My hands hurt. But there is nothing like a little real percussion to liven up a track. A couple of months ago Guitar Center had a sale and I picked up a tamborine, a shaker, and a doumbek. Well, they’ve been sitting around looking pretty but not actually producing sound. However, this weekend I experimented with adding percussion to the track I’ve been working on for the last six months, and boy, does it make a difference. The MIDI-sequenced drum samples sound much better when mixed with a little analog zing, splash and poum.

The downside is that my hands hurt. I’ll give serious props to percussion players from now on. It’s tricky to keep a steady beat, and even more tricky to do it when you’ve got a blister on the inside of your thumb caused by casual tamborine use.