"Black Saturday" (revised)

[Lensor]

Hi All

On Saturday 7th February 2009, I walked out of our local shopping centre to be hit by the hottest blast of wind I can recall. The temperature reached 46.3 degrees Celsius that day, we later heard on the news. I was only metres away from where I had last seen Adrian and Mirabelle Brown’s family of five (the children were Eric (8), Matthew (7) and Brielle (3). Little did I know it at the time, but they would all perish in the flames of Australia's worst ever bushfire within less than three hours. I didn't find out in fact until late in the evening the following Monday and rang my daughter in Morocco at 7.00 a.m. with the terrible news before she got to work or saw it on Facebook. My daughter and her husband had stayed in Adrian’s and Mirabelle’s Kinglake home and they had spent a lot of time together. We knew them too and they were once part of our local community until they had moved into their home in Kinglake, Melbourne.

In various places around the outskirts of Melbourne, 183 people perished in fires on that day. The communities are beginning to rebuild and the flora and fauna are gradually returning (the last part of the tune represents the beginning of this restoration). There are those who will always remember what happened that day. This weekend (Sunday is the anniversary) in Australia, we pause to remember those who lost their lives.

This original tune is my dedication to the memory of the Brown family and the many others that died that day a year ago. The opening part represents sounds from the actual day where, if you listen carefully, you can hear the anxious words of one fire fighter, "Go get your belly, hold it up" (probably referring to belly of the hose). At least that is what it sounds like to me. Those guys are incredibly brave in putting up with the intense heat and risking their lives during the fire season. Many fire fighters are of course, volunteers.

Here is the original piece:

http://www.4shared.com/file/215613816/6 ... urday.html

and here is the re-edited version:

http://www.4shared.com/file/216202139/e ... day_2.html

For those who may be interested in the recording details, I play the guitar and bass parts using a Washburn Falcon and patches from the Roland/Boss GT-3, including a patch to shift the guitar part down an octave to simulate a bass. The tune consists of two guitar parts (same patch) played finger-style with stereo chorus. One of the parts drops out where is a short solo section and the bass part is played throughout. One short section of harmonics was added in later at the end of the piece along with the sounds of restoration. A Behringer U-Control UCA202 was used to record (USB2) on a laptop computer.

Regards
Len

[geronimo7476]

Hi Len, That was Incredible, and a very touching tribute to those unfortnate people and to their families and friends left behind!
A lovely tune with much feeling and so well played.

Cheers CC

[Lensor]

Hi All

Thanks for your kind comments Charles. This song has been hanging around in my head for about a week and it was a bit of a rush to put it together and learn to play it by this weekend. I have decided following comments on another Shadows site and my own re-evaluation of the piece, to re-mix it and make few small changes. It's far from perfect but perhaps an improvement. I might work on it a little more at some stage and maybe add a chorus or bridge or both and re-record it. In the meantime, however, here is the re-edited version:

http://www.4shared.com/file/216202139/e ... day_2.html

Note that I've also edited the first post to include both versions for comparison should anyone want to do this.

Regards
Len