Return, D&D, a Solstice Song

This is a mash up, if you will, of an old song and a new one.  I'll write more about it later.

 Ducks & Drake

Just released for the holiday season.  This is what I am referring to as a fantasia, a bit of a romp around a musical idea, or in this case, more from an inspirational event, in the form of some ducks in a pond.

Last week I picked up a guitar that I have been ignoring for a while, my La Patrie nylon concert acoustic and tuned it to itself and started improvising.  The guitar usually sounds of a different personality from the daily driver I play, a Yamaha NTX, which has a bit of a parlor guitar sound, when it is not amplified.  I hit on some chord progressions that put me very much in mind of the sound of the great Nick Drake.  I love his music, the warm natural sounds that come with stringed instruments playing with other stringed instruments.

Turns out that I had tuned the guitar a half step down from standard but that made it sound so new to me.  I just played for a while and ended up with what I thought was some fun and interesting musical ideas .  I had enough there that I thought I should build a piece on it.

Lately, especially in the mornings, I can hear the ducks down the road in my neighbors pond.  They talk a lot and always sound like they are laughing, maybe telling jokes or busting on each other, or passer's by.  They make me pretty happy.  Their pond was dry for a lot of the summer and Fall this year and they got jailed in a pen to keep them from leaving for wetter territories.  They usually stay here year round.  They didn't sound as happy while the pond was dry, understandable.

Some how the idea of Nick Drake, and ducks and drakes kind of seemed like a good foundation for a new musical piece.

At first I added piano with the idea of creating a fuller sounding seasonal offering, but the piano line soon took over, and with inspiration from Vince Giraldi and Liz Story, and George Winston, and even Bruce Hornsby.  I wouldn't expect anybody else to hear them in this piece but I know I was trying to channel all the great music I have enjoyed from them into what I could awkwardly pound out of the keys.

This time of year used to be very challenging for me what with the short daylight hours and the cold, and more cold to come, but eventually I got to recognize the cheery reality that the Solstice means the sun is on it's way back to the north, back to us here, bringing with it all the promises of Spring and Summer and renewal.  Besides, snow looks so lovely.

When I started teaching myself to play guitar I chose to begin in the DADGAD tuning, for a few reasons.  One, I couldn't make the shapes with my fingers of most of the chords in standard tuning.  Even bar chords where hard, my fingers are made up if digits, not bars.  In this alternate tuning I could play fewer strings and still make sounds that really pleased me.  Secondly, I wanted to compose my own songs rather than play poor covers of songs I knew and loved.  Hearing myself play a cover badly was more discouraging than inspiring to become a better player.  I think I liked the instant gratification of making up a phrase, or entire piece, using fewer strings, and not having it judged against the original, or against people who are technical wizards on the instrument.

Turns out that this inspired me to play often, I mean a lot, I mean all the time, I mean ALL THE TIME! I composed and played and got some facility in my hands.  After a few years and some gained confidence that comes from creating music that I liked, I tuned up to standard and tried to learn the way most people do.

Piano is a bit of a similar story for me.  It is my first favorite musical friend.  I have spent countless hours improvising on about 2 or 3 themes, over decades.  It was enough to keep my interest, but not really enough to play for others.  Eventually simply because of time playing I got better, even played for others occasionally.

This song, this seasonal offering, this celebration of the brightness of the sun on snow, and a half frozen pond and some ducks, can be heard on Youtube, at Bandcamp and on Soundcloud, (links below).  Peace and Happy Solstice and New Year (soon)

BoatShopMusicStudio, Youtube

R A Maldonado on Youtube

richardamaldonado.bandcamp.com/track/ducks-drake

soundcloud.com/ramaldonadobsms-4986569/ducks-and-drake

The actual ducks that inspired the piece are in the artwork. 

artwork, R A Maldonado

original photo image, Elizabeth M Rodgers