Song written by Newel Kay Brown. Arrangement and performance by Alan Sanderson. Recording assisted by Johann.
Notes
I am involved in efforts to coordinate missionary work among members of the church where I live. This recording was made as background music for a training video to teach local ward missionaries about their duties:
Video by Mike Kelly.
There is a strong tradition of missionary service in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was a great privilege for me to serve a full time mission in England when I was a young adult, and songs like this helped me decide to do this when I was a little kid.
The opening chorus and coda of this arrangement are played on a kalimba that I recently bought at a pawn shop. The other verses are pretty standard old-time country/western arrangements with guitar, banjo, mandolin, and bass. The melody of the last verse is played on a melodica, which sounds enough like a harmonica that it fits in the genre pretty well.
One of the acoustic guitars is in Nashville tuning, which is the first time I have done this. Nashville tuning uses the higher octave strings from a 12-string guitar set, tuned like a regular guitar (E-A-D-G-B-E), except that the lower 4 strings are an octave higher than a normal guitar. The result is a nice bright tone that adds a lot of color to the guitars. Tom sent me a video about this tuning a few weeks ago, and I decided to try it. I will definitely be using it on future recordings. (In fact, I already have! Stay tuned.)
It was a pleasure to collaborate with Mike Kelly on this video. Hopefully it is the first of more videos like it.
Info and Stats
- Production Dates: August 11-18, 2024
- Equipment:
- Interfaces: Behrynger Xenyx 1204USB, Behringer Ultra-DI DI400P
- Instruments: Moozica 36-key chromatic kalimba, Takamine G-330 guitar, Fender Squier SA-100 guitar, Saga Kentucky Mandolin 620, Oscar Schmidt banjo, Hohner Performer37 melodica, Ibanez ASB140 bass
- Microphones: DIY condenser by Michael Willis
- Software:
- Linux Mint 20.2
- Ardour 8.6.0
- Dragonfly Hall Reverb
- x42 plugins: dynamic compressor, parametric equalizer, digital peak limiter
Sanderson 