An Edinburgh doctor’s music piece has been performed by five Scottish musicians in honour of his late friend and guitar teacher.
Niall Dove, a doctor from Edinburgh first wrote the piece 15 years ago with his friend and guitar teacher Eric Roche.
Niall only recently rediscovered the cassette tape with the music piece recording and decided to dedicate this piece to his friend Eric who passed away.
Niall said: “I was delighted to have the tune resurface and in such a beautiful manner with the team bringing it to life in memory of Eric.”
The doctor commissioned musician Will Mcnicol to bring his musical piece ‘Eric’s Duet’ to life. The piece is a guitar duo based on an original material by the two friends.
Niall and Will, who both worked on the piece together, collaborated with the string quarter Innotet.
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Will Mcnicol wrote about how the project initially started with Niall sending him sketch recordings: “They were wonderful recordings, full of ideas and atmosphere, but the overwhelming vibe was that it was simply two friends having fun playing guitar together.
“The other thing that was extremely helpful was the imagery associated with the music, that of a waltz in a ballet, with the dancers interacting with one another being a key element to try and include.”
Will discussed the initial steps of transcribing the ideas and forming the guitar duet. After this step they both discussed including the Scottish string quartet, Innotet, and decided it would be a “wonderful opportunity to expand things with a version featuring strings”.
Innotet are a four-person group consisting of violinists Seonaid Aitken and Innes Watson, violist Patsy and cellist Alice Allen.
Will added: “First step was collaborating with Innes on the string quartet arrangement. The man’s a true magician when it comes to knowing how to get the most of a quartet.”
The musician and Niall hope the final piece manages to capture that "friends having fun playing music together" feel which was “so apparent in the initial sketches".
The performance is available to watch on Will Mcnicol's Youtube channel.
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