I asked Stephen (sschedra) if he would look over the guitar chords and offer suggestions, and he not only altered chords, but changed this piece for guitars instead of the higher-pitched Bolivian charangos (mandolin-like instrument.) Please tell us what you think of this update.
Stephen: I worked on the second guitar a bit and made the chords as I would play them in the basic position. I moved the bass down an octave. I eq'ed both guitars and the bass and gave the first guitar a little concert hall reverb to match the pan flutes. All that stuff is just subjective and to taste. I hope I didn't kill an absolutely great song. I think you were doing a traditional folk sound with the charangos and here I am changing it to guitar, sigh. Well, I love this piece (as do all who hear it), so I am just hoping my tweaks give it something that does not take away from its greatness.
Eduard: While my wife and I were travelling back down the coast of California (near Big Sur) from a vacation around New Years, we stopped at a turnout over a cliff, and took a bunch of video of at least 15 California Condors, flying and hanging out on the guard rail, not 15 feet from us! These amazing birds, once almost extinct in the wild, are now being re-introduced on the west coast. When full-grown, they can have a 10-foot wingspan, the largest land-birds in North America. I'm editing the video as we speak (checking with the San Diego Zoo and Ventana Wildlife Society to see if they want the footage.) I have about 15 minutes of amazing video of them in flight, or sunning themselves in the trees, or ambling around looking at the growing crowd of people, who are stopping to look at them in return. I am hoping that despite their apparent lack of fear of people, they remain safe.
I think the guitars, as well as lowering the bass an octave, gives this a more somber tone. Stephen's suggested changes are quite nice, I thought. Thank you for listening and offering comments as this progresses, Andreas! Off to listen to your latest.
Can't wait to see your youtube video too! Is this an actual guitar being played? If you got this sound from GB, I'm really impressed, but then I'm used to being impressed with you. I love the pan flutes and can totally picture the condors here. Thanks Eduard!
Nope, I asked Stephen to either play a real guitar, or show me how badly I messed up the chords... he took m existing "fake charango" MIDI score (and printed score) and changed some chords and re-cast the GB instrument to a lower acoustic guitar sound. I had already put some "strumming" delay in the notes to make it sound like a strummed chord, but that stands out a lot better with his choice of guitar sound I think.
The link to the video is right up there in the song description (http://schwansongs.blogspot.com/)... I'd love to hear your thoughts on the video too! THAT was a magical encounter!
your thoughtful listen is always appreciated, and all the more here, since you are able to get past my attempts at MIDI-scoring the guitar strums, and the music still sounds good? That is a wonderful compliment, and I'm very happy to offer a slice of sublime melody to you. I think Stephen has helped a lot here by moving the bass & guitars down an octave, giving the flutes more space to play in.
OK, so we are getting closer to the pinnacle of goodness... hope I don't run out of air before we get there... I can see Machu Picchu ahead! :-) Thank you for listening YET AGAIN to this and offering your thoughts, Roxylee, you are a great help!
YES ... !! the Touch of a Folkie heart to this !!
sound much more with all the deep guitars sound .
way to go folks you ROCK !!
how I love it ...one of your best Draki ... !
I think there is a "Folk" gene in all of us that goes back to ancient troubadors... it is where we all connect. You are very talented here, but you hear strong folk-backing in this, then I'm improving! I will continue to practice. Thank you for listening and offering your encouragement, my friend.
I like the tango feel and the instrumentation. Nice guitar work as well. Nice rhythms and feel in this piece!
surprised he didn't just play his own guitars, he's pretty good from what I'd heard on his page. This version sounds really good. It has an added warmth to it with the changes.
Well, coming from YOU, that's extremely high praise! Thank you for listening and heading way down south with us! I look forward to learning from his tweaks!
I'm pretty familiar with this genre. Very impressed with Stephen's choices and playing here. Very tasteful. Combined with your work...wonderful stuff, Eduard.
South American style piece, I enjoyed it very much, thank you for sharing it!!!
from another acoustic guitarist I admire, thank you very much for listening and enjoying!
Really nice work here, and an impressive sound quality as well. That guitar - wow! Great results and another fav.
Being from around that area (Peru), I must say you captured the feeling quite well. It's a great performance and I love the Condor images.
together are really amazing, such great species U are!....I like this tune, the combination of andine flute and classic guitar works fantastically and the production quality is also topnoch.
Thank you for listening to the latest update to this... I'm glad you don't mind us two species (big ugly flying things :-) Looks are not everything, after all!
is a beauty. nice tweeking to a great tune... very different feel!
Yes, those seemingly minor changes really gave a different overall feel, but I do like it better, after the initial shock of hearing it sound so different... funny things happen to your brain when you listen to the same piece over and over as you work on it. I was glad to hear a new rendition, a bit mellower and richer sounding.
I think you're right about the lower octave giving the flute more space. The guitars have a wonderful warm sound. I'm thinking now with the extra space, the flute doesn't need to be as loud and in your face. It can easily just float above the guitars if it were a bit softer in the mix. Just a thought.
