Saturday, August 22, 2009

'Laura' - with Greg Sheehan

One of our most favourite instruments is the Hang drum - you just need to listen to our Rhythmbred CD to hear that it has a big influence on our 'sound world'. Greg Sheehan, with whom we worked with over two weeks in July 09 in Byron Bay, has a beautiful Hang drum that is tuned to a C minor scale. He has written a number of tunes for this instrument, one of them being 'Laura', named in honor of his partner.

Below is a video of us performing this tune with him in a performance at the Byron Community Theatre at the end of our two weeks with both Greg and Michael Askill, another legendary Australian percussionist. It has an improvised middle section - in this version I play a marimba (a tuned wooden percussion instrument) and Steve plays an Udu, which is basically a clay pot which has a range of lovely tones, including a deep bass 'boom'. Don't forget that you can watch the whole thing in HD if you follow the link in the video to vimeo, or watch the smaller, faster version here. Enjoy.

'Laura' - Taal Naan with Greg Sheehan play Greg Sheehan.... from taalnaan on Vimeo.