I wanted to write a majestic piece of music influenced by the country and bluegrass I am rehearsing with my partner in the Fabulous Gary and Kelly Duo. Frankly I am a big fan of Emerson, Lake and Palmer and it was Keith Emerson who first inspired me to start writing music like this. They famously covered Hoedown by Aaron Copland so I am definitely influenced by musicians who are eclectic, experimental and are innovative. Since I was studying reels, pentatonic scales, mandolin technique, country guitar solos and banjo rolls at the time it was fun to put together a piece of music that reflected those efforts. It was definitely fun to see if I could put together a majestic piece based on those elements.
Out in the Country is in the Key of D, tempo is 85 and I used 34 tracks. This included server different type of violin articulations from the PreSonus Presence Software Synthesizer, a banjo synth as well as banjo samples, Sample Tank penny whistle, various type of drums, Modo Bass, and BBC Symphony Orchestra from Spitfire Audio. I also used some ambient samples to includes sounds that you would expect to hear out in the country. Out in the Country was the working title and I almost changed it until I realized that out and in were opposites and it seemed pretty funny to use the two together like that so it stayed. The DAW I used was Studio One 5 pro, my Cyberpower AMD Ryzen 5 gaming machine and my recently acquired Gibson Les Paul Slash model - which is truly an amazing guitar.