Many, many little sessions, one section

The will to blog has been blighted of late by the fact that my sessions of music-making have been piddling and small. But on the whole, it would seem numerous.

Let's see if I can summarise. Or something.

The first section of the "at home" track is now more or less finished. It features a baslline "refrain" followed by stylistic "verses".

The first verse is sort of kind of Jazz, with a walking bassline, swing-ish drums and introducing electric piano. It starts as kind of cool jazz, but deteriorates into "what time does the tune start" kind of quickly. The brass stabs bring us back to the next refrain, in which the electric piano keeps on.

The second verse is sort of kind of Reggae, with off-beat guitar, organ and E-piano, bassline missing the "one" and typical triplets on the snare. This verse features organ playing a sort of tune, but may have a (real) trumpet added. Back to the refrain and the organ is featured

The third verse is sort of kind of Bluegrass, with a C&W - sounding guitar, a drum pattern stolen from "Lay Down Sally" by Eric Clapton, Country-style bass and... banjo. I had to go looking for a banjo sound on the internet, and found a reasonable "sound font". These are basically sample patches that were designed to work with a wide range of instruments. They don't seem to be as popular as they used to be, but I have a nifty sound font player, and it sounds pretty good. it is rare for me to use samples for a fretted instrument, but I cannot justify buying a banjo. I really wish I could find somewhere I could rent instruments!. Anyway, back to the refrain and the guitar is featured.

The last verse is sort of kind of Space Rock, the more mellow and spaced-out end of Prog rock, featuring wibbly synth and tambourine. Real tambourine (of course, a lot of my percussion is real). The final refrain features the synth and the tambourine.

Altogether I seem to be using a lot of different sounds, and this section has felt like a mini-project all of it's own. I started it way back in September, it's now November. Progress has been slow because I've only had nibbling small sessions mostly, and also because i lost hearing in one ear for about 2 weeks. It's coming back now.

In the meantime I have had some more musical ideas, which I need to make notes of as they seem to fit some of the themes for sections I have.  I'm not entirely sure, but I THINK I now have an idea for each of the 16 sections. I also have 3 sections broadly done, but am hoping to get guest musicians in for 2. I need to decide if I will do guest musicians all at the end or a bit at a time.