The Republic of Heaven

I said last week that when I had a reasonable take I'd put the good Frau's and my first attempt at a folk song up for your listening pleasure. Here it is:

http://www.audiostreet.net/artist.aspx?artistid=4348&mode=music&recordid=60046

The vocals still aren't quite right, mostly because the Frau has one or more frogs living in her throat, but the whole thing is pretty close to what we're after.

Reviews and suggestions are welcome.

A nice song. I suppose that's an awful thing to say but it's true. I like the lyrics. I'm not very good at going "in depth" with music I just knows whats I likes.

Darragh wrote:A nice song. I suppose that's an awful thing to say but it's true. I like the lyrics. I'm not very good at going "in depth" with music I just knows whats I likes.

I should have said - this song is a broadsheet ballad from the late 19th century. It would have been sold in the streets for a penny or so and taken home to play there. That's why the words, melody and accompaniment are so straightforward. There are only five chords, and two of them are sevenths that could easily have been played as majors.

The Frau and I first heard it on a CD by John Kirkpatrick, the virtuoso concertina player. His approach is to go slower than we do and play it as more of a waltz (although our arrangement is still in triple time)

The strummed instrument is an autoharp (played with a thimble). The solo between verses two and three is played on plucked autoharp.

And here was me hoping to hear Peter sing.

abc wrote:And here was me hoping to hear Peter sing.

In the multitracks there exist a couple of takes of me doing just that. I can sing in tune - no problem with that - but, even simply mixed in to the choruses my voice didn't seem to add anything to the performance

According to iTunes I've listened to this 17 times.. It's great, something very pleasant about it.

*listens*

you seem to be on the right track with this, so keep it up. I liked the vocals a lot.

*also listens*

It is not really the kind of music I am into but it sounds good. Keep up the good work.