Common Sense Dancing: Antasia

Like yesterday's My Island, Antasia also started life as a short piece for a KvR monthly competition.

I had had the opening guitar part knocking around as an idea since the mid 90s, I liked it as it was reminiscent of the work of Genesis co-founder, Anthony Phillips. The atmospheric opening section gives way to a more rock tinged second half, which again drew on my love for Ant's work; I had elements of arrangements from the Private Parts And Pieces Vols II and VIII albums in mind with this section. NB 'Antasia' is, of course, a fantasia for.. well, you can work it out ;-)

The violin is by Sarah Sharp, who often performs under the name 'Tsarzi,' and I was thrilled to have Mick Somerset play saxello.
I had hoped to get Ant himself to play harmonium, but sadly that wasn't to be, and is now played on a Mellotron.

See you tomorrow :-)

Common Sense Dancing: Where Shall We Go

The lockdown is in place. Being beyond the limits of one's property is limited to essential food or pharmaceutical shopping, or a single act of exercise; with this in mind, we'll start with the half-hour 'radio play,' Where Shall We Go**.

It's based around the idea of a couple (She and He) going for a circular walk around the Peak District from Eyam via Abney. It's a real walk that they follow that can be found on the Dales Trails website (It's a nice walk, I'd recommend it for 2021!). As they walk they end up talking history about Ordnance Survey maps, telephone boxes, and, coincidentally - plague!

Using a BBC Timeshift documentary, and a few other sources, it was originally intended to be 10-15 minutes, but with wanting to include proper pieces of music and have the talking not be overly didactic, it grew to the near half hour it now takes. There are some music references buried in the exchanges - can you spot them..?

'She' was played by Melanie Crawley. The flute was played by John Hackett, violin by Clare Lindley, and horn/trumpet by Ant Clifford, with backing vocals by Kim Eames. The majority of the sound effects were recorded in and around Eyam, tho' the café doorbell came from Wales..

Get a cup of your favourite brew, maybe a biscuit or two, get comfy, and press play :-)

See you tomorrow!

** No, there's so question mark. I am known among my friends as something of a strict grammarian, but I elected here to flount convention. It's art, dahling, art!