Steve Hackett - A Craddle Of Swans
Being a long term pre-75 Genesis addict, Steve Hackett was an obvious reference in my evolution as amateur guitarrist. He is one of my favourite guitar player-composers, and I find a great part of his music truly inspiring.
Many years ago I learned this little gem by ear, from a cassete tape. In that time I ventured to put it to notation (it was too complex to use my personal combination of chord+tab+numbering notes). It rested in a small music notebook in the bottom of a pile for years. Altough i kept playing it by heart (for decades, now!), somehow only recently i rediscovered that old handwritten score. So I decided to revise it a bit, to put it in a more "presentable" form, and to share it.
It is as I learned it, back in the 80's - probably not exactly as he performed it, but that's how i play it. The writing is certainly not flawless, but i hope it is not so bad either. Sugestions are welcome...
It is a romantic-style piece, it should be performed with dinamic changes and expression. The tremolo part is not read by musecore, but if you'll find it useful you can refer to the original Steve Hackett's recording (in the 1981's "Cured" album).
Enjoy!
Manel Sacadura
| Attachment | Size |
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| A Craddle Of Swans.mscz | 9.31 KB |
Comments
i can see why you enjoy this piece. it is both harmonically and rhythmically satisfying. melody has a nice air to it, too. not too far off pentatonic, which is my flavor of the month currently.
i'd love to watch you play this, as i can't figure for the life me how you can get a tremolo going at the same time as quarter notes are moving around underneath it. are those notes hammered, or? i don't know much about guitar. i'm a piano man, if you'll forgive the song-that's-been-karaoked-to-death reference.
have an excellent day.
In reply to pieces by genesis_piano
hi genesis_piano
thank you for your comment, i see we have some convergence in musical taste, and appreciated your feeback.
I'll be happy to video it as soon as i can - just don't expect a virtuoso performance, i'm just an self-taught amateur without formal training. I had some piano lessons as a small kid, but for my later regret I gave up too soon (got only as far as 2nd degree) . My humble notation habilities come from that.
Aniway, i feel maybe you could be mistaking "tremolo" for "vibrato". I got this definition from wikipedia:
(...) "Tremolo is also well known classical guitar technique that involves using the thumb to play single bass notes concurrent with, or directly followed by rapid repetition of a higher note played by two (the middle and index) or three (the ring, middle and index) fingers. Francisco Tárrega notably used this technique in his famous composition Recuerdos de la Alhambra" (...)
All the best.
always good to find someone else who likes the music i do. this being a nice offset to the myriad of bands my gf loves that i like about as much as an elephant likes the circus.
i was picturing tremolo correctly, i just have never seen it done on guitar so i had no idea it could be done. how did i get to be a 40-year-old never having seen that? i don't know.
Hi Manel, this is a terrific find for me. I found Steve Hackett's and early Genesis music (which I love like you do) some 10 years after they recorded them, and am a Hackett fan to this day. Not able to afford buying a guitar I later started with a version of "Blood on the rooftops" (the guitar intro). The LP "Cured" was in my view one of the very few I personally did not find Hackett's best, (with "highly strung") - but I bought it at the time, counting the pennies, because of the very "a cradle of swans" you tabbed!
I am happy you posted this, and will listen to it tonight, and most probably start to play it. A big big thank you! Surely you own or know the guitar solo records, bay of kings and momentum - as they came out I was in my first Hackett live concert^^.
It was a great concert. Days before I had seen guitarist Jan Akkerman (who also has some incredibly beautiful guitar songs, a mixture of Jazz, classical and Rock) playing for 3 hours, and Hackett played 1 hour and was tired. Still - it is not about how long one played^^. Both concerts are unforgettable to this day.
Again, a big thanks!
In reply to Hi Manel, this is a terrific… by Klemperer85
MuseScore 3(.6.2) detects that score to be corrupt (it was written wirth MuseScore 1.0, which wasn't capable of detecting this):
Measure 10, staff 1 incomplete. Expected: 4/4; Found: 12/8
Measure 14, staff 1 incomplete. Expected: 4/4; Found: 12/8
Measure 38, staff 1, voice 2 too long. Expected: 4/4; Found: 10/8
Measure 71, staff 1 incomplete. Expected: 4/4; Found: 12/8
Fixed score attached