Salutations, Awesome Internet Folks!
Happy Tuesday! Continuing with the daily "story behind the song" posts from my new album "Legacy", today's song is number 7 and the only song on the album I didn't write: "Moonlight".
"Moonlight" is my guitar arrangement of Beethoven's "Piano Sonata no. 14 in C#m, 2nd movement", better known as the "Moonlight Sonata". I grew up listening to my parents' classic rock collection on vinyl, but I also listened to a lot of classical music via my grandmother's 8-track and cassette collection. "Moonlight Sonata" has a dreamy, evocative quality that in my opinion sets it apart from the rest of Beethoven's works.
So even though "Moonlight" isn't my own piece, I still had an older version of my arrangement prior to this new version. The old version was a tad heavier on the synthesizers, and my guitar playing on the original version was very "straight", with little variation in my articulation and performance. There were also no drums or bass guitar in my old arrangement.
I had a couple of goals with the new version, aside from just adding in bass & drums. The first was to play with much more feeling and passion, using more interesting articulation techniques like string raking, bends, and vibrato. The second was to record the entire guitar melody in one take, start to finish. I accomplished both goals and I'm quite proud of the result.
Trivia: Beethoven never actually refered to his song as "Moonlight Sonata". This name was coined by a German music critic Ludwig Rellstab, several years after Beethoven's death.
Thanks for reading! See you all tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment