My elderly mother fell and hurt her hip. My sister and I spend the day in the emergency ward with her and I came to the full realization of how old and frail she was. My compostion approach for Into the Darkeness was mainly "what sounded good. When I get stuck I fall back on some harmony theory to give me some chord options. I was playing Tico Tico with another guitar player at the time hence the modulation from C into A. My other musical inspiration was Bachianas Brasileiras 5 by Villa Lobos. A voice and 8 cello composition that in my mind is one of the greatest songs ever. Check on youtube there are some excellent versions. I recorded the harmony part well before I added the slide part. But I always wanted a cello like part in the song. I ordered a custom magnetic pickup from Lace pickups. I actually talked to Jeff Lace and told him what I wanted and he put a D'Aquisto jazz pickup in his California Acoustic pickup. He said this pickup would sound great with slide guitar through a Fender Deville amp. This pickup was slightly overdriven through a preamp and then into the computer for the recording. The guitar was miked as well. I wanted a really thick cello like sound (although not as deep).
