. Some of the longer serving members here may recall 360 days ago a collaboration appeared in the old forums blues room - "The Old Man of the Sea" - a joint venture by myself and HBL.Hans has been VERY busy recently but has managed to squeeze in a proper production job of the video to go with the collaboration. (Some of you may remember an earlier video Hans did with still pictures only). If you care to watch the new video in YouTube you can go 1080HD and full screen.
Some background for those of you who are more recent arrivals or maybe to refresh memories:-
In Feb 2010 HBL posted a backing track and suggested it to me as a good vehicle for a guitar piece. What he wasn't expecting (neither was I) that I should end up posting my first recording where the unfortunate forum members would be exposed to my vocals - it had been around two years since I'd done any singing - I was trying to go for a sort of Rick Wright sound. The music in the first couple of minutes of the video is quite "musique concrete" (aka unmusical), but stick with it and normal tonal service is eventually resumed at around 01:50. I have tried to capture a flavour of maybe the more experimental earlier Floyd in the first part - I couldn't think how else to fit in with the very "orchestral" sounds and musical structure of the BT.
I'm still not sure how the whole thing came into being - it was like forces outwith my control were helping. I would never have considered the BT - particularly as the first part was so outwith my normal musical scope. HBL has a knack of steering things at me that stretch me musically. When I listened to the second more conventional part I was reminded for some reason of a poem by my wife Sandra - given that it must have been at least a year since I'd seen it I don't know how that happened. When I got hold of a copy of the poem and looked at the words while listening to the music, not only did the rhythm of the words fit perfectly but also the whole structure of the verses and instrumental breaks fitted with the BT exactly too. Then when I started to play around with the first part and had to disguise the tune on the BT (re copyright) I tried for the first time ever to use a vocoder fx on my DAW on a BT - almost the first setting I tried came up with a bubbling effect that was so appropriate with the water / sea motif of the song. The key of the BT fitted for my limited vocal range too. Far too many things worked out to be a coincidence - it was like it was meant to be. HBL heard my version - he asked if he could add some guitar to it. I was so pleased by what I was hearing in his early draft suggestions for his guitar part and I saw he was taking the song to a new level - I was more than happy that in the main "song" part of the piece apart from my introductory guitar solo and rhythm guitar in the background all the lead playing became HBLs. He, and his "First Lady" captured the sounds of the sea - quite how a guitar can do this - well he's a damn fine guitar player of course.
I think the poem was wanting to be heard - the words are wonderful.
I must express my huge gratitude to Hans for all his involvement in this project.
rR4_4Rtpp2s
Oh Well - that's the trouble with video, with sound recording no-one can see the wrinkles.
glad you like it a little :)
