turn, turn, turn

Well 6 minutes of music still to create before I start the refining process. And here we are at sub-section 3.3.2: and this is inspired by the moment of repentance and the turning around and opening up that this involves.

As a start the crying track continues, but nicely at the start of this section the calming down happens, there is Mummy's gentle voice soothing the situation

And under this a quiet piano sound, a slow 6/8 beat with chords C and Fm repeated. Then the bassline on the piano, which goes down then up. This is a bassline I found about a year ago, and thought it might be nice for a "turning around" section, given that it turns from down to up to down again. This piano is deliberately using a pretty rubbish piano sound (I happen to have a really bad piano rompler) it's in tune but there's no stereo, and the sound is very compressed in the middle of the tone band. Added to that it is deliberately programmed so that is it lifeless and dull. Deliberate dullness is a risky strategy for a recording but there is a point.

There is a point where there is a breaking sound (created with a complex mix of cymbals, gongs and a breaking glass sound) and the music breaks through - introducing drums (brushed snare) and thick deep bass (using my Fender bass) and a MUCH better acoustic piano sound. This is all about that moment when one wakes up spiritually, it's like what giving up smoking does to your sense of taste, except this is to your spiritual senses.

Anyway, this 2-chord trick continues for the rest of the section, with solos first by an acoustic guitar, then an electric. These solos are the bits that took a long time, and my fret fingers now hurt. I've used no tricks but some interesting effect processing. I've worked hard to make it simple but hopefully effective.

So now, just 3 minutes left. What do do? Hmmmm....

frantic strumming and nimble fingers

this post covers the last three music-making sessions, all on this last section of the "mind" track - tack 2 on the new album. As we left the scene last time, we had drums and a guide tune part.

To this I added bass, using my old Fender bass (hitting and shaking it until the buzzing stopped - I have a loose wire somewhere). It was nice to use it again in an un-processed way, it has a nice rich, deep thick bass sound, which on it's own sounds a bit dull, but with the fast folky stuff is just a really nice solid underpinning. I may find myself re-discovering the beauties of this venerable instrument.

Added to that then was the guitar parts - acoustic strumming, one for each ear and mostly done in single long takes (very little editing needed). The tempo gets pretty brutal towards the end and I got into a nice focussed mindstate where I didn't need to think - just to strum and move my chord hand as fast as possible between positions. Very fast. I got aching muscles and sore fingers in the process, but it felt really good. It also sounds pretty good, although the attention is not particularly on it.

I've been blogging this for over a year, so I don't always remember what I've said before, and there's no way I'm going to dredge back over all that stuff just to check if I've already said that I'm learning about listener focus - one of the keys to interesting music is to always give the listener something specific to listen to. In songs this is usually the singer, or solo instruments at points. The rest is there to support that focus, but you pretty much always need a focus, and the stuff that is out of focus doesn't need to be as interesting, just right and good. it can be but it doesn't need to be. In this sections I find I am never really listening to the guitars as I listen through. It needs them there.

And so back to the tunes, which is what this is all about. I have now finished, and it has taken a long, long time. Almost all of the bit of tune are played by me on a keyboard, rather than programmed. I want this to feel very much like the real instruments. And here is what I try to do: although I am not really playing Aolean pipes, I am using a sampler and a keyboard, I am remembering the nuances that pipes use for expression and trying to use those. Similarly with the accordion - I can play one a bit (and have done in public). This isn't a real accordion it's the sampler again, but again I'm remembering what you do - what are the special things about an accordion, and trying to play that way.

Anyway, after lots and lots of takes, I feel like my keyboard fingers have been stretched to the limit of my ability, and yes there has been some editing (mostly tidying up -getting rid of accidental notes, very occasional moving the notes to be better in time, occasional volume changes on individual notes, but about 95% was untouched), and yes I recorded it at a slower speed than it is in the final thing (easier on the fingers, but harder to get the expression feeling right) and the final thing is pretty much done now - maybe it comes to a halt a leeetle too abruptly, I'll have to listen to it a few times and see if I get used to it.

After the harpsichord...

...comes the the string quarter playing Pachabel's canon. Well OK almost Pachabel's Canon - just the same chord sequence but as block chords rather than all the fabulous counterpoint. And almost a string quartet too - each sound is really an ensemble sound. This is all about having a chord sequence - and this is a pretty famous sequence. Also it very neatly moves into the next section, as the first melody I'm going to use there has the same (almost) chord sequence.

The drums prevail and the strings play the sequence one. Acoustic guitar and electric bass join and it's played again. Then twice at double sequence speed (each chord takes half as long). Increasingly the feel becomes bouncy and the strings are phased out. Over the whole thing is floated an electric guitar doing vague pentatonic noodling.

