Ukrainian Sleigh Ride

The sleighing hasn't begun yet has it?
Good tone on the fiddle David.
Appropriately melancholy in parts.
The sleigh bells may be a little too prominent.
I enjoyed the foreshadowing distant storm.
Cool stuff.
I did note there were no Warren Ellis style rhythmic parts of overdriven passages.
 
The melody is wonderful. Is this an original composition? Google came up with nothing.

I agree with Ray about the sleigh bells. They can set the mood in the 1st verse, but wear on you before halfway through.

So, we just watched Dr Zhivago last weekend with the kids. Great movie and the older kid loved it. (The younger fell asleep) I can easily see this song slipping into the transitions between acts.

Nice to see you back. :)
 
Hi David,

I like this. This is probably my favorite recording of yours I've heard. It just sounds maybe more stripped down and earnest or something.

I agree that the violin tone is nice and the melody is great.

I can see what they're saying about the sleigh bell, but it didn't bother me too much. I wonder what it would sound like if you muted it here and there though?
 
Thanks for commenting, fellers.

Chili said:
The melody is wonderful. Is this an original composition?
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Yes, everything except the first 4 bars. Those 4 bars are from Gilligan's Island, seriously.:D The Cosmonauts land on the island, and they play a jazzy version of that. I'm guessing it's some Russian Nationalistic song, I don't know what it is.

Good calls on the sleighbells. Yeah, they might be a little much. They took a long time to do, surprisingly. I'll either turn them down or try to take them out on a verse or 2.
 
Ha! Yeah, the bells can come in later. Works every time. Just you wait and see. And even after they come in, you can cut bits out. It's like trimming a hedge.

Is that a horse I hear at the beginning? Were you on it at the time?

So, okay the bells are on the horse. But you'll still be able to do the cuts. People will work it out. We did. 2.03, f'rinstance.
 
I had a listen and it kept me engaged until the end. The melody moved nicely in different ways, with various instruments sharing the moods. I too thought that the sleighbells were a bit too much after a while. However, more than the sleighbells, I was hoping the bass would do more. Most of the tune it played one note per bar, and maybe there is potential for it too to have a bigger role. I wasn't all that keen on the horse neigh at the very end, but I did enjoy the interesting transition from traditional instrumentation to a bit of electronic weirdness.
 
gecko zzed said:
I was hoping the bass would do more. Most of the tune it played one note per bar, and maybe there is potential for it too to have a bigger role.
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Hmm, interesting comment, thank you. I was trying for an effect that may not be working as I expected: I was going for "Bolero", with the same pattern in the bass and bells over and over, and only changes in orchestration. But the bass changing up might be needed, I'm glad you caught that and I'll play around with that. Good call.

Thanks again to all for the comments.
 
No, don't change the bass. I noted the Bolero-sque feel of the song without knowing it reflected Bolero. I thought it worked well that way.

Okay, there might some bars where the bass could be more than one note, but the overall feel works!!
 
DavidK said:
Hmm, interesting comment, thank you. I was trying for an effect that may not be working as I expected: I was going for "Bolero", with the same pattern in the bass and bells over and over, and only changes in orchestration. But the bass changing up might be needed, I'm glad you caught that and I'll play around with that. Good call.
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Chili said:
No, don't change the bass. I noted the Bolero-sque feel of the song without knowing it reflected Bolero. I thought it worked well that way.

Okay, there might some bars where the bass could be more than one note, but the overall feel works!!
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I noticed the repetitiveness of the sleighbells and bass, but I didn't get a sense of bolero from the tune. Nor am I naturally averse to rhythmic repetition . . . it features strongly in much of my own material. But in this case, I'm not convinced the piece is all that well suited structurally to a bolero . . . it seems to be much more of a lyrical composition.
 
gecko zzed said:
I noticed the repetitiveness of the sleighbells and bass, but I didn't get a sense of bolero from the tune. Nor am I naturally averse to rhythmic repetition . . . it features strongly in much of my own material. But in this case, I'm not convinced the piece is all that well suited structurally to a bolero . . . it seems to be much more of a lyrical composition.
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I only used Bolero as an example, it's not patterned after it at all. Regardless, I think the solution might be to have the bass moving more in the B sections, to give it a different feel. I don't think there's enough contrast between sections, and a moving bass line might help that.
 
I know what I want. A live violin player. Can you manage that, David? Or have you already managed that in the second section? If so, well done. If not, I'm no fool for not having spotted it. But what makes this work is the bass, yeah. I find nothing wrong with the bass you've got here. Why would you want it a moving bass? You want to move it? But if you've played live on this one, you've blended yourself in better than ever before.
 
dobro said:
I know what I want. A live violin player. Can you manage that, David?
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All the strings on this are real. There are 4 string players: 3 violinists and one cello. Each player did at least 3 tracks in addition to the solos, so the "orchestra" has at least 12 real string parts. This is true for the whole album I'm making, real strings. If there are any synth strings, it's to fill in textures, but this is all real playing. That's a hotshot cellist playing the opening melody.

Almost everything is played "live" , even the sleigh bells. Very little quantizing on any of the tracks, the goal was to get it to sound as realistic as possible.
 
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