Beautiful Arrows

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 22:58:17 +0000

I think Breaking Arrows is, without a doubt, the best thing I have ever been involved with musically. I don't think it's any wonder that it has done so well on Alonetone (243 listens, 38 comments, and 29 favourites in 12 days) because it is a sublime work that I am proud to have been involved with.

Tess' voice sounds so good and the emotion she packs into her vocal complements the sound of the piano so perfectly. My contribution is the piano backing track. It would be lovely if I was actually playing this but I'm nowhere near this level of skill. It's actually sequenced in Ableton Live.

It grew out of an arpeggio I built from a set of chords & listened to for hours and hours, played on the Braunschweig Upright piano. We both liked it wanted to make a song with it so I created an arrangement with an intro and outro that is just the plain block chords and a middle section that arpeggiates them. The main work was in automating the velocity levels to create a sense of flow in the middle section.

The music I have made with Tess as Elusive Gene represents the best of my musical efforts which, left to my own devices tend to be overly focused on experimentation and process and less about being something you want to listen to, something that makes you feel. Often I listen once or twice and then move on. If someone else enjoys it that's great but often their enjoyment is a mystery to me.

This track, on the other hand, I am listening to over and over again.

Curiouser and Curiouser! on elusive-gene

Beautiful Arrows