In Search of Forgotten Names, part 2

Track #10 on handmade, “In Search of Forgotten Names,” was recorded on December 26, 2006.

Unlike many of my other songs, this one is harmonically simple — only one chord!  It’s a Dbm7 modal jazz piece.  Every change you hear is more or less just patterns and texture.

That keyboard sound you hear is my Hammond, actually — rigged up as a MIDI keyboard, playing into a Nord Lead 2X sound module.  The Nord was set to have a synthetic harplike sound, then put through an outboard delay module to give it that “ancient domains of mystery” sound.

The conga part was actually recorded a week earlier (there was a mad rush of things to do around Christmas, so things were sort of spread out a bit here).  I matched the pitches of the conga drums to the key of the song — Ab for the tumba, Db for the conga.  This is a bit higher than I normally tune (G and C), but worked well on this song.