting like a myriad fish eye lenses - or actually maybe the opposite - magnifying glasses.  Fall, 2017.

Sketching Perfect Complements - in Pencil.

I went to the local food shelf across from the the local Third Place, the Coffee Cup Restaurant.  This couple seemed the perfect opposite pair - smiling, frowning, awake, restful, White, Black.  This time, I brought my old hackneyed cello from high school along.  A little boy watched the cello with interest for a good part of an hour till it was time for me to leave.  By then he had gathered enough courage to pluck the strings a little.

Drawn using a 2mm lead holder, the little sharpener lets you drop the graphite shavings on the paper and you can rub that around for shading.

Birds Eye View of a Childhood Memory.

The wind was starting to grow colder as Dad and I cleaned the gutters of Ashland Commons, a pair of large white apartment buildings, each with six stucco chimneys.  Below is the Google Earth 3D model view.  "That's Webster School, where I went to Kindergarten through 5th grade," he said.  It was getting cold up there.  That's why we bundle up in these rubber coated 2 piece rain suits.   As the wind picked up, the leaves began to freeze to the bottom of the gutters.  That's why it's always a rush - the leaves only let go when the cold weather is on its way.   Mom, Dad and I took a cookie break at Mississippi Market.  The cookies were still warm.  I had peanut butter cookie.  Mom and Dad had chocolate chip.  I get a kick out of it when my folks eat junk food, as they are so preoccupied with eating healthy, for the most part.  

Mom's Post-It Dashboard and Dad High Up.

My parents are hard working self-employed people, well into their 70's,  who still love their work, and exemplify the attitude that they would much rather keep working than ever retire.  My Mom suffered a pretty severe stroke in 2016, but it's a year out, and she is back at work, doing all the book work and billing - doing it even though her handwriting isn't what it used to be.

She uses a manual Olivetti typewriter which she brings with her in the big red work van (has several backups) and spiral bound notebooks. Her dashboard post-it system may look a bit haphazard, but - for her - it works.  Their website.