Drumming With Your Religious Gifts

The ability to play and the ability to perform via playing an instrument are special gifts in life.  Like this drummer, playing the drum is part of his religion, and therefore he applies the Rattan Bundle of sticks to the beat that has religious content and overtone.

The Timeless Instrument

The picture to our left is a Carlo Bergonzi violin that I purchased on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  One of my hobbies I have, which make for great stories to tell from a musical and a collecting point of view.  Or should I say it for what it really is, and that is rescuing instruments I find.  Just like the Bergonzi, which the famous craftsman made himself in 1733 in Italy.  Interesting thing about instruments, verses people, they can out live just about everyone.  I sat for many hours holding, and viewing the instrument in every angle to really study the instruments perfection, and obvious imperfections from being hand carved.  Doing this you will see all of the fine qualities carefully crafted into each square inch of this timeless instrument.  I hope and pray that each of us can have fine qualities that we carefully craft, even with our imperfections to leave something behind so that someone in the future can admire them and study them.

Amazed Again,

Tony Watson,

I f you give it much thought, most songs would not exist without instruments.  Being able to pick and choose how to twist a blend of instruments to make the sound that is enjoyable to an audience in the form of some sort of arraignment.  In most cases I would say that it falls back on the composer, and what he or she hears when composing the song.  Some of my favorite songs have had only a single guitar in the entire song.  That is probably how the composer heard the song at it’s best.  When the burning desire is there to deliver the vocals and music with let’s say a single performer and his or her instrument, it is what you hear in any help article, “presentation is nine tenths”.  This being said many famous recording artists have done just this thing with the most powerful delivery of his or her single instrument, and in many cases also their voice.   It can be very pleasing to the ear hearing their voice and instrument in unison giving us a song you will never forget.  The late John Denver was a master of this technique.  Many times on his TV show John would preform one of his songs for the night in just the simplest of setting where it was just John his guitar and a song, it was magical.

Simple Music, Can Be Magical,

Tony Watson



Celebrating Mother’s day at the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  This is a photo of the water out in front of our home in Cambridge MD.  Trips to the blue waters of the Caribbean seam to get us through all bad weather we endured during the winter, but I don’t believe there is another place on earth which bears the beauty of the Chesapeake Bay.  We have been living here for over 11 years, and it inspires me on many fronts.  It also prepares me for my work coming up in the next week, and prepares me for how I feel about life in general.  I am looking foreword to a summer of boating, fishing and family gathering.  None of this would be possible without the mother of my children, not to mention (T’s) mother and my mother.  Honestly, where would any of us be without them?

Happy Mother’s Day,

Tony Watson