Night

"Night" was composed around 2003 along with songs like "Steal The Day Back" 

Originally, it had several sequences and parts that were taken out of the arrangement at a later stage. 

I made four string arrangements for the song. I even recorded it with live strings, but after months (ok, years) of adjustments, I ended up abandoning the live strings for a pretty small string arrangement played on a relatively small sample library. It is only augmented by real strings, here and there. 

The arrangement has a somewhat special structure. The verses are built on a descending chromatic chord structure. At the same time, each sequence challenges this by ascending one half step through the song. 

This made the song quite good for practicing "fingering and intonation techniques" on fretless instruments like strings. (Something I painfully experienced when proofing the arrangement, and while recording the string sections)

It is also excellent at making a "string-racket" at the end of the song.

The song is a 5 minute crescendo. Building up from the first bar until the last, without accelerating in tempo (which was also experimented with extensively).

But it started out, and still is, an electronic production at heart (besides the violins, cellos, upright basses and two electric guitars, that is :0 )

Show me your best smiling cellist picture in the comment field.

March Of The Moors

Originally composed for strings and marching drum, with a high emphasis on cellos.The goal was to make a cinematic score more than anything else.

We discussed how the story should outplay and the goal of the composition was to reflect that story.

The song was composed by me around 1996 in collaboration with Rune Bjørneset: a classically trained piano prodigy. He was the perfect candidate to throw ball with and we made some absolutely insane stuff together. 

We allowed ourselves to go way over the top with everything. First and foremost this included talking and making huge plots around the songs, we discussed the best scene for certain compositions, the best scene and state of mind for improvising and practicing etc.

I remember one time we were allowed to use one of the local venues for recording on a Sunday night when it was closed, we found out that we could get access to the live mixer and other equipment if we climbed through the roof and over a wall into the equipment room. And so we did. 

We borrowed the 40-60 channel mixer, along with microphones and recording equipment, climbing through the roof, recorded all night and climbed back with the gear the next morning.

We recorded the first version of “March Of The Moors” at Audiofarm studios around 1996. With a secondhand Korg Wavestation purchased partly for the occasion.

Since the sample libraries at the time was not all that much, the guitar had to do the job as the leading cellos and violins, resulting in a guitar orchestra more than anything.

We got drummer Geir Arne Ose to play for us in the studio, and I was so impressed by what he came up with that I decided then and there that he would be my drummer in the future, if he liked it or not.

The song was played frequently through Woo's later reformation and usually made the crowd go crazy. 

The release is based on a live show from 2001. Recorded by Erik Valderhaug at Lydkjeller'n AS. Some overdubs have been made on the recording, as I wanted some of the original instrumentation present. There are no other releases of this song  but several versions exist.

There is also a recording with real strings that may be released in the future.

I still love the vibe of this song and its always fun to play it, even after all these years.

View fullsize

Live in Ørsta, 2001 where the released version of "March Of The Moors" was recorded.

View fullsize

The show lasted 2 hours, "March" was played in the second set (shown here)

Flyer

Hi folks!

This is my first blog post!

Im going to post some information about the songs released here. 

If you have any questions or advice, please contact me or post a comment under the blog.

Im going to begin with a song that's been with me for a long time.

Flyer was composed in spring 1995. 

Oh how time flies! Its really mind boggling! 

However, I was playing in an acoustic band called "Woo" at the time.  With members, Bård Kvalsund, Stig Sandbakk and Audun Havåg.  

We never played "Flyer" live with that lineup, but it became an important part of our live shows a couple of years later with a quite different band, but with the same band name : Stig Sandbakk on vocals, Geir Arne Ose on drums and Audun Havåg, bass.

The first studio recording was done at Audiofarm Studios in 1997.

I recorded the released version in  2001. With Geir Arne Ose on drums and Audun Havåg on bass.  

We played the whole arrangement live in the "studio" and then added the vocals on top of it.

Thank you for reading! And I hope you enjoy the song!

Cheers

Geir

View fullsize