As we all know, the pandemic has been very difficult for us all. From not seeing loved ones to finding new jobs. From applying for unemployment to pleading with landlords, praying they won’t evict; we have all seen struggles both inwardly and out.
Two local blues guitarists share their struggles and their own personal battles, as they fight to keep the music alive in themselves amidst the immense stress that this pandemic has wrought.
Jack Parks (left) and Jacob Bowen (right) were both interviewed on the same day – Sunday, Feb. 21. Jack was interviewed in the morning around noon in his home near Midland. A quaint, quiet household with the Michigan basketball game muted in the background, we often would have to cut the interview to watch a great play as Michigan would go on to triumph against Ohio State. That aside, Jacob was interviewed in his place of business after-hours, where he usually plays guitar so as to not acquire any more noise complaints from his apartment complex.
The Nat sound I used was Jack plugging in his guitar into his portable amplifier for the first time. His beautiful hollow-body Ibanez provided ample rich sounds for that clip and the solo that he played for the remainder of much of my Nat sound. Then, Jake played a rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s Wait ‘Til Tomorrow for the Nat sound that would underscore his interview.
I gathered the sounds before the interview took place, as they told me when they expected to be practicing so I could arrive at that time. When I arrived at Jack’s residence, he was just sitting down to plug in his guitar so I had to be quick with my recorder. Jake’s interview, on the other hand, was plagued by the noises of people cleaning up for the closing of the store in the background so there was little I could use of his interview save a few sound bites and his impressive guitar skills.
I recorded the audio on my Galaxy S21 (which has a rather impressive microphone for a cellphone) and I had very little issue with the quality of the recordings. As for editing programs, I went through about 5 or 6 before I decided on EZAudioCut. While it seemed a little sketchy at first (I had never heard of it before), it got the job done.
Finding my interviewees was actually the easy part: it was one of those things where you know a guy who knows a guy, who heard a guy play – and then I simply reached out to these two gentlemen on Facebook Messenger. Being a guitarist myself helped immensely as I already travel these circles of people to find new guitarists to play and learn with.
If I could change one thing about this story, it would be to collect more diverse Nat audio. While I know I have the two separate guitar solos, which are indeed both beautiful in their own rite, I believe to really ground the listener in these stories I would need more audio from these two gentlemen’s daily lives. But that is altogether a much lengthier story than what was allowed here. I guess another thing would be conducting Jacob’s interview somewhere less noisy, but I’m not sure with COVID that that would’ve been possible.
So all-in-all, I believe this wasn’t a bad first take at an audio story.
Drew Travis Photography 