Ever since I first started listening to the progressive rock band Yes in my early teens, I've been inspired by the nobility, grandeur, and deeply positive spirituality of their music. In 1999 I started listening to and thinking about their music more seriously. One of those new encounters was a reading of Bill Martin's book Music of Yes, who suggested the idea of Squire Variations as the foundation of extended works for solo electric bass (something like a modern equivalent of the Bach Cello Suites). Martin's suggestion took hold in my brain as a wonderous way to pay homage to the Yes music, and for the last few years I've been working on solo bass arrangements of the following Yes songs (one from each album in what Martin calls their "main sequence"), probably in this order:
So far I've completed "To Be Over", "South Side of the Sky", "Turn of the Century", and "A Venture". I am now working to condense the 80 minutes of "Tales from Topographic Oceans" into a workable suite for solo bass. I am also thinking about including a song from Chris Squire's excellent solo album Fish Out of Water (1975). Naturally I'm saving the best and most difficult for last: "Close to the Edge".
(Fans of Yes music might also be interested in an exploration of And You and I that I wrote some years ago.)
Peter Saint-Andre > Music > Yes