Genghis
Power User
A few of you may remember that a couple of months ago I posted about wanting to buy an easy to play instrument for my cousin Shawn, who has Down Syndrome. He loves music so much that I wanted to get him just one more step into it. The top suggestion was for a nice Dulcimer, and he loved it when I gave it to him on March 22nd. Although it is a bit difficult to show him how to fret the strings, he definitely enjoys strumming that open D5 chord and doing his Elvis thing.
I finally had a chance to get him in the studio and let him have some fun last weekend. I try to do that every so often and we were overdue on letting him do his thing. The song is dedicated to a very close friend and mentor of mine named Pawtoo. I started with a very simple percussion loop to give Shawn a timing reference, and I coached him a bit on strumming the open chord, somewhat in time.
Then I added some guitar and simple synth bass to give it a bit more variety.
Next up Shawn did his thing in front of the microphone. I didn't think to get the camera rolling when he was playing the dulcimer, but next time I will. You can see him in this one doing what he loves to do the most. Singing his heart out! I wanted to share this with you guys as a thank you for the responses on that thread a couple of months ago, and I figure some of you may enjoy seeing my cuz and his enthusiasm for music!
I finally had a chance to get him in the studio and let him have some fun last weekend. I try to do that every so often and we were overdue on letting him do his thing. The song is dedicated to a very close friend and mentor of mine named Pawtoo. I started with a very simple percussion loop to give Shawn a timing reference, and I coached him a bit on strumming the open chord, somewhat in time.
Then I added some guitar and simple synth bass to give it a bit more variety. Next up Shawn did his thing in front of the microphone. I didn't think to get the camera rolling when he was playing the dulcimer, but next time I will. You can see him in this one doing what he loves to do the most. Singing his heart out! I wanted to share this with you guys as a thank you for the responses on that thread a couple of months ago, and I figure some of you may enjoy seeing my cuz and his enthusiasm for music!
