David Holt: Folk rhythms

Multi talent David Holt teaches you how to get music out of your kitchen equipment and other items that you never have thought could be used as instruments. He serves 47 minutes with high quality performance and you will probably learn a lot of rhythms on the DVD Folk rhythms – Learn to play Spoons, Bones, Washboard, Hambone and the Paper bag.

Per Jakob Skaanes

What kind of spoons are the best to play on? How do you hold spoons when you play on them? Did you know that it will create a different tone depending on how you hit with the spoons. David Holt teaches you the basic skills on spoons, the roll, the gallop roll, the reverse roll and mouth sounds. The last one especially nice with wooden spoons.

There are also many other “instruments” to create rhythms with. David Holt teaches how to do handbone clapping in different ways and create astonishing rhythms with your own hands and body. Thereafter he shows a lot of tricks on the washboard. Most washboard players use a big spoon in metal or wood to make a rythmic beat on the washboard with the result that they make so big noise that many other instruments are not heard. Holt uses thumbles on his thumb and indexfingers. Here he makes soft and a bit more delicate sounds with them. Lessond four is rhythms on bones and the final lesson is rhytms on paper bags. It is just amazing! And it sounds very good too. Here you can pick up things from your house, find some cow ribs and cut them into fitting pieces and start playing.
Although this sound very funny, David Holt gives very serious, detailed and clear instructions, he shows the ways to hold the spoons, bones and so on that he consider to be the best way to hold them. He also show mistakes you will easily make and tells how to avoid that. You will learn basic percussion and develop your understanding of rhythms. And, if you play with people, the rhythms section in your will definetely be a lot more fun on stage with a washboarder or a spoon player. The paper bags played on are one small and one a bit bigger and they produce different sounds. The big a deeper sound. Nice effects. You will also hear gitarist Happy Traum play Freight Train with David Holt accompanying him on wooden spoons here, sounds great!

If you rather like books, there is one book called You too can play the spoons written by Claude Ferguson. There are also some videos about playing the spoons on Youtube. Here is one. Search for “playing spoons”/”how to play the spoons”. These are only a few minutes and the quality is varying. I recommend the DVD by David Holt. The lessons are so amazing that you will have a great time watching David in action even if I dind’t plan to be a great spoon or washboard player. David Holt is very inspiring, a great teacher and artist! The Folk Rhythms DVD has very high       quality and he makes a little concert out of it. You may like to visit David Holts homepage.

Folk rhythms – Learn to play Spoons, Bones, Washboard, Hambone and the Paper bag is published by Homespun tapes.
Lenght 50 minutes. Prize 20$.

Publisert: 14. feb 2010.