This short documentary was put together by a group of student filmmakers. From the Vimeo post of the video:
“A glance into the life of Luis Schmied, an Argentinean banker whose true passion has always been music and happens to be a very talented maker of handcrafted cigar box guitars. He shares what sparked his curiosity for this peculiar hobby, his technique to make each instrument unique, and the emotion he gets by peoples’ response to his craft.”
In this documentary, which is currently running on the local TV station in York, PA, Shane Speal and Ben “C. B. Gitty” Baker explore the secrets of the York Steam Whistle Christmas Concert – the last of its kind in the world. This steam whistle concert has been going on since the early days of the 1900’s, and the current whistlemaster has been at his post performing the concert every Christmas Eve for the past 60 years.
While Shane explores the story of the steam whsitle concert, Gitty builds a 116db pneumatic slide whistle from and old bicycle pump which Shane later plays onstage at a live concert. Along the way, Shane and Gitty discover and play an amazing forgotten instrument known as a “horse fiddle”, and they manage to get all giddy schoolboy-excited over crazy homemade instruments. Shane even performs an original song “Chasing Steam” on his cigar box guitar.
The Chasing Steam documentary starts around the 14 minute mark; the portion of the show before that features a poetry reading of a forgotten female poet from York, PA, with Shane playing in the background.
