BOTM 2013/12 - The Wedding

[saxplorer]

Well, John (gladsaxisme) has passed on the baton to me, for December. So I am very pleased to choose:

The ballad for this month is ....

Abdullah Ibrahim's
The Wedding
​

I think, for me at least, the challenge here will be to find something new to bring to this, and not just end up with a poor approximation of the sublime original.

Chris has as ever, done the hard work here and has prepared some backing and some dots, see dropbox link here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/80gawko5l91uhqx/2l5ULbU1vI
(shout if that doesn't work for you)

The recordings I've heard have been in the form AABCBC where A and B are 8 bar sections and C is a four bar section, and there is no improv.

The sheets Chris has prepared (and the first version of the backing track) follow the form (4bar intro)AABCAABCA to make space for improv.

He also indulged my request for a version which ended with the C section, so the "ver2" version is simply (4bar intro)AABCAABC.

Hoping you all enjoy this relatively simple but very affecting tune, and I'm looking forward to hearing many versions, and wondering how on earth I can possibly do it justice, myself.

 

[trimmy]

Love this tune 🙂

It was down to you that got me listenening to Abdullah when you posted 'Water from an ancient well' got lots of his tunes on my phone now.

 

[MLoosemore]

Interesting... Certainly something different from my viewpoint.

Just got to get my head around all this AABC... Stuff and then see where I go from there 🙂

 

[Dave McLaughlin]

The ballad for this month is ....

Abdullah Ibrahim's
The Wedding
​

Beautiful tune, but why the ridiculous thrashing from speaker to speaker? I find it a really irritating distraction from the music. Maybe it's just me - I find excessive vibrato annoying too.

 

[kevgermany]

Love this. Going to be a real challenge to everyone. The simplicity is deceptive...

 

[Chris]

Love this. Going to be a real challenge to everyone. The simplicity is deceptive...

Does this mean the unimaginable might happen this month😵🙂 Kev..

 

[gladsaxisme]

Thanks Andrew

This is completely new to me and sounds really lovely I'm going to have a lot of fun getting to know it .....John

 

[saxplorer]

*Ding* - December is upon us, let's go!

 

[Young Col]

I love this melody and was fortunate enough to see Abdulah Ibrahim and Ekayah play it live a couple of years ago. I have the dots for alto and the concert key chords and I've been thinking about trying an arrangement for sax sextet, but I don't think I'm up to that! The dropbox links works for me, thanks.
YC

 

[gladsaxisme]

I love this melody and was fortunate enough to see Abdulah Ibrahim and Ekayah play it live a couple of years ago. I have the dots for alto and the concert key chords and I've been thinking about trying an arrangement for sax sextet, but I don't think I'm up to that! The dropbox links works for me, thanks.
YC

Like they say you never know what you can do till you try it ......John

 

[MLoosemore]

Away in London sexless (mistyped SAXLESS) at the moment... Work begins on this one next week.

 

[c9off]

I've been thinking about trying an arrangement for sax sextet.
YC

Fancy a joint venture - I have AATTB chart?.....

 

[gladsaxisme]

Fancy a joint venture - I have AATTB chart?.....

This is getting interesting ....John

 

[gladsaxisme]

This forming a group play thing is something that gypsy and me have talked about at one of our meetings and would be a great advancement to the BOTM formula and might even encourage more players to have a go if it involves a group all working it out together

JUST A THOUGHT .....John

 

[Young Col]

John, thanks for the encouragement. Writing an arrangement almost from scratch would be rather too much of a challenge, but C9off has a quintet in the same key as my part and with the addition of a sop part and some refinements, including a hymn-like plagal cadence at the end, it looks like it could make the basis of a nice arrangement. Thanks Geoff - e-mail reply sent.
YC

 

[saxplorer]

John, thanks for the encouragement. Writing an arrangement almost from scratch would be rather too much of a challenge, but C9off has a quintet in the same key as my part and with the addition of a sop part and some refinements, including a hymn-like plagal cadence at the end, it looks like it could make the basis of a nice arrangement. Thanks Geoff - e-mail reply sent.
YC

That sounds really exciting ... I'm imagining this done (say) in audacity where one can record each part independently as necessary, and by circulating the audacity project, anyone could have a go at playing any of the parts. Just a thought.

 

[rudjarl]

For a lovely pastoral piece like this I thought the soprano would do. Alas, as you will clearly hear, my cheap good for... uhh, very little soprano is not quite in tune. But why care, I'm not much in tune me neither. Anyway, with lots (and lots) of reverb it's amost passable:
http://www.rudjarl.com/music/The Wedding(AABCAABC).mp3

EDIT (2013-12-04):
I've completely forgotten to thank Chris for supplying the backing and dots. I'm sorry bout that. Thank you Chris, you are a gem.

 

[c9off]

great job Rune - really enjoyed that....

 

[gladsaxisme]

Great recording Rune very professional sounding with a lovely tone I really enjoyed it too....John

Ps been having a go at it on sop myself but unfortunately just makes me wish I had a better sop MORE DAMNED GAS

 

[Chris]

Very nice Rune, glad to have you back in the BotM.🙂

Chris.