A Special Season, A Unique Melbourne Wedding with Two Flamenco Latin Spanish Guitarists. OLE!!!

Phoebe and Andrew.

Thank you and both your families for the privilege of allowing us to bring our music to your wedding.

On the 11^th of October, 2012, I received a call from the future bride and groom: Phoebe and Andrew. They had been searching for unique entertainment for their wedding and decided to give me a call. They were looking to create a Spanish theme and ambience for their special occasion and to embellish the day with Spanish Music. We all got together at my home studio and set forth on the adventure of bringing Barcelona to their wedding and to Melbourne.

We agreed that most wedding music offered in Australia was traditional and blunt ( boring) and musicians played in a manner where little emotion was expressed as they consider music to be simply a colour and background to the occasion.

I offered to bring emotion , rhythm and passion with my music.

Guitars can be sweet , groovy, powerful, they have it all. A guitar can be delicate and vigorous at the same time. These are qualities that embrace Flamenco and the Mediterranean culture.

I selected for them songs by: Ketama, Vicente Amigo, Peret, Paco de Lucia, Manuel de Falla, and also pop songs from: Oasis Stevie Wonder, Blur . I showed them how we played them back in Spain . They loved it .

Most of our discussion was focused on what to play at the ceremony and the emotion they sought to be expressed and conveyed . We concluded: Extreme Happiness and Hope.

With that objective in mind , I arranged for them a unique exposition of Canon in G Pachebel by. It grooved and had them dancing up and down the isle. I am very proud that I was able to make them cry and feel their beautiful happiness that was about to be bestowed upon them.

Technical Details

Music was required to be played at the the wedding´s three different areas of catering : The ceremony, the lawn and the reception. The following reflect upon guidelines set forth by may music production services.

Instead of setting up three full amplification systems we only used one and allowed for powered speakers to be installed at each stage significantly reducing production costs.

In order to further reduce cost a portable mackie mixer was used. All guitar eq , reverb , compression settings were memorised for each stage on my programmable Korg A1 UNIT.

Notch filters were applied to reduce feedback and allow a compressed main mix to bombard the stages with maximum dynamics where the guitars could be heard with clarity at a low volume .

Spanish Guitars when amplified will feed back. I like to mic my guitars and if needed I reinforce the direct sound with a piezo electric pickup . Notch filters must be used to eliminate resonances that will cause standing waves to occur, the unwanted feedback.

A careful pre production must be organised to allow fluency in a performance at theses special occasions .

The White Cockatoos

Australia is a unique country for weddings. This particular wedding was staged at an estate in Romsey,VIC where the spectators were also the Australian wildlife.

I am amazed by the volume of the screeching White Cockatoo. I can now confirm that a pair of simultaneous screeches can overpower two guitars and 400 watts of speakers. I wonder if they staged this act on purpose. It did look very well rehearsed.

I am also amazed by the swiftness of the Grampian flies. They loved our music and enjoyed dancing to it in our faces. It does take some time to coordinate fly spanking with chord whacking.

Words for thought. Spanish traditions that you might think of for your future wedding.

The Brides Garter

In Spain Brides give their garters to singles that attend the reception. How they hand them over can be very disturbing.

It is believed that the tradition started around the 14^th century in France where the single men would chase the bride and take it off her. I suppose in order to avoid any unnecessary embracements the bride soon started to take of the garter herself.

Nowadays in Spain the Garter is auctioned at the reception or it is cut in small pieces and offered to guests as a luck token. It is also a custom for the bride to wear two garters. The other one will be removed by her husband when he assumes he may.