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Manus McDaid

Manus now working off jazz gtr, solid electric 7-string with a floating-trem' to something new ... to kalimba/drum accompianments.

About Me

As I write a lot by way of jazz-fiction as extrapolated from many years of interaction, the spontaneity of the music is always and objectively there. It throws up a taking-of-stock process when you stop for a bit in order to, really, analyse: why do these, sonically challenging things on electric gtrs, or whatever ... Seems a way to go in the digital age which is exciting me to move on, and away from conventional jazz or traditional recording, with the ease of being able to experiment in the recording of track-for-track over oneself(s) viz-a-viz on any of the many clean-sounding, digi' multi-tracker, stand-alone units currently available. Over and above finding ways to express the jazz-music holistic on the gtrs (c/w intrinsic natural harmonics), plus kalimbas and what-have-you: I use a solid Peavey gtr with the floating trem, standard tuning but with a 7th string in the bass - down to a low 'A'. It's actually an 065” round wound bass gtr string - really expansive overall!

My ad hoc kalimba-on-a-drum thing, is roughly attuned to 'Am7' but my playing of it (the improvisation where it all starts from, generally) is pretty random and full of surprise on playback sometimes, when it stimulates me enough to improve, or orchestrate with the 7-sting electric gtr (twin humbuckers) - I tend to bounce off the written word very much, these days, as mentioned above: where jazz (inclusively) meets other things, in full aspiration.

On writing, with music in mind (1st book: 'Relaxin' at the Red House'under the pen of 'Sunam Manusius' and on Amazon; just finished: 'A Cut Across the Axis', the real-book of jazz-fiction ...), between recording and much composition, I find it all offsets itself quite nicely, really.