Michael Hedges - Spare Change (Guitar, Violin, Hammered Dulcimer)

When I first discovered the music of Michael Hedges, it felt like I had stumbled upon a whole new solar system. A new enviroment with weird, colorful planets, with civilizations both ancient and modern, with things I could have never dreamed of. His music really was (and still is) that different and refreshing. Michael passed away in 1997. I often try to imagine what sort of wild new landscapes he would be painting today. Spare Change is a tune from his album ’Aerial Boundaries’. It has always been one of my favorites. In the original recording, the lead melody was recorded by a guitar and then played backwards onto the recording tape. The result is a melody with a lot of interesting lines and swells which would be nearly impossible to do justice with a guitar (but seems to works well on violin!). Here is my attempt at recreating this tune with 3 instruments and no studio tricks. Hedges fans will notice that the ending of the tune is completely different that the original. I found a few live recordings of the song (with Liz Story doing the lead melody on piano) in which they had developed a whole new outro/bridge. I copied a lot of what they were doing and also added in a little bit of my own color. Thank you to Daniel Wright for sharing some of these precious live recordings with me. If you are insterested in hearing them, please contact. The guitar and hammered dulcimer were played by myself and the 5 string electric violin was recorded by my partner Ariana Nasr. The timelapse was taken from ’s Oratory in Montreal by Sébastien Petit.