Free Album: Soul of a Harper (Patreon)

From 2000-2003, I was learning the craft of home recording. Initially, I had a TASCAM 4-Track that recorded on cassette tapes. I made a number of decent sounding recordings that I shared on MP3.com. They mostly served as test recordings for later Brobdingnagian Bards' albums.

After recording Songs of Ireland, our studio engineer, Stuart Lawrence, said to us, "You're tech savy. All you really need are good microphones and you could do what I do at home." 

Andrew began researching home recording. In 2003, we started work on our first home-recorded album, Memories of Middle Earth.

I thought the album sounded good. Sure, there was a severe lack of low end, and Andrew and I had ran into our first creative differences in the whole process. But overall, it was awesome.

I think it was some of those creative differences that inspired me to start work on my first solo album, Soul of a Harper. You see, up until that point, Andrew played the melody instrument. I was just background for his incredible melodies. It worked great for us. But I felt like I wasn't growing as an autohaper.

If you've heard other autoharpers, you'd know that there are a LOT of different styles. Some autoharpers can play a perfect melody without any accompaniment. I wasn't really doing that. My melodies were getting lost to the actual melody instrument. The whole harp-like feel of the autoharp was being lost. I was also trying to get back to being a songwriter while still staying true to my Celtic roots. 

That was what ultimately led me to record my first official solo album.

Getting there was not easy. It's tough inspiring myself to record. In fact, my friend Stacy Dunaway would come over and nap on my couch. She was my inspiration for not procrastinating, or surfing the web. When she was there, I made myself record.

In 2004, I released Soul of a Harper. The album cover that I designed with a photo by Nancy Pearsall won Best Album cover that year in the Austin Music Awards.

I've printed and sold a lot of copies of the album since then. But today, as I was packing for DragonCon, I realized I only have a handful of physical CDs left. Since the streaming music world is running things, I will not reprint the album. So I've decided to send these final copies to my Gold Gunn Runners on Patreon. You get the very last copies of this CD.

And everyone in the Gunn Runners Club gets a digital copy of the album that you can download and listen at your leisure. Look for the ZIP file link and enjoy.

I hope I say this enough. But thank you. Thank you for being a part of my musical journey. Thank you allowing me to be a musician creating music for you.

You are amazing. And I am always grateful for your generosity.

Slainte!

PS. And if you're a Gold Gunn Runner and you would like one of these last 12 albums, please let me know, what name should I autograph them to?