“My medium would be music, of course. The more precise medium would be the hammer dulcimer. But also as a band, because that’s what I do now, we have marimba and percussion and bass. The bass player is not always with us. He lives out in Ohio, so he’s more of a studio and when-we-tour guy. We’re an all-percussion band. The style? That’s a hard one. I like to just say acoustic rock. We’re kind of a mix between Bela Fleck, Bruce Hornsby, Jake Shimabukuro. But we love the classic rock stuff, especially the odd-meter time signature stuff.
I don’t mean to just say, ‘Hey, my latest project is my greatest work’ kind of thing. I don’t think it’s a pinnacle, but considering everything that has happened this year, I have to say the greatest thing is our newest album. We were able to bring in a mastering engineer from out in LA whose credentials go all the way to Al Schmitt. If you know Al Schmitt at all, his most famous work is Toto IV. Toto is like a huge idol for all of us, so that worked out really well. Then we were also able to put live strings on the album, all the way from Honolulu. We worked with Nate Butler, of course, once again. The bass player had to work remotely. So just financially, logistically, emotionally, and then to bring the product out in such a year as this when everybody’s tight financially, everybody’s scared financially, everybody’s scared physically and mentally. It’s not one of these grand things as far as a highlight, but to us it’s a work of art. We’re just so very proud of it, in a lot of different ways.
As a band, we got to open for Jake Shimabukuro out in Bristol, Tenn., right before the pandemic hit. He was fascinated by what we did. To get that response from somebody we idolize as an artist was pretty huge. That experience was also instrumental in getting the strings on the album.
When the viral video happened, suddenly I’d go to Kroger and people were like, ‘Hey, Ted! Love your music!’ I’d never had that in my life. For the first time, I felt like I had to wear a hat and sunglasses to just go get a loaf of bread. Don’t get me wrong: I kind of ate it up. It was fun.
It’s been fun to see the changes downtown. With the whole emergence of Goshen Brewing Company and Constant Spring, those kinds of places, it’s been fun to see it blossom. It’s been fun to be a part of it.
The last thing that we did was at The Goshen Theater. We recorded the live album. That was phenomenal. They put us on the marquee. We’re airing that Dec. 11 and the 24th. It’s on YouTube. The tickets are pay what you want. You can get them at the website tedyodermusic.com.”
