I asked Stephen (sschedra) if he would look over the guitar chords and offer suggestions, and he not only altered chords, but changed this piece for guitars instead of the higher-pitched Bolivian charangos (mandolin-like instrument.) Please tell us what you think of this update.

Stephen: I worked on the second guitar a bit and made the chords as I would play them in the basic position.  I moved the bass down an octave.  I eq'ed both guitars and the bass and gave the first guitar a little concert hall reverb to match the pan flutes.  All that stuff is just subjective and to taste.  I hope I didn't kill an absolutely great song.   I think you were doing a traditional folk sound with the charangos and here I am changing it to guitar, sigh.  Well, I love this piece (as do all who hear it), so I am just hoping my tweaks give it something that does not take away from its greatness.

Eduard: While my wife and I were travelling back down the coast of California (near Big Sur) from a vacation around New Years, we stopped at a turnout over a cliff, and took a bunch of video of at least 15 California Condors, flying and hanging out on the guard rail, not 15 feet from us! These amazing birds, once almost extinct in the wild, are now being re-introduced on the west coast. When full-grown, they can have a 10-foot wingspan, the largest land-birds in North America. I'm editing the video as we speak (checking with the San Diego Zoo and Ventana Wildlife Society to see if they want the footage.) I have about 15 minutes of amazing video of them in flight, or sunning themselves in the trees, or ambling around looking at the growing crowd of people, who are stopping to look at them in return. I am hoping that despite their apparent lack of fear of people, they remain safe.

Due to lots of interest, I have edited down the condor video and have posted it on YouTube for all to see, go here to watch and read a little write-up of the trip (http://schwansongs.blogspot.com/)

As part of the ending credits, I needed a quickie "Condor" theme, so I whipped this up. It is supposed to evoke Peruvian/Bolivian style folk music. There are some still-photos that I took, as the artwork above.