eric’s duet
a commission for guitar duet and string quartet
I was commissioned by a client to create this piece, Eric’s Duet - a guitar duo based on original material by the client and his old tutor, the late great Eric Roche. We then collaborated with the wonderful string quartet, Innotet, with whom I’ve worked extensively for the past few years. You can listen to the end result above, but I also thought it might be fun to do something of a mini “composition build thread” should any of you be interested in the development, and how we landed with the finished result.
This project started with the client sending me 15-year-old sketch recordings of both him and Eric improvising around some of the ideas that would become the final piece. They were wonderful recordings - full of ideas and atmosphere - but the overwhelming vibe was it was simply two friends having fun playing guitar together. The other thing that was extremely helpful was the imagery associated with the music - that of a waltz in a ballet, with the dancers interacting with one another being a key element to try and include. Perfect imagery for a guitar duet really!
My first task was to transcribe those initial ideas, and begin playing with the structure. We started with the Guitar One part (top left in the video). This was the part the client was playing in the old recordings, and was the foundation for Eric’s wonderful harmonies. Getting that developed first would give something of a road-map for the composition as a whole. The process involved me recording versions of how I felt the ideas could be strung together and developed into a coherent piece, sending these to the client for feedback, and tweaking over a few versions until we were both happy.
Once we were happy with that Guitar One part, we moved ahead with threading Eric’s Guitar Two part into the mix, with development and extensions here and there to get it working well with our final structure. A similar process ensued with me creating a couple of versions, transcribing and recording them for feedback, before settling on a definitive version. I also tried both steel and nylon strings for this Guitar Two part, just to hear how the two textures sat alongside one another. I’ve always loved the combination of nylon and steel, and that’s ultimately what we decided on. The steel string was provided by my Tom Sands Model S ‘Jupiter’ tuned to Open D, and the nylon by my Fylde Custom Classic in standard.
So, we had a guitar duet! And we were both very happy with how it had come together. But, we weren’t quite finished yet. The client was aware of my work with the Scottish string quartet, Innotet, and decided it would be a wonderful opportunity to expand things with a version featuring strings. It also seemed to work perfectly with the imagery of ballet dancers in a waltz. Of course I was thrilled as I love any excuse to work with those wonderful musicians! Innotet are: Violin I - Seonaid Aitken, Violin II & Arranger - Innes Watson, Viola - Patsy Reid and Cello - Alice Allen.
First step was collaborating with Innes on the string quartet arrangement. The man’s a true magician when it comes to knowing how to get the most of a quartet. After a few tweaks between him and I, we had a final draft of the quartet arrangement. The arrangement took the themes from the guitars, developed them, and painted a beautiful texture in which the guitars could happily swim whilst providing moments for individual musicians to shine. My own thoughts when collaborating with Innotet have always been that the guitars should feel like part of the ensemble, with strings and guitars on an equal footing. We didn’t want the strings to simply be sitting in the background, particularly as the piece already exists as a pure guitar duet. So, as you listen you’ll note parts where the quartet rises to the fore, the guitars rise to the fore, specific musicians have their own moments - and of course a moment where we just have the guitars doing their thing.
So there we have it - a brief insight into the journey of something of a unique collaboration. It started life over 15 years ago as a wonderful jam between student and inspirational tutor and has ended up here as what you’ve just heard. I hope the final result managed to capture that ‘friends having fun playing music together’ vibe which was so apparent in the initial sketches whilst fulfilling the ballet imagery element. It’s been a wonderful project to work on, and I was very grateful for the opportunity. Despite the challenges lockdown presents, it’s lovely that this kind of thing can still happen. At some point I may be able to put up some of the sketch recordings and development recordings via this page so you can hear a bit more of the journey. But, for now - I hope you enjoy!