All instruments and vocals recorded by Olivia Mainville

Sault Ste Marie home recording by Olivia Mainville

me...ref_89

8string test

me… test_1_9_clip

For no particular reason, I've spent months slowly learning Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' (or Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor "Quasi una fantasia" for you fancy cufflink wearing folk) on guitar. It's not a technically difficult song to play, but it took months of repetition to commit the whole thing to memory. This got super tedious, so I decided to set myself further back by reworking it for an 8 string guitar. After many late nights wondering how many more minor triads my sanity could take, I finally got to the point of being able to play the entire song without experiencing too much self hatred for butchering a masterpiece. 

I decided to record it with a guitar I haven't touched in over a year, so of course it wasn't exactly in tune. I was about to tune it up to perfect 440 pitch, then it dawned on me the main thing that has put me off learning classical music; the genre comes with a totally anal obedience to following the rules and doing things the "proper" way. Not to mention you study for 8+ years to join a glorified cover band, but that's another tangent altogether. If my guitar wants to be in a weird tuning, who am I to argue with an inanimate object. Tradition is silly. I decided to go with it. The result is fairly eerie, and after hearing it played in tune a few thousand times, it's kinda refreshing to hear a different take on an overplayed relic.

Moonlight Sonata (8 string guitar variation)

testing my 8 string. Not my best. Not a song.

8 string test

Rudy Perez III