August 5, 2016
I’m old fashioned… my music is old fashioned, the accordion is old fashioned because I like my accordion music just like that.
Though on the radio I listen to pretty much everything (except rap), where my accordion music comes in, it is a reflection of the music that I studied at the conservatory (classical) and what my parents liked and what they listened to. I was exposed to their music from birth and this is the music I play and basically, that means that besides my love of classical music, I like old style traditional folk music from Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), some Latin styles and… well, I hope you get what I am trying to say.
Though I might wander off the beaten path in the future, for now, it is what it is. You have my full permission to love it, hate it or be totally indifferent to it. 🙂
Though every one of my songs has a tiny story behind it, sometimes I will share that story, reason or goal that I wanted to achieve and other times I will just post the song and leave it at that… but that story is always there without fail.
Please, no downloading or stealing! This music belongs to me, I retain all legal ownership and copyrights and I put them here so that you may enjoy my music, but not steal it and certainly not to profit from my works. Don’t make me point my pitbull of a lawyer in your direction about massive funds you now owe me because of your theft… because to protect my works, I have done it successfully in the past and can do it again if needed. This is the only warning I offer.
To listen to a song, click on the small triangle on the left. The track progress shows via the moving bar. To pause or stop the song, click on the triangle again. To listen to a track again, one can either refresh the page and click on the “start” triangle on the song of your choice or you may click and drag the moving bar back to the beginning. At the far right, one sees a small speaker and another movable bar. One can adjust the volume of this track clicking and dragging the bar to the left (to lower volume) or to the right (to increase volume). If the volume is at it’s maximum here and you still cannot get it loud enough, you may need to increase the volume settings on your computer or directly on your speakers.
So far there are only 4 songs on this list… check back in the future, I may add more.
Enjoy.
Song #1 – Guantanamera – Cha-cha I’ve played this song in many forms and many different arrangements over the years, but I think I like this arrangement the best. In trying to keep with the smooth, flowing feeling, I again created a multitrack recording and used the combination of the Elkavox 83 and still new Ketron X4 programmer to give me a nice cha-cha feel. I just find it fun and every time I hear it, I just have to smile!
Song #2 – Mona Lisa – Beguine
My father loved this song and often played it on their stereo in it’s Nat King Cole format. My goal here was to make a song that was smooth and gentle and use an arrangement that took advantage of my Elkavox83 and new (at the time) Ketron X4 programmer for the back-tracks. This is the last song I recorded before my big leaving of music decades ago.
Song #3 – Blue Tango – Tango
I love this song and find it quite beautiful. My Uncle Jerry in particular (my godfather) was a great lover of tangos and I could play one after another all day long and he would never get enough. He always enjoyed when I played this one for him.
Song #4 – Besame Mucho – Beguine (2016-05-15)
I sincerely wasn’t going to record any music until I could get more practice time and improve on my still weak playing skills, but I started by testing how things came out from the new Mackie mixer and got all excited about the results. They were so clean that I was kind of inspired to try to record something… anything… and so I took the easiest song I could find quickly and see what I could do with it using this equipment and software.
The results were technically amazing. The sound quality was excellent, easily the best I had ever done, but the song of itself, the way I played it, was still a weak.
No matter, I am posting it here for posterity as it was the first song that I have recorded in many, many years, so I take it for what it is, a technical exercise to display the results of the recording quality possibilities of my new mixer more than a desire to record a specific song that is a reflection of a song that moves me in some way.