Guitar music from 'The Wind Horse'

'The Wind Horse' is a cassette album I recorded a couple of years ago.
It's now available on CD, for £10 plus the postage. For details, go here.

The Wind Horse is a symbol from Tibetan mythology. It carries on its back the Flaming Jewel, to fulfil the wish to spread good luck and happiness to all living creatures. The symbol is featured on Tibetan prayer flags, such as are seen here. Very often these are placed at strategic points on a journey, such as the top of a mountain pass, to ensure a safe passage for travellers.

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The tunes here are in RealAudio format - RealPlayer required

Pretty Girl Milking A Cow
was written in the 18th century by the Irish harp player Turlough O'Carolan. Despite, or perhaps because of, being blind, O'Carolan was a prolific composer, writing some 3500 tunes in his lifetime, many of which are part of the staple diet of performers of Irish traditional music today. Many, incidentally, were cursed with equally stupid titles. Guitar tuning is E-A-D-G-B-E.

Bloody Big Sunset
was composed while watching the sun set off Land's End in Cornwall, in August of 1993, having drunk a fair bit of cider. The guitar tuning is D-A-D-G-A-D.

Freya
was written for the explorer, Dame Freya Stark, a quite extraordinary lady, who died a few years ago. Guitar tuning E-A-D-G-B-E.

Formerly Known As 'Space'
started as an experiment with a multi-track tape recorder and a volume pedal; to build up a chord by playing different notes of a chord on different tracks of the tape. When I recorded this interpretation of the piece, with singing bowls and rain stick added, it has to be said I wasn't in the best frame of mind - at the time the music reflected a sense of being very lost, reaching out in the darkness for something that may not be there at all. Now, oddly enough, I find it a very comforting and familiar piece, with none of its former implications. Tuning E-A-D-G-B-E.

The Stickleback
was recorded with Adam Bowden (pic) playing the 5-string bass. One section of the tune has a familiar chord sequence that has been used in a very wide range of music: as an example it appears in the Grateful Dead's song 'Friend of the Devil', and in the traditional Irish dance tune 'The Blackberry Blossom'. And, I'm sure, a hundred other tunes as well. Tuning D-G-D-E-G-D.

In October of 1999 I visited a friend, Christian Dech, in Germany, and we composed & recorded some music. Here's one piece, that we called 'Above & Below The Castle'. To see a collection of photographs from that trip, go here.

One of the pieces I've written recently is called Miss Manning Requests.
The tuning I use here is one that's also used by the great English guitarist Martin Carthy, and the Scottish musician and storyteller Robin Williamson: C-G-C-G-C-D

Finally, Very Short Tune
was written after listening to quite a lot of music originally composed by the Irish harpist Turlough O'Carolan. Tuning D-A-D-G-B-E.

I'm also very happy to have here some music by Uwe Christian Dech, my good friend in Germany. Here are four pieces from his CD 'A Night by The Nile', recorded and produced in Egypt in 1996:
I Love Egypt
A Night By The Nile
Temples of Luxor
The Flying Carpet

You can also view the tablature for 'Very Short Tune' here, or as a TablEdit .tef file, here.