It has been a wee bit dead in here lately (calm before the storm?), so I'm going to share my humiliation. j/k...I hope.

Anyway, this was my spring 2006 recital, first semester at school. As a sincere lover of beautiful Norge, I chose In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg, from the Peer Gynt Suite. It's just the melody/theme for solo acoustic guitar, so nothing dynamic. It's actually kinda boring (I'm no fingerpicker!). Maybe someday I'll learn to play something for real on an acoustic. This reflects where my sight-reading abilities were at by the end of the semester. I am working on learning some Balkan and Scandinavian traditional music, but it's still meant for strumming accompaniment and solo melodies...at least when I play it!

Go easy on me...I'm impressionable!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFJwDgwNtmE

Wow I know that tune!!

Youve got it wrong,

Its from the game Manic miner!! I used to love that game on my spectrum 48k (yes thats 48k!! a beast)
with rubber keys. I remember saying it was the best graphical game out at one time.



So you were sites reading, great stuff!! I wish I could do that. I am so lazy!

Thanks for that, plus the added nostalga trip for me there.


Shred

Heres a clip for those who dont believe the magnificence of Manic miner, the graphics and sound track!!!

At one time they were cutting edge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7khL9Ms4ow


Shred

Hehe, I am sure I first heard the Grieg in the context of Bugs Bunny, but that video game, well, that was just wonderfully hypnotic - Thanks for sharing Shredder! (although my all-time favorite is still centipede!).

So be honest BeBop, you picked the Grieg piece because of Bugs Bunny!

;-)

Wow! I've never seen that game before. The graphics kind of remind me of an old favorite of mine: Joust. I think Bugs Bunny probably had more influence on my decision than the game. Actually, Warner Bros. frequently used Morning Wood, the very first movement of the Peer Gynt Suite, in cartoons whenever they would show the sun rising, birds chirping, flowers opening, etc.

I was sight-reading for only about three months at the time I did that. It was my first semester of school and I was only allowed to play where my sight-reading level was at, regardless of what I could play in any other context. My sight-reading is getting better. It's definitely turning me on to so much music other than just rock right now. I'm exploring intense use of the augmented scale in jazz-rock contexts, plus I'm studying film score, Balkan and Scandinavian traditional/folk, and some carnival music.

It's the same with the jazz pieces. I have to learn them from sheet music, namely the Real Book, which can be found in just about every jazz cat's gig bag, at least here in the U.S. Then I get to improvise the solos, which I do without using any rock or blues clichè licks, although I try to keep some of the phrasing bluesy because I'm still in transition; I'll be a jazz cat eventually. I want all of it to influence my playing, even though I'll return to rock frequently because it's what I love at the end of the day. This just helps me diversify.

I am working on learning the entire Peer Gynt Suites I and II, rearranging them to be presented in a rock instrumental format. I'm hoping to have everything lined up by summer/fall 2009 to start presenting "An Evening With Peer Gynt" locally with various area musicians. It'll be fully electric as far as the guitar goes and not so docile like this recital performance (yawn). And I want to mix rock/metal, jazz/fusion, ambient, and even some global music with it, like have horns, strings, and ethnic percussion accompaniment. Treat it like film score.

One thing I'm working on right now is music that people of all (or most) ages in this area would enjoy...more or less. There'd be no rap or hip hop, so that excludes a huge American audience, even in a more rural area like Western Massachusetts. Still, enough people will pay attention in the region if you're playing with jazz, classical, and world themes. Sadly, rock and especially metal are largely swept under the carpet here. That's why I hope to relocate to Europe at some point after I finish school.

I used to play that game on the Speccy too. Oh, memories...

PeSt

Since I never own a little computer back then,( we only had a Nixdorf Computer machine, who weight 110 kg and used 10 min to start up, with no grapic), I change the subject back to Grieg again

Here is a clip from a guitar player named Mads Eriksen playing Grieg : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJKAEm47nnw

I think LeD have done some cd cover for Mads, but I dont know if he have done this one.

Tusen takk! I have three of Mads' cds. He rocks, even when he's playing country. He is kind of the direction I'm trying to move in when he mixes the rock with classical, bits of jazz, and a lot of global music sounds, like Celtic, Scandinavian, Indian, etc. He does that very well. He's diverse. Guitarist Borislav Mitic is like that as well; mixing cultures and styles in an electric rock guitar context.

I believe Mads and Ronni have played together on several occasions, though I'm not sure if those were public or private jams. Pest, know anything about this?

Dude hahaha that game looks super fun
A want to play it !!

BT wrote:

Dude hahaha that game looks super fun A want to play it !!

Well you can...
http://www.xmixdrix.com/manicminer/index.html

Granted the MIDI sounds on Windows are heaps better than the old Speccy's beeps... Great fun.

PeSt