Robert (gurdonark) wrote,
Robert
gurdonark

piezo

Last night my electric kazoo arrived in the mail. As I've journaled before, I consider the kazoo a charming and life-affirming metaphor for every DIY thing worth doing in this world. When I saw the electric kazoo on eBay, I knew that sooner or later, I'd have to buy one. Sure, I understood that an electric kazoo must amount, more or less, to a Radio Shack pickup hitched onto a standard kazoo. But I thought that buying one "pre-packaged" would save me the problem of figuring out how to rig one up myself. This will propel me back into home recording again. I like those recording words, like "piezo". I think my petty pursuits sound much more fascinating when I can use words like "piezo". Now if I can solve the problem of amplification without expenditure, then incredible music will no doubt result.

My eBay bid for a home 4 track studio again was unsuccessful.
This points up to me a problem in the eBay auction process.
A 4 track cassette recorder is really obsolete technology, and usually costs about 100 dollars on "everything must go" retail, at those stores called "whatever Music" that usually seem to be on the verge of going themselves. Yet eBay auctions on well-used ones will sometimes nearly hit retail.
I don't buy on eBay to pay what things are worth. I buy on eBay to save money. I wonder if I can blame my Scots Irish heritage (part of a typical southern Scots Irish/English/German mix) for my sense of thrift, or if I am simply slurring myself.

I am beginning to think outside the box. I have portable cassettes, low fidelity, high hiss. I have a decent Panasonic two track stereo cassette recorder I got for nearly nothing on eBay. I have a deep desire to create odd sound. Surely with an electric kazoo, a piece of PVC pipe disguised as a didgejeridoo, two electric football fields an electric autoharp and Pringle's cans filled with beans, it's okay to have a lot of tape hiss in the mix.

I got an important work project done yesterday. But so often I find myself with what I'll call the obverse dilemma. So many writers face the problem of generating enough material.
My problem on this project was distilling the thirty pages I wanted to say into ten pages of permitted content.

I've been researching this M.P.H. idea. It's not a bad one.
Now if I can only find someplace that offers it on-line at dramatically less cost than the ones I've found so far.
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