Live Drums, Honey Bees, Recording Studio Music Video

Play drums live. One of the best things about Ritual Escape was playing my fun hand drums. Plus, I used no synchronization, quantization, metronome or click-track in the creation of this music. Any “bad timing” is purely my fault.

Check out the mini-review of this 5-song suite from a friend on BlueSky:

Done! Not what I expected, but not disappointed! This sounds like a mix of several traditional music styles; I can hear something meso-american, north-african and other styles in there. It felt like the songs were getting more modern as it went on. Pretty interesting!Highly recommended!

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— florgoth (@florgoth.bsky.social) July 23, 2025 at 9:51 AM

Hand Drum Heaven

Of course, I was supposed to be working on my folksong album. So, if I’m going to derail myself, it might as well be for some fun with handdrum heaven. It was one of several things that made creating this suite in less than a week such a blast for me.

But the hand drums were wonderful. I especially like my darbuka. The decorative work on the sides is pure art and the sound is like a feather-duster with dynamite side-by-side.

Here is an isolated 12-second extract of the darbuka alone. I think it’s such a cool sound. And it’s so fun to play. (Press the play button to hear this.)

Completely changing the subject, I care about honey bees. I hope you do, too. They need to be protected and deeply cared for. Mostly, they need us — human beings — to leave them alone. They are featured in “Fluff Your Stuff” music video.

(By the way, while I was playing the handdrums for this outdoor video, I was improvising. I made no attempt to synchronize the music with the video.)

Digital Parts

If you’ve been following along, you know that in addition to live instruments like the drums I use virtual instruments. These allow me to expand my sound palette to a degree that I find inspiring and invigorating.

Some of these virtual instruments provide imagery to allow the musician using them to expand their imagination. Ample Sound is a great example of this. Their custom user interfaces demonstrate the vibrations of each particular instrument and articulation.

So, I get to share “Simply Ample” with the Ample Sound instruments playing all through it. It’s quite a mellow track (no drums) and I hope you enjoy it. (Use the playlist at the end of this post to view all three music videos or click the image in this section to view just Simply Ample.)

Drums and Kitchen Sinks

Finally, there’s “Eye C Stuff”. This is the last (and longest) track in the suite. I added a little bit of everything to this video and song. Check it out in the playlist at the top or bottom of this post. I hope you enjoy the music videos!

Fraught with strange titles, the tracks on Ritual Escape have led to a lot of online jokes. I’ll just share one of more tame and G-rated ones.

@florgoth.bsky.social @muz4now.com just be glad "simply ample" isn't the second song on the album. I don't think anyone wants to hear they are simply ample after having their stuff fluffedHashtag SorryNotSorry

— BlowUpRadio.com (@blowupradio.gardenstate.social.ap.brid.gy) July 23, 2025 at 9:37 AM

Here’s the playlist of all three music videos from Ritual Escape. This is the federated (non-commercial) version.