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I watched the ice come down the river by moonlight, breaking up, grouping, starting again on its journey. A short piece in an unusual tuning, GDgcdg' on a 520mm scale 1/2 size classical guitar.

singer songwriter acoustic folk british guitarist song celtic traditional fingerstyle scottish scotland guitar kelso

David Kilpatrick

Solo singer-songwriter and tunesmith playing British fingerstyle steel and nylon string guitar, and historic instruments. Scots and Irish influences.

I've been writing and playing songs and tunes since teenage years in folk clubs and pubs. I co-organise the Kelso Friday night live music sessions at the Cross Keys (hosted singaround 7.45-10pm) and Cobbles Inn (10-12pm open mic with The Cobbles Band) with the help of many friends. All welcome! Visit us at kelsofolkandlive co uk. It is worth clicking on the tab because the sound quality of my tracks is far higher than the auto player on this page. Many can be streamed or downloaded at 320KBps and the enhancement for solo guitar/voice far exceeds the benefit you get for highly compressed band recordings. My recordings are full dynamic, not compressed. Just select Hi-Fi for the first song, and an MP3 high bitrate window will open - you will still get a sequence of songs. Most of my downloads are free, but some 320KBps tracks are paid-for. These are selected because they make up my main instrumental album. I now have a YouTube page and have started doing some video recordings for fun: @daviddkilpatrick I have mainly played Lowden guitars since 1999. I current play a 1985 S5FN (nylon string), 1986 S22 (jumbo O-size mahogany/cedar), and 1995 S32 (small body rosewood/spruce). I also play my own 1997-built Martin 'kit' Grand Auditorium rosewood/spruce, a Sigma OM-T, Furch Little Jane, Tacoma Papoose, Guild 8-string baritone, Vintage V880 parlour guitar and Gordon Giltrap signature model, a Troubadour mahogany/spruce classical and an Adam Black 12-string. And that's just the guitars... also viola, mandolin, mandola, waldzither, bouzouki, Appalachian dulcimer, low D whistle, keyboards.

Song Info

Genre

Acoustic • Acoustic Guitar

Charts

Peak #22

Peak in subgenre #7

Author

David Kilpatrick

Rights

David Kilpatrick

Uploaded

February 07, 2008

Track Files

MP3

MP3 3.5 MB • 320 kbps • 3:48

Story behind the song

The Romanian HORA luthiery works makes some very beautiful, inexpensive solid mahogany and spruce small size classical guitars intended for young players. They are also entirely suitable for adults! This piece was written on, and for, a 520mm scale 1/2 size Segada SM20 model tuned up to GDgdcg' - a high equivalent of the popular steel string celtic DADGAD tuning. Using a minor theme with a major contrasting B passage, it is a simple ABABA with ornaments and variations. You will probably say 'that doesn't sound like DADGAD at all', and that's part of the beauty of the tuning used on the half-size classical guitar. I wrote the music first, over a period of two or three days, but in performing it for the recording, I have to give a piece a title, and think that it means. This reminded me of walking by moonlight one winter, watching (and hearing) great islands of ice slowly moving down the River Tweed near my house - forming jams, then moving off regularly, then hitting faster water and sailing on, then a deep pool and resting. The variations, and expression, which come into the recording are partly a result of visualising this and remembering the images and sounds of river ice at night in deep winter. The recording is made with a single AKG C2000B condensor microphone placed about 2 feet from the instrument. See www.troubadour.uk.com for info about the small guitars.

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