History

There were these text and melody fragments swirling around in my head every time I was cycling ("higher, higher - Whew! That's really steep - getting higher ..."). And so gradually Mountain Stage took shape. Couldn't this be something for the band where I play guitar?

Unfortunately the idea to this song was hard to communicate to the musicians. Too long, to many indigestive time- and harmony changes. Actually there was only one way out: a demo version had to be made!

No sooner said than done. The first version (only drums and bass on the PC) was fun - so much fun that the whole thing took on a life of its own, true to the maxim "if a demo, than at least a good one". After the guitar tracks were done, one big challenge was waiting: the vocals. That I got out of this sensitive issue (I'm really an amateur concerning vocals) is mainly due to Doros nerves and assistance in theory and praxis.

I was pretty anxious if the song would find a way into our repertoire. Regrettably it came to a sudden and unexpected breakup of the band, so a life performance might be a long time in coming.

The song

Mountain Stage pictures, as the title indicates, the climb of a mountain by bicycle. Basically the character of this song follows the emotional state of the protagonists. First with lots of energy, maybe a kind of nervousness ("What have we let ourselves in for?"). Toward the end a pleasant exhaustion, the happiness hormones are in intense activity. Unfortunately from the pass every way goes downhill.

The climb is repeatedly interrupted by little breaks, nice encounters with the local mountain dwellers take place.

The rhythm of the first instrumental part (the challenge) matches to 97.5 percent the breathing and crank turning frequency in steep sections. The pulse thereby rises with the hecticness of the drums.

The song is embedded between two tiny waltz which stand for the beauty and fascination of the mountains.

The film

There is not much to tell about the film, it should be self-explanatory. At any rate it was quite exciting to put all these ideas into action. Especially when Sepp and Zenzi came into life ...