Tag: watercolor

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Creekside

“Creekside” (“My first concertina piece!”) composed, performed and recorded with guitar and concertina on separate tracks by Sanford. R. Bender on July 31, 2021
“Creekside” painted and drawn with watercolor and colored pencil by Sanford R. Bender a while ago

I just bought a 40-button “Anglo” concertina a week ago. Wind instruments operated with bellows and their “old world” sound had intrigued me for quite a while. I was also fascinated by the difference of this instrument from the harmonica and clarinet where I have to rely on breathing and embouchure. Producing the joyful or wistful sound of a concertina would however, require the dexterity and theoretical understanding of pressing buttons on each side while pulling and pushing the bellows in rhythmic time. The painting “Creekside”, seemed appropriate to the music in its depiction of a meandering stream flowing through its carved channel of forested and stone armored embankment.

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Not from where I came

“Not from where I came” was painted with watercolor and gouache by Sanford Bender in 1985.

I played banjo more than guitar for a while since I especially enjoyed its mirthful and spontaneous independence. This instrument could provide enlightened commentaries on the most tragic and haunting occurrences of lost love, betrayal, revenge, murder, and perhaps even evoke valor and the emergence of integrity.

“Not from where I came” was played and recorded on May 5, 2021 with one track of acoustic guitar with metal slide, and then improvised over with a second track of five-string banjo.

This music for guitar with slide and five-string banjo is reminiscent of traditional ballads travelling from place to place like fairy tales with subtly changing variations over a common theme; only to alight into my own imagination as another powerful resource fueling my creativity.