MP3 Alonso Padron - Cycles
A collection of acoustic guitar/vocal, piano/vocal, and instrumental songs ranging in styles from folk and pop to classical and new age, and ranging in moods from uplifting, meloncholic, wistful, dark, spiritual, and organic.
10 MP3 Songs
FOLK: Folk Pop, EASY LISTENING: Mood Music
Details:
At age 10 I began playing music, starting on piano. I studied piano with an instructor for about a year, studying classical works such as Mozart, Beethoven, and others. Though I made swift progress on the piano, I had become enticed by the sounds of rock and popular music and eventually discontinued studying piano. A few years later, I studied the rudiments of percussion but soon became disinterested in playing only a practice pad. Soon thereafter, a friend showed me a few chords of a song on a guitar, and I was immediately captivated. That summer (1986), our family took trip to Connecticut to visit some family friends. Our friends said that they had an old classical guitar that had been in the closet collecting dust. I told them that I would love to play it, so they got it out for me and I played it for hours and hours during the next two days, playing the same song over and over. I became hooked on guitar from that moment forward and our friends said that I could keep the guitar since I liked it so much.
I studied guitar on my own for a few months, learning songs by ear, then studied guitar for another year with an instructor. After that I studied guitar arduously on my own until 1989. By that time, I wished to foray into other styles of guitar as well. During this time (1986 – 1991) I was attending the University of Georgia. In 1989 I undertook studies in music history, theory, and applied studies. In my studies of music history, we analyzed many works of classical music, which spawned my interest in that genre of music as well. As a result, I undertook my own studies in the classical finger picking guitar style. By 1994 I had written and recorded a rough demo of 5 instrumental finger picking guitar pieces. In 1995 I had continued to write original works and recorded a demo of 5 original rock compositions entitled Shades. Because I like to have a lot of control over my artistic endeavors, I wrote and put the parts together myself for the recordings using a Fostex 4-track recording machine. I wrote parts for drums, bass, guitar, and vocals, and performed everything myself, except for the vocals.
Between 1995-1996, I began recording the beginnings of what was to become the Cycles album. A couple of songs were recorded at that time, and I kept those songs in the vaults while I was involved with other musical endeavors, including playing guitar for a couple of different bands. One of bands was a rock/funk/soul band called the Street Poets. We played various shows throughout the state of Georgia in places such as Athens, Atlanta, and Carollwood. I also recorded lead guitar parts for 5 songs on the band’s 1998 CD release.
After playing with this band for about 9 months I realized I had a desire to be more involved in composing and songwriting, and left the band and formed a duo of Latin/Spanish instrumental guitars called Los Sonidos. We performed a hybrid mix of originals, Latin/Spanish standards, and rock songs adapted to a modern Flamenco style. I played in this duo for a year, performing at various restaurants and private parties.
After a year, my partner in this duo moved out west. By this time it was the year 2000 and I decided to record and produce my own CD of Latin/Spanish instrumental guitar entitled Soledad. On this CD, I recorded three original works and three standards of other composers’ works as I continued playing solo guitar on a regular basis at restaurants, art galleries, and private parties.
Having completed Soledad by the year 2001, I continued to work on the Cycles album project I had began working on back in 1996 and completed Cycles in the year 2006. This album has an array of different musical influences ranging from pop and folk, to new age and classical.