Knockin' On Heaven's Door — our community performance

Two weeks ago I posted a call asking you to play 16 lines — 64 bars — of Bob Dylan's well-known song and, if you felt like it, sing along as well. I wanted to put together another big community play-along video. I was eagerly waiting for your recordings, but a few days before the deadline I started to get a little worried because by 14 March only TWO videos had arrived — Eszter's and Attila's. I recorded my own tracks as well and hoped that the approaching deadline would inspire the rest of you to start strumming. And that is exactly what happened: on 15 March the recordings began arriving, and that evening I started editing them together.

Editing the video was genuinely great fun. I happily dropped the submitted files into the editor, and it was exciting to watch the production gradually come together. I will not keep talking — here is the video. I hope you enjoy it:

Spoiler: please continue reading only after you have watched the video. First of all, I know this was not an easy song to sing. Hats off to everyone — I think you all handled it well, even though everyone approached it a little differently. Although the chord accompaniment is simple, there are so many different versions of the song that it is virtually impossible for everyone to sing it exactly the same way: some people hold the ends of the lines longer, others shorter, some add longer or shorter bends to the melody in different places, and so on. Those differences were clearly audible in the submitted videos, so it would be fair to say that the vocals did not end up completely uniform because of all those individual interpretations. But in my view that adds a wonderful colour to the whole thing, and in several places it even creates spontaneous harmonies.

I wanted to make a production that contained a surprise for everyone. I think I managed that. You may have guessed that two people knew a little more about the plan than everyone else: that is how we got a hauntingly beautiful first verse (thank you, Orsi ) and a flawless, absolutely brilliant guitar solo (thank you, Attila ). But even they did not know about each other, just as those who submitted ukulele videos had no idea there would be a separate vocal introduction, nor why they had been asked to strum through an entire verse without singing. I also recorded a bass-guitar part and added a drum track underneath to make the arrangement as full as possible. That, in short, is the story of how it all came together .

I am very happy that we played together. Thank you: Orsi, Nóri and Anka, Katinka, Viki, Eszter, Gyuri and Attila.

And what will the next song be? I do not know yet .