Stringz that Zingz
Evolution Studio, Tue 17th Sept 2019
I’ve played stringed instruments since I was seven years old, but I’m more of a plucker (a pheasant one, at that) than a bower. My hempen fiddle playing is not on the same planet as the guys we’ve got in the studio today.
Let us now give thanks for all the string players of this world, that kept going until they were excellent. Your ears, & your parents suffered the sawing & scraping of the early years, until you all finally liked what you heard. You are my bloody heroes.
Today, in case you hadn’t twigged, is STRING day.
There’s been a great many hours of painstaking work already conducted by The Two-Piece Orchestra, with regard to arranging my songs & I am quite humbled by what I have heard so far. The aforementioned 2 pieces of that Orchestra are Jane Griffiths on Violins and Violas and Barney Morse-Browne on Cellos.
My use of the plural is intentional… they live up to their name, where many don’t.
Jane has been given Stormy Sky and Lieverd to arrange, with extensive notes about disco strings, for the former, and lush descending classical romanticism, for the latter. I’ve heard what she’s written, and I’m not woooorthy! I can’t wait to hear it when all the layers have been…er, layered.
Barney has been working on the arrangement for Seven Days of Man. The job naturally fell to him, since I wanted the cello to be at the songs heart, along with my Father’s old classical guitar. Barney has a deep understanding of how to convey melancholy & the composure and restraint with which he delivers this, never strays toward sentiment, rather more towards the keening of the timorous human calling out in a landscape full of loss and the dream of redemption. As you may gather, I love his work.
Barney also has Note to Self to wrestle with… it made the cut!
It’s principally 3 never changing chords. That makes it easy, you might think, but nooo, since among the notes given to Barney, there was a requirement: The singer must be gradually consumed, by corruption, so that his voice must strain to compete towards the end. It should be epic, apocalyptic, desolate, but with a flame of hope in its heart. So, It must appear to be in a constant state of descent, therefore it has to recirculate, paradoxically, without ever rising melodically...tricky that. I also mentioned Mahler & Richard Strauss, along with Steve Harley and the Cockney Rebel, singing Somebody Called Me Sebastian, as possible reference points. So, 3 chords yeah? Cue Barney Morse-Browne. Thanks mate.
Update: well I didn’t even mention the song Philomel earlier, but now, despite the brilliance of the whole day up to now, this is the icing on the cake. Philomel is the song closest to my heart, on the album. I asked Jane for “a warm, lulling hammock of strings. An opiated miasma of sound, that caresses you. It must be heavy, slow and sweet...oh and can you make it utterly beautiful Jane?”
Yes, you can. Thanks everyone (plus nobody I know got killed in South Central L.A. Today was a good day). You said it Ice.