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This little improvisation on an instrument I actually am no master of made me feel “longing for the sea”. Or, as one might put it, “long time no sea” – which is true for me, living in southern Germany far from all oceans. On my search for an illustration I stumbled over an old photograph, taken in Brazil many years ago on a two month’s trip with my wife.
There’s something written on the picture in Portuguese: subir. When I thought of it’s meaning, I suddenly felt it all become much more intense and heading for what I hoped to convey. “Subir” is “ascend”. Look, listen, and feel sense and direction in it.
guitar & gear: no guitar, since it’s kind of a mandolin that looks like an electric guitar. Naturally my son’s favorite tool for his playing the guitar hero – which of course he copied from me.
I don’t want to pick ‘favourites’, but this feels like my favourite so far out of the improvs you’ve done. It has a visual and emotive quality. I envisioned a smiling woman with a scarf riding a bike by the sea – somewhere Mediterranean, or like France … those movies from the sixties, not quite black & white, but the colours are a bit muted and maybe slightly flickering like old film.
this one rivals the one a few posts back. i lived on a bay for awhile, we’d go listen to sea shanty songs in a bar sometimes. this sort of reminds me of that.
to be continued – in this or a similar way…
it’s one of my favorites, too. so glad to have evoked some vivid scenes in some peoples minds (my own included).
Very evocative, indeed. It made me think of my 3 days in Lisbon when I was 19. While your piece ‘subir’ is playing, I imagine myself in a flowing broomstick skirt buying oranges in the open air market, dancing on the beach, the wind catching a long gauzy scarf I hold above my head like a makeshift kite. The sun begins to set.
muito obrigado!