the PATINA project

Patina is a composition commissioned by Tom Sands to serve as a demo piece for all of his guitars.

You can see the first and original video of the piece, recorded on my own Sands, Jupiter (a Model S) below. The full selection of recordings of Patina are below.

This piece aims to showcase the various tonal possibilities of Tom’s guitars in a bite-size way. Everything from bass string response with both flesh and nail, sustaining trebles, punchy chords, louds and softs, warm chords, spacious melodies, fast runs, harmonics - the works. But, above all I wanted it to be a piece of music that could stand alone and describe a bit about mine and Tom’s journeys together. I felt that the subtle swung lilt throughout gave it that feeling of travel and discovery.

And why Patina? Well, it’s a process that Tom often uses in his copper rosettes and inlays - a beautiful effect capable of such a variety of texture, depth, colour and tone. It seemed the perfect metaphor for a piece of music which aims to showcase such variety in the instruments.

004

Spruce over Flamed Koa

Elena

Italian Spruce over Rosewood

Dolores

Moon Spruce over Malaysian Blackwood

Cleo

Swiss Spruce over Cocobolo

Blanca

Adirondack Spruce over European Maple

Pru

Swiss Spruce over Madagascar Rosewood

010

Sitka Spruce over Padouk

Lucky

Lucky Strike Redwood over African Blackwood

Sophia

Adirondack Spruce over ‘The Tree’ Mahogany

Ophelia

Redwood over Maple

Paris

Torrefied Adirondack Spruce over Tasmanian Blackwood

Ruby

Salvaged Redwood over Madagascar Rosewood

Appolonia

Lucky Strike Redwood over Brazilian Rosewood

Holly

Swiss Spruce over Madagascar Rosewood