Esipova

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Rainmak3r
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Esipova

Post by Rainmak3r »

Hi all,

I just uploaded a short atmospheric track:

https://soundcloud.com/lminiero/esipova

It's a very simple piece, that came out from an improvisation I did with my guitar, and then I slowly enriched it with more sounds. As I wrote in response to a video @psyocean shared, I started thinking about the trip I made to Saint Petersburg more than 10 years ago (almost 15, now that I think about it!), and my visit to the Tikhvin Cemetery there. If you don't know about it, it's a gorgeous cemetery where several important Russian figures are buried, including Tchaikivsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Dostojevski and many more. When there, though, one of the first things I saw was a truly beautiful statue, depicting a sad woman sitting on a grave: this video shows where the statue is, and displays it for quite some time (it's at about 25s). I fell in love with it instantly, and took note of the name of the person buried there, which was Anna Esipova. At the time I didn't know, but googling around it turned out she was a quite famous pianist in the late 19th century, respected by the Greatest as well.

All those memories contributed to shaping the piece as I eventually did. The guitar arpeggio became something the piano would join, and eventually take over. I liked the idea of using dulcimer and celesta as a way to "echo" the arpeggio in the middle, to make it sound a bit more "Russian". All the parts were played, rather than scored: I used Salamander to play the piano, Virtual Playing Orchestra for the celesta, and a free Spitfire Labs VST for the hammered dulcimer. To paint the picture of a visit back to her grave, I decided to also add some ambient sounds, which is a recording I found on FreeSound.org of another cemetery. It's a very simple piece that took me maybe only a couple of days, but apart from some MIDI timing issues I do like how it came out.

Hope you'll enjoy it!
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Re: Esipova

Post by Basslint »

Can't believe it's Salamander piano! :D and thank you for sharing your beautiful story. I think the piece describes it perfectly!
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Re: Esipova

Post by GMaq »

Hi,

Nice demo! Very well composed, arranged and recorded!
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Re: Esipova

Post by folderol »

A lovely restful piece, and great tribute.
The Yoshimi guy {apparently now an 'elderly'}
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Re: Esipova

Post by Rainmak3r »

Basslint wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 7:22 am Can't believe it's Salamander piano! :D and thank you for sharing your beautiful story. I think the piece describes it perfectly!
Can't believe it because it sounds too good or too bad? :mrgreen: It's the SFZ I usually go to, and as a non-piano-player I found it sounds good enough! :lol:
Thanks for listening, I'm glad you liked the piece!
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Re: Esipova

Post by Rainmak3r »

GMaq wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 11:44 pm Hi,

Nice demo! Very well composed, arranged and recorded!
Thanks for the kind words!
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Re: Esipova

Post by Rainmak3r »

folderol wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 7:11 am A lovely restful piece, and great tribute.
Thanks, I really appreciate this!
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Re: Esipova

Post by Kott »

Thank You.
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Re: Esipova

Post by Rainmak3r »

Kott wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 8:38 amThank You.
Thank you for listening!
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Re: Esipova

Post by Basslint »

Rainmak3r wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 8:26 am Can't believe it because it sounds too good or too bad? :mrgreen: It's the SFZ I usually go to, and as a non-piano-player I found it sounds good enough! :lol:
Thanks for listening, I'm glad you liked the piece!
Because it sounds very good, of course :D
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Re: Esipova

Post by Tenaba »

Really nice choice of instrumentation. The 12-string guitar pops out well. Most of all though, I like the chord choices. I wish I knew enough music theory to be able to name them and try them out myself :D

I make music as Tenaba! Bandcamp

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Re: Esipova

Post by Rainmak3r »

Tenaba wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 11:34 pm Really nice choice of instrumentation. The 12-string guitar pops out well. Most of all though, I like the chord choices. I wish I knew enough music theory to be able to name them and try them out myself :D
I have to admit I don't know enough theory or which chords I played either :mrgreen:
It all came from improvisation, around the open E string. I wrote down a tablature for the arpeggio with Lilypond:

Image

I'll have to study myself to understand which chords I played :lol:
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Re: Esipova

Post by milo »

This is lovely! I listened several times and enjoyed it greatly. As you said, there are some minor timing issues, although I thought it was more on the guitar side than the midi (the guitar seems to come in a few ms too late, but the midi instruments seems always to come in roght when I expect them).

You have convinced me to finally try Salamander. I'm working on a project with a lot of piano right now, and I'm sick of Ardour's midi synth piano.
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Re: Esipova

Post by Rainmak3r »

milo wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 11:05 am This is lovely! I listened several times and enjoyed it greatly. As you said, there are some minor timing issues, although I thought it was more on the guitar side than the midi (the guitar seems to come in a few ms too late, but the midi instruments seems always to come in roght when I expect them).

You have convinced me to finally try Salamander. I'm working on a project with a lot of piano right now, and I'm sick of Ardour's midi synth piano.
Thanks for listening, and glad you liked it! I actually recorded all guitars first, and then played the MIDI parts: I guess that, since I followed the metronome for both, I may have been sloppier with the guitar. Next time I should forget about the metronome altogether (especially in a simpler track like this) and let instruments match each other.
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