{"id":7597,"date":"2019-12-11T15:22:03","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T14:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sergiomessina.com\/fosforo\/?p=7597"},"modified":"2019-12-26T17:09:09","modified_gmt":"2019-12-26T16:09:09","slug":"music-for-uplifting-gormandizers-bolero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sergiomessina.com\/fosforo\/archives\/7597","title":{"rendered":"Music For Uplifting Gormandizers: Bolero"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ravel&#8217;s <em>Bolero<\/em> is one of the most popular classical music pieces. It is indeed a very approachable piece, with a simple AABB structure and two very pleasant melodies. Also it stays in C major throughout, giving it a tension and simplicity that surely contributes to its success. I&#8217;ve been thrilled by the <em>Bolero<\/em> since day one, as a kid. What really enticed me was its structure: same key and tempo throughout with the constant crescendo. I also found the melodies very attractive, the first more sunny and friendly, the second threatening and lascivious. Even then I loved repetition in music.<\/p>\n<p>I made my first <em>Bolero<\/em> in 2000, with the complicity of Maurizio Liguori of TechnoGod in their studio in Bologna. It was a dubby\/d&#8217;n&#8217;b take, still unpublished. I don&#8217;t really like that arrangement anymore, except for one idea which I kept in this new version: shifting the time signature from 3\/4 to 4\/4.<\/p>\n<p>In this version there is another suggestion I&#8217;ve had while listening to Ravel&#8217;s piece: the second theme sounds like it was written for distorted electric guitar. I imagined it being played by two of my favorite guitarists, both very sentimental yet intensely different: Frank Zappa (the most adventurous guitarist I&#8217;ve ever heard) and Robert Fripp (the most soulful yet measured and scientific guitarist there is). So I devised a suitable background for this odd sonic marriage to happen. I&#8217;ve played guitar for most of my life, yet I&#8217;ve never imagined myself as a guitar hero: this is as close as I&#8217;ve ever been. Moreover, I&#8217;ve always felt that the Dobro was a really funky instrument, with or without bottleneck.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/track\/3x03rwGyzy1Kw6KRRWAHC6?si=nAGlup3xSIK8oSXS4gCEoQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Listen on Spotify<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/sergiomessina.bandcamp.com\/track\/bolero\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Buy track on Bandcamp<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/723073039&#038;color=%23ff5500&#038;auto_play=false&#038;hide_related=false&#038;show_comments=true&#038;show_user=true&#038;show_reposts=false&#038;show_teaser=true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ravel&#8217;s Bolero is one of the most popular classical music pieces. It is indeed a very approachable piece, with a simple AABB structure and two very pleasant melodies. Also it stays in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,47,4,225],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergiomessina.com\/fosforo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergiomessina.com\/fosforo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergiomessina.com\/fosforo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergiomessina.com\/fosforo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergiomessina.com\/fosforo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7597"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergiomessina.com\/fosforo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7745,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergiomessina.com\/fosforo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7597\/revisions\/7745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergiomessina.com\/fosforo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergiomessina.com\/fosforo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergiomessina.com\/fosforo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}