A Drop in an Ocean: April 2017

Making of Candles and Stone (April 2017)

Often I have an idea of a song/tune before I start but this one just sort of came out mostly in one night and then I refined it the next evening and that was it.

I had been watching one of Howard Goodall's documentaries on Western classical music. I'm a pop-tragic myself so generally I don't listen to much classical music which I tend to find goes like a rambling story with no ending.

However, I am trying to understand it a little more and I have vinyl records of some of the great composers, so I am hoping to open that door a little...anyway...I'm rambling like a story with no ending...Anyway, back to the tune: I have gratefully been able to take time off from work and as is my custom, I crashed and burned when the holidays started. Usually I get sick, which I did again, but this time I unwittingly added a bit of melancholy to the mix.

So, not one to be beaten easily, I spent an evening using music to climb out of it, just jamming on my guitar and recording bits that i might use later. I had an idea just to do a two part guitar piece but before I knew it, it turned into a somber 'ambient' tune which became Candles and Stone.

Here's the nerdy stuff

Webcam lead guitar part for Candles and Stone - so this is me playing the lead part live without edit from beginning to end. I wanted to capture the idea even though it was raw:

Recording

I really wanted to keep it simple, so I used Sonar LE's on board midi keyboard VSTi's. It is really a demo pack but I managed to salvage (what I thought were) some very good sounds The 'orchestral' parts were made using these four Cakewalk sounds:

Midi Keyboard 1 'Mutant Orchestra'