The Tahora Diaries - Ukulele

Sarah's job was to produce a CD of Tahora Ukulele performances. That's her with the blond hair at Mik Gough's ukulele workshop.

This honour was thrust upon her. Not having done anything like this before it caused her some consternation.

Working with performers is a bit like herding cats so after having timetabled various acts to meet to perform in the wool shed and involving the very obliging Keith Ellett and his small high tech recording machine the recording sessions - individuals, duos and large groups - took place over the duration of the festival.

Peter Charlton Jones used his recording skills to engineer the raw material into a finished product on his Apple Mac.

The question on every one's lips now is 'Have we got a hit and how many thousands can we sell?"

Watch this space.

The Tahora Diaries - Tahora Rocks

Woodsy makes rocking chairs.

He makes them from wood, fabric and farm machinery parts.

They work. Every time he displays them people line up to try them. Some stay all day!!

The Tahora Diaries - Toilet Innovation

For those not familiar with long-drops a long-drop is a structure over a hole in the ground used as a toilet.
This one has an innovation - it flushes.
Ahhhh the luxury - and without a door - what a view.
You just had to whistle while using it to let people know it was occupied.

The Tahora Diaries - Working with Wood

Gary Steel uses and sells woodworking tools www.katools.co.nz But these are not your usual range of tools. Gary brought his tools to Tahora and worked on the Tahora dragon over the period of the festival. I have carved and sculpted wood for around 30 years and I have never seen tools as effective as these.

From the katools website: Steel Toolz Ltd offer a unique range of carving products and tools in New Zealand to cut and shape wood and other materials. Most tools can be mounted on a regular 4” (115mm) grinder, others stand-alone such as the sanding and polishing systems. Manufactured and developed in the USA by King Arthur's Tools all our products are patented and have distinct safety and performance features. These tools are unmatched in the industry for safety, durability and cost effectiveness.

Check them out!

The Tahora Diaries - Tracey Knits

When she's not playing or singing or MCing concerts Tracey can be found in a quiet corner practicing the ancient art of knitting wonderfully colourful creations.










I'm still waiting for mine but she said that she doesn't knit swim wear!!

The Tahora Diaries - Bullroarer Workshop

Helen Capes plays Northumbrian Pipes and Bullroarers - not sure what the connection is.

For the uninitiated [according to Wikipedia] Bullroarers have been used by a number of indigenous cultures in Australia, Africa, the British Isles, North America, New Zealand and other parts of Polynesia. The New Zealand Maori called them purerehua.



The bullroarer was made of a thin, flat piece of wood, shaped in elliptical form with pointed ends.
A cord about a metre or so in length was attached to one end and the other end was attached to a handle - although this didn't appear to be necessary for the success of the ones made in the workshop.



The operator whirled the instrument with increasing velocity until it emitted a whirring sound [ and made sure they got out of its way!!]

A simple but very effective instrument and thanks to Helen for bringing all the bits necessary to make one.

The Tahora Diaries - Drum Making

I love hitting things and making things that you can hit.
It's called percussion and you can make percussion out of almost anything.
STOMP does. http://www.stomponline.com/

A friend and colleague who works in a paper converting mill [that's where they make toilet paper] saved me some of the cardboard cores from the large rolls of paper they use to convert to toilet paper.
They look like this.
The cool dude is my son Stuart.






We stretched Oxford Nylon across the cores and stapled it into place.











The drums were then decorated in a variety of ways.











Then they were hit by hand or with beaters.

It's almost that simple.

They were put to good use drumming the New Year in around the bonfire at Tahora.

The Tahora Diaries - Wayne Gillespie

Wayne Gillespie wins awards for the songs he writes.

You can read all about that on his web site. http://www.waynegillespie.com/.

It had been 23 years since Wayne had been to Tahora.

It was great to have him back.

In between times he also did a psych degree research project on the personality of rock musicians. Seems like they do have them!

I went to his song-writing workshop.

Here are some snippets of wisdom from a very fine singer song writer.

"A major writing block for singer songwriters is happiness."

"Songwriters start asking if it is good way too soon."

"2 traps for songwriters - thinking everything you write is great and accepting that a song is good enough even when something is not working."

"I can't write a song if I'm not moved."

"No-one can write a song if you don't make time for it."

"Separate the creator from the editor."

"Get used to brainstorming and make a dick of yourself!!"

And the best thing - I got to play with him!! Talk about mixing with the rich and famous - well famous anyway!

That's me on the 'crate' [ a busking type drum kit] and Brendan Power [more about him in later blog] on harmonica.

The Tahora Diaries - Kath Tait

London based Kath Tait writes songs - funny songs, poignant songs, great songs - and she performed a bunch of them at Tahora - now that's a long way from London.

In Kath's words she is 'a highly ambitious singer/songwriter, desperately trying to get to the bottom of her profession.'

That's Kath's sense of humour. You can hear it in her songs.

You can listen to her and others sing her songs at http://www.kathtait.com/.

If you like what you hear you can buy her Cd's through her web site.

The Tahora Diaries 2009 - 2010 - Creativity in Action

Tahora has a population of around 10 - maybe less.

The shop closed many years ago.

The school closed a couple of years ago.

It is in the back blocks of Taranaki - that's in New Zealand - not far from Whangamomona. That's where the nearest pub is - on the Lost Highway.

There's not much at Tahora except for lots of memories.

For more than two decades I, and my family, have gone to a festival on Kerry Turner's sheep farm at Tahora.

After 30 years of festivals they stopped but this year we decided to have a reunion and what a reunion it was!

Creativity in action!
The next few blogs are going to feature the creative goings on at Tahora.

That's Kerry with the guitar.