Composition
Set in 4/4 time and in the key of E minor, the song begins with a duet between Di Meola and de Lucía and then progresses to feature each guitar player taking turns playing rhythm and soloing, and occasionally soloing together.
The song consists of a relatively simple lyrical harmonic progression, adorned by a flamenco rhythm. However, it poses extreme difficulties to the performers, because of the speed and precision required of Di Meola's picking on the steel-stringed guitar, playing extremely long melodic phrases, and to Paco De Lucia's complex fingerpicking on the Flamenco guitar, as well as the exact matching of Di Meola and De Lucía's solos which frequently consist of them both playing a rapid set of matching or corresponding notes. They resort to many guitar performance techniques and fingerstyles, such as drumming guitar tops, strumming (both solo and together), bare thumb plucking, palm muting, tremolo picking, hammer-ons and pull-offs, sweep picking, shredding, vibratos and glissandos. The song was a success. A slightly shorter version of it was included on the November 1996 album Pavarotti & Friends for War Child (Track 15).
Read more about this topic: Mediterranean Sundance
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