Returning Instrumentarium

Sándor Szabó
For the Returning recording sessions, Sándor used only one instrument: a McCollum 12-string baritone guitar.  This instrument was based on the design specs of my invention, the Santa Cruz DKK-12.  Various stringing and tuning scenarios were employed.  For some pieces, the McCollum was strung as a 6-string baritone in Nashville tuning.  For others, it was strung as a 12-string baritone with Sándor's own tunings.

Kevin Kastning
For the Returning recording sessions, my main instrument on most pieces was one which I invented and developed with the Santa Cruz Guitar Company: the Santa Cruz DKK-12 12-string Extended Baritone guitar.  For the entirety of the Returning recording sessions, the DKK-12 was used with new experimental intervallic tunings of my own formulation; I did not use any concert or standard tunings for the DKK-12.

Returning marks the recorded debut of another of my inventions, the double-course Alto guitar in G.  Though the Santa Cruz KK-Alto (which is tuned to A, not G) was not completed in time for the Returning recording sessions, I used my Martin D-12-28 in the same alto tuning in G.

I played the DKK-12 on most tracks, with the exception of:

Over the hills, the clouds seem so distant, which was recorded using the Alto guitar, and

Point of Entry
Returning to a Place We've Never Been
Sialia sialis

 which were recording using the DKK 6-string bass-baritone guitar.

Neither Sándor nor I utilized any standard or concert tunings during the recording of Returning.  We each utilized our own different intervallic tunings which we had created specifically for these recording sessions.  The colors, ranges, and textures produced by these new tunings certainly influenced the compositions we created and recorded for Returning.