ONE LAST PRAYER by Garry Manuel

There was a day I sat down to practice guitar and what often happens is that I get sidetracked by merely playing a couple chords, trying to put some color in the tone or even experiment with a different tuning. In this instance I was in Drop D and just looking for rich sounding chords. After just a couple minutes I was drawn to the two chords that turn out to be the opening of the acoustic guitar part and began lacing the melody into the chord progression. Things came together pretty quickly and then I could hear bagpipes playing the melody in the back of my mind. I mentioned that to my wife and then she said that one of her former colleagues played them.

So, I contacted Hannah and asked if she would be kind enough to play the bagpipes on the tune. She gave me a heads up about the instrument being  in one key. That was easy! The key was the same as I had written the song in. What Hannah told me later was that the bagpipes don’t always hold pitch. In other words, just slapping on my electronic tuner wasn’t going to suffice in playing with this instrument.

I had Hannah record the melody first and then I would tune my guitar to the bagpipes. The other problem was that she had to alter the melody slightly because every note in the melody was not available on the bagpipes.

I tuned as closely as I could to the bagpipes; however, I needed to tune all the strings up, so the tension on the strings was much tougher than I’m used to playing. In hindsight, it would have been better if I had put a capo on the first fret and then slightly adjusted the tuning from there, but that idea only came after I had finished recording the first acoustic guitar.

For me the song provoked images of an open field with the wind creating waves in the tall grasses as it blew across the landscape. I envisioned one standing there making an appeal to God to relieve either themselves or someone they knew of some pressing burden on their life. On a personal level, there were a number of people we knew that were facing extreme health issues and going through very tough challenges.

My hope is that this piece of music speaks to you in a similar fashion and will give you a sense of peace or offer a spiritual connection.

~Garry

Click the link below to listen:

Spotify - One Last Prayer

Apple Music - One Last Prayer

Tidal - One Last Prayer - https://tidal.com/browse/track/342379569