An intriguing Mudcat Music question to start the year off. (I know there are lots, but what the heck).
I was at a party yesterday, and got into a conversation with a teenager who had read Richard Holmes' "Footsteps" (one of the best travel/literature books ever written) and was thinking about spending the summer following his route through the south of France, and goofing around generally in that part of the world. He wanted to take a musical instrument with him that he could backpack, and that he could sing along with. If he got the right instrument, he was prepared to spend the time until June or July learning it enough so as to keep him company. I suggested a 3/4 guitar, but he said that was still too big to lug around -- he was going to travel light. I suggested a harmonica or a tin whistle, but he likes to sing. I vaguely suggested a concertina, but really don't know anything about them. Do Mudcatters have any thoughts about what a good travelling instrument under these constraints that you can tuck away into a knapsack might be? Do you have experience travelling with any small portable anythings that you could share? We have had threads about travelling with guitars, and so on, but this is really about a smaller kind of music maker, I guess. It just struck me as an intriguing question somebody out there must have wrestled with.
yours, Peter T.