I’ve been thinking about the ingredients for music a great deal over the last few days, partly because I’ve been making movies for work and I’d have loved a soundtrack but finding a creative commons piece of the right length with the right feel and available free for commercial use proved too challenging. It occurred to me that what I needed was a bit of DM improvising with one of his many instruments. However, I couldn’t justify asking him to do something that would have been quite time consuming with no reward!

Anyway, I looked up last night and saw this – you could say it’s some of the ingredients that could make bluegrass or country – a nice rustic rush hat (made by my own fair hands) hanging on the hook in front of the guitar that’s on our lounge wall. We have instruments everywhere and most of them would definitely be considered bluegrass friendly because they are acoustic stringed instruments.

As I type this, two of them are being picked up, noodled then put down. DM is ill and he’s consoling himself by lying on the sofa with a mandolin and a ukulele. I’m amazed at how dissimilar the two are, considering their similar size, string length and general acoustic-ness. The mandolin has a bright, zingy, lively sound compared to the more muted and subtle uke. They both sound great in his hands, just different. Similar ingredients but different recipes.