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It is the last day of the Year 2000; outside the Scottish Border hills are deep in snow. I watch the snow falling as I write this piece, and I hope you enjoy it - at any time of year.

singer songwriter acoustic folk british guitarist song celtic traditional fingerstyle scottish scotland guitar kelso

David Kilpatrick

Solo singer-songwriter and tunesmith playing British fingerstyle steel and nylon string guitar, and historic instruments. Scots and Irish influences.

I've been writing and playing songs and tunes since teenage years in folk clubs and pubs. I co-organise the Kelso Friday night live music sessions at the Cross Keys (hosted singaround 7.45-10pm) and Cobbles Inn (10-12pm open mic with The Cobbles Band) with the help of many friends. All welcome! Visit us at kelsofolkandlive co uk. It is worth clicking on the tab because the sound quality of my tracks is far higher than the auto player on this page. Many can be streamed or downloaded at 320KBps and the enhancement for solo guitar/voice far exceeds the benefit you get for highly compressed band recordings. My recordings are full dynamic, not compressed. Just select Hi-Fi for the first song, and an MP3 high bitrate window will open - you will still get a sequence of songs. Most of my downloads are free, but some 320KBps tracks are paid-for. These are selected because they make up my main instrumental album. I now have a YouTube page and have started doing some video recordings for fun: @daviddkilpatrick I have mainly played Lowden guitars since 1999. I current play a 1985 S5FN (nylon string), 1986 S22 (jumbo O-size mahogany/cedar), and 1995 S32 (small body rosewood/spruce). I also play my own 1997-built Martin 'kit' Grand Auditorium rosewood/spruce, a Sigma OM-T, Furch Little Jane, Tacoma Papoose, Guild 8-string baritone, Vintage V880 parlour guitar and Gordon Giltrap signature model, a Troubadour mahogany/spruce classical and an Adam Black 12-string. And that's just the guitars... also viola, mandolin, mandola, waldzither, bouzouki, Appalachian dulcimer, low D whistle, keyboards.

Song Info

Genre

Acoustic • Acoustic Guitar

Charts

Peak #9

Peak in subgenre #4

Author

David Kilpatrick

Rights

David Kilpatrick

Uploaded

February 07, 2008

Track Files

MP3

MP3 5.0 MB • 320 kbps • 5:26

Story behind the song

Over the Christmas holiday in the last year of the Millennium I expected to be out and about, with friends, playing in pub sessions - but this year the snow closed in, and we have all stayed at home. On December 30th, after driving through Teviotdale with the sun striking across the fields of snow, I wanted to write a guitar piece to express what I felt about the frozen, hibernating world under this white blanket. Water was dripping from the eaves outside the window at home. I borrowed a phrase, and not too much more I hope, from Erik Satie; incredible to think that his music is now over a century old, the first real music for the Age of Aquarius. And from then, I let the guitar guide me. I struggled for some time with harmonies and finally decided that a new Savarez G string was just not right. I replaced it with an old D'Addario Composite G and everything fell into place - the Lowden S-25J could be tuned precisely again, and the exact harmonies I wanted were present. I wrote the piece around 11.00pm to midnight, and played it to Shirley before we went to bed. On December 31st, the last day of the century and the Big M, I set up the recording kit (Roland VS-880) with one AKG C1000S condensor mike aimed at the wood, plus the guitar's under-saddle pickup, and made a direct stereo recording. Because of the natural built-up present when playing the piece, I did not stop and re-start when I was unhappy with a phrase, but kept recording for a total of just over 6 minutes, repeating any part which I felt I had fallen short on. Then after transferring to my Mac, the surplus minute of material was removed. I find this is the best way to avoid the wooden phrasing which can result if you do endless retakes in search of a single, perfect recording so early in the life of a newly written tune. I have probably only played the entire piece five or six times before recording it, and in the coming year I know that it will improve and may change slightly; but in the meantime, here it is - a Lullaby for a frozen world.

Song Likes

@heart4god

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Comments 1

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heart4god

Jan 11, 2008

Very nice, peaceful and beautiful. I can only hope & pray the younger generation will come back to simple and beautiful music.
I thought I should add by simple I meant no other instruments, Just the guitar. Now days people use electronics and lots of other instruments. To me this is overkill and people have lost the beauty of simplicity.