Octave Violin Conversion

Here’s a really fun and interesting experiment inspired in part by the mandolin’s larger cousin the Octave Mandolin. We took a 16″ Viola and set it up with special strings from Sensicore to be played in GDAE tuning an octave below a standard violin. The result is a very robust and rich cello-like timbre that is nothing short of satisfying. An excellent choice for accompaniment, regular fiddle music and fingerings can be used and will sound an octave down.

You can expect to see some further experimentation in this realm from us in the near future. As a broad spectrum of timbre and responsiveness is available by playing with string guage, string length, body size, rosin and bow selection. Who has time to be bored?

Tenise Marie – Oxygen

Tenise is a Kootenay girl through and through. I’ve always felt that the place a person lives influences their music in ways they can’t control. Here are songs that evoke a sense of quiet peace, and beauty not without strength or wisdom. In short, everything that North Kootenay Lake means to me. Tenise’s songwriting has a way of bringing you in from the wild, her stunningly clear voice is a soothing comfort against the hardships of the world, like a cup of tea and a book by the fire on a dark rainy night.

Tenise is a trained musician and graduate from Selkirk College. This all original album is an excellent example what a person can accomplish with the skills and knowledge to nourish their inherent spark of creativity into a roaring flame.

Very well produced and executed. 4 and a half stars!

Spider Capo

I’m really excited about this innovative new capo.

The Spider Capo allows you to individually capo some strings and leave others open. I had a chance to play around with it and was immediately baffled by the endless possibilities it opened. You can imitate open tunings with it, create interesting chords with novel open strings, you can play behind the capo on strings that you leave open, you can even change tunings in the middle of a performance. The way the Spider Capo’s fingers work you are actually capable of fine-tuning each string individually.

The capo itself weighs less than an ounce and the fingers can be easily reversed for use on a left handed guitar.

There are tons of possibilities that will open up for those willing to explore.