Dance Of The Elves

The inspiration for this song came from a cross-country skiing trip my wife Julie and I took when we were first married, in Wisconsin, at a park called John Muir Memorial Park. A friend of ours told us about this beautiful place to cross country ski.

The snow was just OK, but there were places where it was amazing. There was a secluded area in the park where there were thick pine trees with reddish bark, backdropped against the white snow with grey clouds in the sky. In the beauty of that moment I just said to myself, “I bet Elves live here.” I imagined this to be a place where they would sneak out and dance, the Dance of the Elves that would go on and on.

I came up with a rhythmic ostinato guitar pattern in 7/4, that seemed to capture the uniqueness of the Elven dance. The extended harmony chords of the ostinato made this one of jazzier pieces of the album. I layered the guitar part with three different guitars, my Zeidler guitar, the Martin classical guitar, and my Guild guitar with a plug-in called Enigma, which basically gave it some kind of weird sound artifacts. I pictured this as the main group of elves doing an elegant dance together.

I originally recorded the melody on guitar. Again, I used Melodyne to turn the melody into midi. It felt like it needed a more ethereal sound. I found a great harp sample library called Elysium harp, by a company called Sound Iron, the best harp library I have ever heard. Actually I’m a big fan of the harpist Andreas Vollenweider. This was a tipping of the hat to his music. Here's my favorite album Caverna Magica.

I love Joe’s lyrical harp solo which enters in the middle, contrasting the more complex melody and adds another elven soul to the dance.

When Larry and I talked about this song, I told him I wanted him to think like Jack DeJohnette, a famous jazz drummer. How would Jack approach and play in 7/4? Larry’s drumming was so responsive, effortlessly flowing like an improvisatory elven dancer over this intricate time signature.

On the bass parts I used my fretless bass and again used Melodyne to capture the bass part I played and used it to double with a plug-in called Massive, to get the extra big enveloping bass sound.

In the second melody I wanted Joe to be another voice. I envisioned a guitarist using a volume pedal, answering the melody and responding to the drums. As the elves continued in their dance, other elements would come in and join in this elegant flit together.

This is the only song I faded out. I wanted to portray the idea that this dance just kept going and kept developing, and this was in a place that time wasn’t much of a concern, like the world of elves.

The beauty of that environment, of that place, was a great inspiration. So when you hear this song, think of a secluded snowy pine forest of red bark with a white gray sky and these hidden ones sneaking out and doing their timeless dance.

John Muir Memorial Park (dnr.wi.gov/topic/Lands/naturalareas/index.asp?SNA=96)