Surf’s up in the hall of the Mountain King

[Mike Neer]

Working on an arrangement of Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt Suite.

The way I play things now has become more important than what I play, especially since the ‘what’ has been predetermined by music written more than a century ago. I am enjoying this glitch in my personal matrix.

https://youtu.be/0GjaanUkkB0?si=vq1qIEq05q6_5SKo

[Barney Roach]

Mike- WONDERFUL sir !!!

I needed this to be 9 minutes and 37 seconds- MINIMUM!

[Per Berner]

Übercool! Almost as brilliant as your Dvorak piece.

[Chuck S. Lettes]

Nice job, Mike. I like how you go into "no man's land" way up high. Cool tone with a bit of "hair."
Happy Thanksgiving,
Chuck

[Bill Groner]

Nice job, Mike. I like how you go into "no man's land" way up high.

Hence the extra fret markers! I was curious the other week about adding extra fret markers, now it makes sense. Nice playing Mike.

[Andy Volk]

Always such a powerful melody because of the repetition and who knew, a perfect surf melody! Well played, Mike.

[Peter Jacobs]

Cowabunga, Mike! Love the tone, the feel, and your amazing intonation. Thanks for sharing this!

[Bill Groner]

Cowabunga..............Peter, you ae showing your age!

[Doug Beaumier]

Very cool, Mike. Love the tone you're getting on this one.

I used to teach this tune to my guitar students back in my teaching days. They all recognized the song... but they didn't know where they had heard it! Most of them associated it with horror films, so I would teach it around Halloween.

[Tim Toberer]

I was pretty much mesmerized watching the precision at which your hands move over the strings. 1875 wow!

[David Knutson]

Very cool, Mike. I've often thought of doing a similar surf treatment with "Sleep Walk", but I'm afraid of getting too much hate mail. Anybody want to give it a shot? Go for it.

[Mike Neer]

Thanks everyone for the nice comments. I really appreciate it.

After having spent a life in music improvising and really never sitting down to physically learn pieces of music (I certainly did mentally though), this is what has become my life goal: presenting music in a way that is natural for me but still loyal to the melodies. I can’t worry about what purists think, but only that it inspires people to enrich their lives with listening to and playing the great music made over centuries: music that has inspired just about every music that we hear today in the west.

My technique has improved much over the past year, especially my intonation. My studies greatly helped that. Also, I decided the time was right for me to play notes above the normal range, and I’ve been working on that. Violins do it, why shouldn’t I? I’ll admit though, intonation is even more crucial up there.

I still have to work myself back up to the live performance level, though. I have lost my ‘chops’ for that and get stricken with kind of an anxiety that I need to conquer. Working on that…..

Ps: the bass part was the most difficult thing for me to play! Streams of steady eighth notes. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before.

[Jim Mckay]

Great accuracy, great sound, great playing.