Peaches en Regalia (Frank Zappa)download
Last autumn, I constructed an arrangement of this Zappa tune with the aim of covering as much of the dense, multi-textured content of the original as possible, using just three guitars plus bass and drums. The primary reason was so a bunch of us could play it at the annual UKMG get-together, but once I got started, I realised it'd make a cool recording project as well.
So here we are. I allowed myself a few liberties outside of the live three-guitar arrangement, mainly to give the piece more of a polished feel. There's an extra acoustic part here and there, and I split each guitar part across two tracks each, meaning I could record the various rhythm and lead sounds with different amp and effect settings. To be honest, I'm still thinking of this as a "rough mix". I just wanted to get something working as a starting point, and I'll probably come back and remix soon. Or I'll just have a cup of tea instead...
Big kudos to Andy Aledort, who transcribed the official Hot Rats tab book... without a few clues from that, I perhaps wouldn't have bothered. Andy's transcription is faithful to the (more heavily orchestrated) original, so I made a few adjustments for the three-guitar format. Most parts are included in this Powertab.
Playful Pizzicato (Benjamin Britten)download
The first Collective task of the year involved arranging a classical piece for guitar.
Now, an easy interpretation of that would be to play a classical guitar piece, but I've always had the urge to arrange a string quartet piece for multi-tracked guitars. This cheerful little number (part of Britten's "Simple Symphony", composed using pieces he originally wrote between the ages of 9 and 12) can be performed by either string quartet or string orchestra. The full orchestral version features an extra bass part, so I decided to incorporate that, even though there's only one instance of each part (as in a string quartet).
Ideally, I'd rather record this with acoustic guitars, as they have the necessary dynamic range and sensitivity. The natural compression created by valve amplifiers makes it quite difficult to get a large dynamic range on an electric guitar; it feels like you have to exaggerate everything. I used clean sounds with just a touch of overdrive so that I'd be able to get a tight, clear attack as well as simulating the rasp of aggressive bowing, especially on the cello.
For the first violin and viola, I used my Ibanez RG550 on the neck pickup (I needed the 24th fret for the first violin part) while for the second violin and cello, I used a couple of Strats... for the latter, I used heavy gauge strings tuned a whole tone lower than normal, and with the bottom string detuned an extra tone to C, in order to cover the full cello range. The bass is just bass.
Dreams of the Old Countrydownload
This Collective task involved writing a piece of music around a fixed melody, composed by Collective regular Leandro Fanzone. Although Leandro lives in Argentina, I deliberately tried to avoid any geographical preconceptions about the sound of the melody. My initial improvisations sounded quite jazzy, but I then started to hear more of a Balkan/Klezmer sound... never one to take the most sensible option, I decided to try and shoe-horn both styles into the same piece.
My memory is hazy, but I think I used a Strat (plugged into the Digitech GNX3000) for all guitar parts.