I think it's great that you're trying all these things with the piece. The video is worth it, and I bet it's been fun.
Yes! I think you are right... I think Stephen didn't want to make too many changes to this, but when I get his changes back, *I can* (bwahaha). I will incorporate his changes, and then see about dropping the pan flutes back a little, per your suggestion. Thank you for listening so carefully, and watching the video too. I have been loving all of it, working on the video editing and the music both!
Glad you dropped in to listen and liked it. Glad to see you posting stuff again!
that's where I wanted to take you, so it was working then! :-) Thanks for stopping in to listen to this evolving piece, and thanks for sharing YOUR epic talents here on Macjams too!
Really a beautifully-rendered and thoughtfully-structured piece. Nice. Nice. Nice.
We loved that trip, and the video and music it inspired in me has been wonderful, especially with all the suggestions and feedback! Thank you for the careful ear and suggestions for extending the guitar part and adding a more definitive cadence before launching back into the repeat... I will do that!
If you have never heard Bolivian folk music, you should poke around and see if you can find some... it is always very deeply moving to me. I tried to re-create it, and Stephen made some great updates here by altering the orchestration from the higher-pitched guitar sound to a lower-pitched one, and dropping the bass down too. I now have ideas for making this even better! Glad you enjoyed it, and thank you for listening and offering great comments, on my music and so many others here too! And for writing great music yourself!
I'm in love with this version, great job you and sschedra did. The guitar is really nice addition to this piece.
Enjoyed it from the start till the end. KUDOS!
Hey Yeman, good to see you again, as always! I agree, Stephen's tweaks by changing this to a lower-register regular guitar sounds even better. I'm refining the piece with each of these suggestions. Glad it kept you interested throughout! It is a short flight, but I hope to extend it some on the next launch.
it really has the spirit of the Andes, imo. Flute and guitar are simply great, but I esppecially liked it when the maracas (they were maracas, weren't they?) came in now and then.
Glad you got into the vibe... the percussion I added was some kind of shaker thingie, I don't remember now what it was, but I chose it to sound like what is often used in the Peruvian/Bolivian music.
Well done. A beautiful stunning peice of music loved everything about it.
well done you guys, a great listen.
Thank you for listening, Dee... and I'm enjoying your musical adventures here too!
the Condors. An excellent piece of music that is performed well and mixed to perfection. I haven't heard the original, so I can't comment on the changes, but to my ears this is just wonderful.
Thanks for the colab and for sharing you efforts. Bravo to both of you.
Well, Stephen did some nice tweaks with the guitar parts to make them like they were played... I hope to incorporate his changes into an updated version that is even longer with a nice little change-up idea supplied by Alfalpha recently... in the mean time, don't forget to check out the video I took of these amazing birds (link in the description.) Thank you for stopping in and enjoying the flight! I shall soar over to your neck of the woods now, Ed!
realised until now that midi guitars/pan pipes could sound so real.
Really enjoyed this listen - the music has a lovely gentleness about it that digs deep into oneself and is very relaxing.
Yes, I am learning a lot about how to de-MIDIfy my music... and writing things that evoke moods. I have a long way to go, but I am glad you stopped in and listened, and mentioned these things, it tells me I'm headed in the right direction! Thank you!
off the truck and hit my head again, or perhaps I slipped into some parallel universe where everything looks the same...but sounds so much different. Dig this South American journey. Thanks for taking me away.
Very well made for this genre. perfectly writed and produced. Thanks for sharing it.
Thank you Amirreza, I am happy that you enjoyed this one. Usually music is hard for me to write, but this one came out very easily, and was fun to write. I like it when that happens!
Thank you Maurice... glad the beat and melody capture your attention, that is my wish. Now to get back to all my other half-finished musical projects!
Essence was what I was shooting for, and Stephen did an awesome job with his guitar on this! Hope you got a chance to peek at the Youtube video that inspired this music too (linked in the description.) That was an extremely memorable experience! Thank you for listening and commenting! I'm certainly enjoying your music too!
It has a very nice romantic feel to it! Nice work here!
Glad you enjoyed it, and I hope you got to read the little write-up in the description about what amazing event inspired it too. Looking forward to your next piece of music!
wanted to make sure this was linked to Maureens version. Very nice and well defined with the guitar here.
and I need to get Maureen's and your wonderful version linked as a collab from my artist page too (along with a few other collabs that I've not gotten on there yet, eek!) Stephen did a sweet job on this one, especially considering this is MIDI-notated guitar too!
What a great tune - you really capture the Peruvian feel, I think. Beautifully produced, too - very clean and bright. One of the good things about being relatively new to MacJams, as I am, is the number of gems to be found in back postings!
Very glad to hear you like the clean lines in this, something I strive for, sometimes with some success. Oh, the back catalog... don't go back there, you'll never be seen again, Macjams has a HUGE library now, I think it is beginning to bend SpaceTime :-) I certainly can no longer escape it's pull. But while I'm here, I really need to pop over and listen to your music in return, thank you for commenting on mine!