Nabucco, Verdi, Va Pensiero (Chorus Of Hebrew Slaves)

In light of current events, namely the release of the new Axe FX II Firmware (16.04.1), I've decided to test the new large spring reverb algorithm on this surf song.

You can hear my guitar right in the middle, the rest sounds a bit wobbly, because I've tried to cancel out the original guitar player with phase/mono and after that stereo widening tricks.

The Lively Ones | Surf Rider

Maria Callas -Casta Diva- - Vicenzo Bellini - Norma, 1957

Nessun Dorma - Luciano Pavarotti Feat. Freddie Mercury

Luciano Pavarotti - La Donna È Mobile (Rigoletto)

Welcome to our version  (experimental )  on Ennio Morricone’s  “Once upon a time in the West (theme)”
We wanted to do an experiment, make a piece in complete free hand (free motion) without metronome, starting to create choirs first to make them sound as realistic as possible, and then create an orchestra around those tracks.

We split up the song in 2 parts, as by hearing the original soundtrack has 2 different rhythms / tempo’s, and we worked on those 2 parts separately, without consulting each other as we normally do by Skype, email  or telephone.

As we all know people hear and experience different things in music, and we just wanted to see how close our creations would come together in the pre-production, when all the tracks were completed,  I cut all the tracks in bits of 1 second, and I allowed myself to make slight changes within parts of 0,125 second on all tracks to make both Matt’s and my instruments sound as smooth as possible, keeping the Ennio’s main theme sound recognizable for everybody, and still give it our own signature at the same time, because we don’t  want to sound like copy-cats.

Most musicians and composers will say that’s impossible, as we also thought so ourselves ( especially as Matt lives in England and I in Holland, so we can’t sit next to each other ), but we did it anyway, another prove that collaborating and creating music together for almost 3 years, makes us a solid team, and we understand each other almost blindly, and I am very proud of Matt what he has accomplished through the years, and honored to work together with him.
Although this may not sound exactly like the soundtrack most of you know it, we hope you will enjoy our version too.

We are planning to do the “final” of Ennio’s composition (which is longer) later this year, with real voices.

Composer:  Ennio Morricone
Arrangement:  John Styles & Matt Baker
Instruments & voices:  Matt baker & John Styles
Producer:  John Styles

All your comments and advices are very much appreciated as always, all the best for now, John Styles & Matt Baker 


John Styles & Matt Baker - Once upon a time in the West

Andrea Bocelli - Con Te Partiro

Nessun Dorma

Puccini -Madame Butterfly

Va Pensiero-[Pavarotti @ Zucchero]

Luciano Pavarotti - Ave Maria

El ave de la noche canta en las sombras de la incredulidad humana, mientras que su miles de ojos observan esperando su presa.

Nessun Dorma - Luciano Pavarotti Feat. Freddie Mercury

nix Sinneslöschen