I got an email from Peter yesterday evening.

 

This is what he said, "Hey, I'm very keen to know what you'll be playing at this unclosed Michael gig on Sunday. I'd also like to know how you organise a totally solo tune on the violin. How about a post on this, if you've got time. Sheesh, I'd be very grateful."

Okay Peter but firstly, let me explain to my readers that by 'unclosed Michael gig' you are referring to an 'open mic gig'. An open mic gig is where anyone can come along and sing a couple of songs, read a poem or play some instrumentals. Actually, at this gig everything is acoustic and there are no microphones.

Okay, down to business.

Firstly, as I've mentioned before, I'm playing two of my original tunes - The Accordion Lady and The Immigrants. In 2001 I was walking around the shops one evening in Tauranga. There was a lady busking with an accordion. There were a lot of people walking around and no one seemed to be paying any attention to her or her music. Most of us musicians have experienced this at one time or another. I decided to write a tune about her and sort of immortalize her efforts. Unfortunately, I've only ever played it once before (this year - not the solo version) in public, so her immortalization has been a long time coming. However, I have played this tune, many times at home, over the years. The second tune is a tribute to people who move to another country. When I was at college, I didn't make it into 3P and was put into 3G (3 General), I made a lot of Polish friends whose parents had immigrated to Aotearoa after the second world war. Throughout our lives Shelley and I have had many close friends who started life in another part of the world. One Sri Lankan family even call us their Kiwi parents. My tune salutes these people.

Okay, I've written a lot of 'tunes' over the years, mostly to be played on the double bass. The double bass is tuned (low to high) E A D G. The violin is tuned G D A E. The double bass in tuned in fourths and the violin in fifths. So, all you have to do, to play these double bass tunes on the violin, is play everything back to front!

I'm just going to quickly talk about playing The Accordion Lady this morning.

Okay, the number one thing that people want to hear is the tune. So, I'll start and end with the tune, which is 32 bars long. Though, I'll drop a few chords in too and also maybe start the final tune a bit later. I'll also try to hint at the tune at other times when I'm adding other stuff. I'll be adding chords (mainly double stops) and arpeggios. The chord progression is a bit tricky, so I've been practising it over and over so that, hopefully, I can drop into it naturally to outline where the piece is going.

That's probably enough for now, Peter, but I can answer any questions you have in the comments. 

Thanks for your interest.

Ciao tutti.