The Oribe Fandango
This composition is for my cherished Oribe Redwood Guitar for all of our extraordinary emotional adventures. When I went to college, I couldn't read music, knew nothing about the classical repertoire and had only heard one person play a classical song, once. I was a rocker and Chet Atkins style lead guitarist who had bands. I auditioned with Chet's arrangement of the Beatles "Yesterday" and the school was new and desperate for bodies so they let me in on probation. The guitar instructor told me not to bring my electric and handed me his priceless Ramirez. I was also told not to bother touching my left hand to the instrument as the right hand was a major disaster area. It seemed everyone had these brilliant guitars, Fleta, Hauser but the most esteemed of them all was the Oribe. Oribe had done the impossible and become world class within an incredibly short period of time, often it takes generations.
I knew that an Oribe would be my instrument, but they were $1000 at the time and I was of course an incredibly poor starving student. I did take the bus to Tijuana and bought a nylon string classic guitar for $12 dollars which meant I was really starving. I worked so hard and was so determined to succeed but I needed inspiration. So I would imagine that instead of playing a 12 dollar guitar, I was playing an ORIBE with a redwood top but mine was special because it had wooden tuning pegs like a violin. I have a very vivid imagination so this worked; I did this 10 hours every day except the weekend when I did more. Three years later I found out that Oribe had been building my special guitar, as if he knew my thoughts as I was imagining my perfect instrumet with all my might. My senior year at college, I bought the guitar just days before my recital for my Bachelor's degree. Then the door to college closed and my Oribe and I were on our own. I have had so many extreme emotional journeys with this guitar, the depth and richness of our relationship has been rewarding beyond words. And then one day recently, after 40 years with this guitar and a particularly specacular evening of music making, a terrible thought crept in, some day I am going to die and this magnificent instrument will never again play these songs with our emotions flowing like a strong river through the music and we will never, never ever write another song together. This thought shattered my heart and so my guitar and I started writing this song to celebrate our wonderful relationship, so here is the Oribe Fandango, written by Byron Tomingas and his wonderful Redwood Oribe Guitar.