"Torden over Herning" - on Roland SH-2000 and CASIO SA-1

YouTube via organfairy

"This melody was something I made back in 1997 when I lived in Hammerum - a village placed a couple of miles west of Herning near the big sculpture I showed in the "la isla bonita" video (except that the sculpture wasn't build in 1997). The story behind this weird piece of music was that I had just finished repairing an old Grundig TK125 de luxe tape recorder that I had bought at a jumble sale. At the moment I switched it on to test it a thunderstorm broke out and I thought it could be fun to try and record the sound of it. I placed a microphone in the open window and recorded ten minutes of violent summer thunder on tape.

Later I used the best parts of it to make this melody. Some of it is played directly from the tape. Other parts I stored in the Yamaha VSS-30 sampler and played using the keys.

To illustrate the melody I took a walk in the autumn rain in the area where I lived. The places are:

1:43 - the house where the melody was made.
1:53 - Knudmoseværket, the regions power plant
1:57 - the art museum
2:38 - the university and educational area
2:43 - the shopping centre
3:22 - Utzon House

I play the melody on Roland SH-2000 synthesizer and CASIO SA-1 toy keyboard. The bass is played on CASIO SA-3 toy keyboard through a Boss OC-2 octaver, the rhytm is played on Roland CR-1000 drum machine, and the (a bit too loud) strings are played on a Kawai MS-20."