My wife Mardeen and I live in Ben Lomond, CA in the Santa Cruz mountains, since 1988. A rhythm bones player since 1982, I got started by playing wooden spoons at the Renaissance Faire in Agoura, CA as a performer with an English Country comedia/dance troupe.
It was there I was introduced to rhythm bones and acquired my first set…a pair of Percy Danforth rhythm bones, although I had little training and knowledge of how to make them work! Once I’d accomplished a triplet with one hand, and matched it with the other, without the nonexistent YouTube, there was little to help me figure out how to do anything other than make an annoying noise, let alone music.
Months later, while attending a dulcimer festival at a mansion in Beverly Hills with a Morris dance team, my wife and I were stunned to come around a corner upon Percy, Danforth, Mr. Bones himself in the flesh, playing incredibly phrased passages to classical music coming from a boombox behind him, matching the music with delicate flourishes in the way only Percy could. We were astonished and fortunate to then get schooled by the master himself. He left an indelible impression on me.
Since that day, my skill and abilities have grown immensely, and I continue to push myself to find different ways to contribute to and enhance the sound of whatever music I am playing with. Mardeen also became a rhythm bones maker, and together we still manage and produce Shooting Star Bones proliferating rhythm bones and rhythm bones players whenever and wherever we can.
Randy’s Media