DESCRIPTION:
Sarabande, composed in 1960 by Francis Poulenc (1899-1963), is not well known but is one of my all time favorite pieces: meditative yet with a smouldering underlying passion and echoes of modal folk music. Poulenc composed Sarabande in 1960 for the French guitarist, Ida Presti, and is the only piece he wrote for guitar. The score bears the marking, "Molto calmo e melaneonico." I played it as calmly as possible after three cups of coffee!

In this recording, I used hybrid mic technique on a Hirade TH90: a tiny Shure condenser mic inside the guitar mixed 50/50 with the Takamine CoolTubes pickup. Not as natural as my KM-184 but it sounds surprisingly good, allows more freedom of movement while performing and barely picks up sounds outside the guitar. I live in an urban environment and normally wait until a quiet time--middle of the night--to record. This video was recorded during late afternoon when downtown Honolulu traffic was raging! The downside is the internal mic is sensitive to light bumps or rubbing my shirt buttons on the guitar.

Video recorded on a Canon 80D cameras and Tascam audio.