And now, without further ado, my head still ringing with samba and caipirinhas, I give you “Ohiosong.”
Unfortunately, this is one of those songs that’s really better left unexplained. It’s intentionally vague so that the listener can bring his/her own experiences to it. I will say that it is about certain moments that sometimes color the others around them. Also, if you like, it’s a bit of a bittersweet ode to small, liberal arts colleges in Ohio. Maybe it’s about a certain bright, pearly, indigo color that the sky can become on some nights, when the moon is huge and the clouds all brush the treetops and reflect its silvery hue. Maybe.
It’s really time I found some good way to record the string parts. This song was originally intended to have this great cacophonous outro. Crashing cymbals, flute, oboe, swells of strings, dissonant, colorful, harmonies. But that dream has become something of a white whale. If/when we do a proper recording of this I’ll make this happen though, come hell or high water. Anyway, for now I have the piano playing the violin and cello parts. For what it’s worth, these were written specifically for those instruments. I wanted to make use of some extended technique stuff, like sliding on a single string to evoke the “whining” or “sighing” sounds you sometimes hear on a Chinese Erhu, or even some Appalachian fiddle music.
And I’ve tried finding the right degree of compression to bring out all the warmth and richness of the acoustic instruments used. It’s an irony of recording these days (at least in my experience) that that acoustic warmth is so hard to capture, while digitally it gets easier and easier to fake.
Enjoy! As always, downloading and sharing is enabled and encouraged using the buttons on the player.