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Song Author Size
10Kmiles.mp3 Traditional. Arranged by Howard Owen. 5922699
Willin.mp3 John David Souther. Arranged by Howard Owen. 5074860

10Kmiles

I've been a guitar player since I was 13 and I don't like to think about how long that's been. 8) All those years I played acoustic six and twelve-string guitar. My favorite instrument is my Martin D-25 six-string which I picked up in 1986. In 2001, I was feeling flush, so I bought myself a Roland VG-88 guitar modeler and a new fender strat, thus bypassing electric guitar and going straight to electronic! I've had hours and hours of bliss exploring the VG-88 and adapting my technique to the Fender's fretboard. Out of all this experimentation, I produced an MP3 of my arrangement and elaboration of an Elizabethan love song called "Turtle Dove". I learned this song from a record my parents had when I was a child. When I checked with them after recording this song, I discovered that my recollection of the melody had been imperfect. My parents didn't remember the tune perfectly either, and neither of us could come up with many lyrics. The following is what I remembered:

  Fare thee well my dear, I must be gone
And leave you for a while
If I will away, I'll come back again
If I go ten thousand miles, my dear
If I go ten thousand miles

I also thought the tune was called "Ten Thousand Miles", after the lyric I remembered. After posting a request for references on this page, I got an email from Adam Morris who pointed me to this link at Digital Traditions. for the song "Turtle Dove". I instantly recognized the first lyric, and also spotted some fragments my parents had been able to offer. The midi files at the site contained a tune reminiscent of what I had come up with, but also different in significant ways. Folk music in action! 8)

The instrument patch in this MP3 is a tweak of the standard VG-88 "12+5" patch. I basically turned it into a six-string patch, and fiddled with the reverb a little. Since this tune is a duet for electronic guitar. I renamed it to "10Kmiles" which nods toward what i had thought was the original title, but gives it a 21st century flavor.

My mp3 is here. It's 5922699 bytes for only 148 seconds of music. I had to encode it at 320K to get something that didn't sound horrible.  I think that was due to the encoder I had available.  I could probably do better now at a lower bandwidth, but I have long since lost the original Cubase tracks in a head crash.

Willin'

More recently still, I got my hands on an EMU 1212M + AudioDock. This DSP/Multi I/O system provides me with better quality ADCs than my Tascam US-428 provided, plus hardware accelerated effects processing. I still use the US-428 as a remote control surface for Cubase VST/32 v5.1. (I haven't upgraded to Steinberg's latest due to cost, and the fact that I haven't exhausted 5.1's capabilities by a long way.) This acquisition spurred me to start recording again. The first result is a version of Willin' by John David Souther The acoustic guitar is my Martin D25-K2 six string. The bass is my Stratocaster + VG-88 virtual guitar. So is the  lead guitar. The organ and drums are from my XP-30 synth.

This song is the ultimate "don't let the bastards get you down" tune. There was a time when I could sing the tag line "weed, whites and wine" with a lot more gusto. But I still relate to the man who keeps doggedly going in spite of weather and age.


Site updated 11/20/04 17:52 PST
author: Howard Owen (hbo@egbok.com )





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