Wistfulness at Wiston
At a recent residential course, the theme was "La Folia" - an old chord progression from Spain which has been used by many classical composers. It doesn't really have any relevance to traditional music, so I composed some tunes myself using the structure. This one is a slowish air. On playing it, I find myself wanting to finish the tune on a high A (5th fret E string).
![[Image: wistf.jpg]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_ESamnVpjI5w/TdogHobmqSI/AAAAAAAAA-Q/A7e0VAF9vcU/s800/wistf.jpg)
Nice melody, and indeed, sounds very wistful!
I agree about the high A to finish.
Nice one, Nigel, and you have definitely whetted my interest in this tune. Chord sequence is very appealing.
Hey Nigel, I prefer the D, or a double stop fretting the D and A.
Cheers, Peter
I enjoyed this, here is my vid, apologies for getting the tune numbers wrong!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwXd0-XR5YM
It's really great to do duets, it's an interesting process, especially trying to line up the video tracks........
Here's my attempt on piano: couldn't resist a little "theme and variations" on the third time through. Although in the end I finished on a very high A, it does end nicely on the F as I did on the first and second times through!
Interesting and very different versions here, Trish and Tosh. Hey, there's a name for a musical duo! The tune really suits many instruments as you two have shown in your postings. The duetting on the mandos works well Tosh and I like the split screen thing your are doing on your videos now. Trish, the piano arrangement brings out the simple beauty of the tune and the chord progressions.
Here is a link to my version, using octave, guitar, piano and the midi cello once again.
Wistfulness at Wiston
(25-05-2011 02:37 PM)John Kelly Wrote: [ -> ]Here is a link to my version, using octave, guitar, piano and the midi cello once again.
Wistfulness at Wiston
Really nice multi-tracking, John. Is this fairly easy to do or is it an acquired art in order to obtain a nice and balanced sound? Only I seem to have acquired a large number of mando duets and it might be a useful exercise for me to try and dual-track some of them. I have Audacity rather than Reaper, but I guess that Reaper is more flexible to handle? Thoughts welcome. Thanks.
Eric
Fantastic versions Trish and John, really loved them. It was great to hear it on the piano, gives a different perspective Trish.
John, great arrangement and I love the Octave, beautifully done. The Power Director 8 is fun, but it's a bit hard on a pc that lacks memory and power. Need a Mac badly..........
Thanks, Tosh.
Eric, the multi-tracking I do is reasonably straightforward. How I usually go about it is to record the melody straight on the first track, then add tracks one at a time while playing back the original melody track, but then you know that from your experiences with Audacity! I have used this great wee program quite often to edit audio files but have not explored it as far as multi-tracking goes, though I have spoken with folks who use it and like it a great deal. For your duetting mandolins it would be very suitable.
When recording via mics (my usual way) headphones are needed to avoid picking up the tracks already played, though with the midi tracks I can just record them while monitoring through my loudspeakers, as the midi goes straight in without the need for any microphone. I find that as I add tracks I often mute any I do not need, keeping the melody unmuted to give me the anchor which holds the others together. By playing back regularly and muting/unmuting individual tracks I can keep an ear on how the tune is developing.
When mixing I adjust the volume levels of each track to get the overall sound I want and also use the pan controls to place the tracks centre or left or right, varying the pan again to suit. Received wisdom is to leave any bass tracks central as bass seems not to have the directionality of the higher frequencies.
I use little in the way of effects other than a bit of reverb on the master track and often some equalisation on individual tracks to bring out or lower certain frequencies. If I have guitar backing I often have one track with open position chords and a second with chords played higher up the neck using a capo. This gives the two tracks more "space" of their own. I always record with no effects so that I have a good dry signal to which can be added selected effects; the dry method ensures that if you do not like the effect after you have listened to it you can remove it again, whereas if you record the track with effects from the start that is what you have from then on.
When mixing it is useful to listen to the tracks both on headphones and on your reference speakers - I have a pair of powered Samson Resolv 40A which are pretty neutral as opposed to many hi-fi speakers which can be tweaked by the makers to enhance bass or treble frequencies. If you burn your tracks to CD or put them on to mp3 players or whatever you will hear quite interestingly different sounds coming from the various systems you play back on!
For the recording I did with Trish's accordion melody of Innisheer, I put her file on as track 1, copied and pasted it at the end of the track to have two verses, then added 4 more tracks: midi cello, midi piano, octave mandolin and a short bouzouki part at the end. I panned the cello left, piano further left and the octave and bouzouki to the right.
I have not delved very far into the more arcane areas of recording but prefer to keep it as simple as possible to leave me some time to play the instruments. Each time I try a bit of recording I learn something new.