Monday, June 21, 2010

Inside the Abby....


Sitting a half mile off the coast of Normandy, France, the Abby at Mount St. Michel was built over 1,000 years ago.  In 1998 I drove from Paris to Normandy and the small town of Vire to visit my friend Pascal Moru. While I was there Pascal suggested I visit Mt. St. Michel and I spent a day there in late November. Tourist season had past and the town and Abby were mostly empty.  Sitting in the large empty stone hall in the Abby I imagined how wonderful it would be to have a guitar and a small recorder there and to produce something like a cross between a John Fahey record and one of Paul Horn's Inside... albums.

When I came home I recorded this piece on a Martin custom shop 12-string 12-fret slotted headstock dreadnought with ebony fingerboard and rosewood bridge, bone nut, three piece flamed maple back and spruce top using a Neumann U87 studio microphone onto a 2-inch open reel Studer deck.



* Photograph by Australian photographer Fabian Foo

7 comments:

DashingFabrics said...

well,now, that's very nice!

steves said...

Beautiful, Stan. Great photo, too. (Was that a single guitar track, btw?)

Stan Denski said...

Thanks. Just one guitar, but the description is a bit of a goof. Look for posts "acoustic guitar" and you'll find one with a bunch of streaming tracks, the second one if the actual "Abby" track as it was recorded with a 6 string. I had an audio program that had effects, one of which was something called "12 string" that made a 6 string track sound like it was played on a 12. That's what I used for this. I like the original 6 string version better.

steves said...

I found the file, but it wouldn't play or download (ditto your cover of Desolation Row, which I also wanted to check out). What software was that, btw?

Stan Denski said...

I went back and fixed the links for those two - Abby & Des Row - on the Acoustic Guitar post so they will play now. A thing called Div Share... I dunno, it's a computer dealy.

steves said...

They still wouldn't stream for some reason, but I was able to download both tracks. Your cover of Desolation Row was spectacular! I really liked your singing on that, too (but I am curious as to why you went to the V instead of the IV toward the end of each verse). Agree with you about the original Abby as well; although that 12-string effect was quite nice.

I've posted this before, but it bears repeating: It's always a treat to stop by here. After searching on "acoustic guitars" last night, I read your magnificent piece on The Art of the Inlay from 10-08, which I sincerely hope was published in Guitar Player (or some similar publication). Did you take the photos as well? Frankly, I don't understand why you don't get more comments, but I, for one, am truly grateful for the work you do (and the opinions expressed) here. And the tunes, too, of course.

Stan Denski said...

Thanks. I'm trying to do better so far as giving attribution for the photos I use. In the Inlay post they all come from the various links I put in. For the Des Row... I don't know, it's just how I played it that afternoon messing around in a studio. We'd scheduled time for something that didn't work out so we just fooled around - me & bassist. Later a friend overdubbed the other parts, including a pedal steel and electric lead I didn't use. It's more an accidental track than anything.