七弦魔剑

Only my guitar-crazy friends can come up with this.... ha ha ha

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More details as follows:

for body, pls use top-of-the-grade Brazilian rosewood for sides and back.
If possible, look into Church-door design for back. Also spruce for top
(as indicated by DIVO), however, use high quality ones like in
close-grinded, prefably have some bear claws would be nice.

As usual, ebony for finger board but use titanium metal for fretting coz
it might hurt DIVO fingers and the insurance will cry. Look at installing
RODGERs' tuners (with snake-wood), no imitation thank you. Body length of
650 mm would be ok.

Having a 20th fret is forthgone conclusion. Else why he buys a 7-string
other than to play and sound like an orchestra? Also, ask Yudi to
construct raised finger-board to facilitate the runs at the 15th to 20th
frets.

Lacquer-finish is acceptable.

He is still considering adding an arm-guard at side (ala arm-rest). Ask
Yudi to throw in guitar-support wrapped in premium leather as DIVO hates
the sit the classical way. Also, throw in life-time free-delivery of
7strings to DIVO residence would be critical in making DIVO commit.

5k is for planning purpose, other cost just add in accordingly. ^^

And for heaven-sake, make the guitar weigh like a M-16 at least.
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POLYCHORDS

Mich was saying stuff about her funny sounding piano parts in "Simple Gifts"(Section C) and that probed me to double check on my transcription and I also did a bit of reading. Well, I've looked through the scores again, I don't think there's a mistake with the notes though. Anyway....

It seems like Copland likes to use "polychords".
What are polychords? Well, basically they are just chords stacked one above another.
Hence, for example, if based on F, we could have a typical stack like this:

F - A - C - E - G - Bb

Looking at the way it is constructed, and also at Copland's scoring, he did not choose to extend his polychords this way. Actually most of the extensions are fine, but just perhaps, E - G - Bb and F - A - C isn't so great since it may sound quite cadential.

Instead, he constructs the stack in G - Bb - D - F - A - C, making it sound like a tonic expansion moving to and fro within chords I, II and IV, major and minor, spaced across the barline in a gallop rhythm.

and there we have COLOUR!