The guitar is worth talking about. I tend to use a lot of classic "crunchy" guitar sounds when soloing - I'm quite a fan of that distortion. However, I have been looking for a satisfying "clean" sound, something a little like the classic Santana sound would do me - compressed and sustained and clean. I think I have finally found it in this. Also I had an interesting moment. Sometimes when I want a line (often I can hear in my head what I want) but it seems too fast for me to play reliably, I play at half speed and double speed it up. Well this time I had such a line, and when I tried to double it up it just sounded...wrong. My trickery was unhelpful. So I tried several ways of playing it and eventually found one, and learned it and did it at normal speed. I did use a bizarre little technique though (never used this before but will again) - I was playing high up the neck, and to stop open strings ringing and getting in the way, I draped a jumper over the lower part of the neck to act as damping. Now I think I need to invent the damping capo - it would be really useful.

I have been having lots of problems with cubase in this project - something keeps causing to go into an "unstable state" and it invites me to save out under a different name. Anyway I seem to have finally taken all the individual ideas and aggregated them into one nice track.

Many strings

I have started work on 3.1.3: The Holy Spirit.  After the challenging and often discordant things running up to this I have decided that harmonic and melodic is the order of the day, also light and maybe a little airy.  So I have a nice bouncy little chord sequence (Am7, C, G, Fmaj7) which gets repeated several times.

Before this comes in I have chimes (those metal things handing from a long stick which a drummer occasionally runs his stick along) which I used to joke with my friend Bob (a drummer at church) signified the working of the holy spirit. In the same vein a harp is introduced.  

Back at the chord sequence, in a fairly traditional sense instruments are introduced one at a time, first bass drum and synth (the same absynth sound I have used in the previous two sub-sections) then acoustic guitars (6-string on one side, 12-string on the other), then shakers and ukuleles (well the same ukulele played twice, of course, once for each ear), then bass.

At this point I'd like to say I have just recently bought the uke, it called to me in a music shop and I succumbed, after all it was only £15 - making total expenditure on this album, ermmm £15 more than it was last time.  The most striking thing about it is that it is pink. I can live with that.  I play it with a non-standard tuning - I had a peek in a book in the music shop and it should be tuned G-C-A-E, but I have always thought it was G-D-A-E, which makes it the same as a mandolin or violin.  having already learned to play several chords with this tuning I thought I would stick with it.

So after the build-up there are 4 more times through the chords which is destined to have a solo over it, probably flute.  Then there is a "breakdown", a quieter version of the chords twice.  Following this is 8 times more, losing the shaker and introducing a fuller drum-kit (with programmed drums but played cymbals). This has an electric guitar solo over it (which I think I am happy with) and the bass will follow the solo playing the same notes, but lower. In this section, even if I don't count the uke twice there are a total of 30 strings on all the instruments being played.  I have done a lot of tuning tonight.

This then gives way back to the harp (but I'm not happy with the transition yet, I need to work on it).

One odd thing that happened is that I used the bass drum pulse to keep me in time while playing acoustic guitars and uke, and then replaced it with the programmed drums.  It turns out I was not playing well enough in time and had to tweak the placement of the programmed drums to slightly earlier to make it match up better.

Gravity, and finally some singing

Sub-section 1.3.3 is the last subsection of this track, and the theme is gravity.  I have mulled over at length what would musically signify gravity, thinking about descending lines, falling sounds, apples and so on, but finally although the connection is a thin one, I have decided instead to use the music from a song I wrote nearly 20 years ago - "It's Not Easy Falling Out Of Love".  "Falling" you see.

For this I attempted to make it sort of "antifolk" in the sense that it attempts a beguiling simplicity, simply recorded, simple sounds (guitar, piano and voice) - deliberately unsophisticated.  I used two acoustic guitars following a picking style (which is how it was originally written) with the tune over the top.  The first time through the tune is played again on acoustic guitar, the second on simple piano and the third hummed. OK so it's hummed in three parts, but it's done far from perfectly. Right at the end the three vocal parts gently sing "It's not easy falling out of love, it's not easy falling out of love, it's not easy falling out of love, you know."  A third of the way through the third purple album and I have finally broken my original decision for this to be instrumental.

Finally at the end I have filled in the nearly a minute left with the very first part of the track (cymbals, deep rumbling, whalesong and a tinkly synth) played backwards.  Nicely book-ended.

Poles apart

Next subsection then, 1.3.2: magnetism.

How to represent magnetism in music?  

Hmmm

Well magnetism is to do with poles, North and south.

Northern England - Brass band music

South Africa - South African pop style music.  This is harder to describe I guess, but I have a strong idea of South African music, Hugh Masakela, The Lion Sleeps Tonight and bits of Graceland - oh and of course Ladysmith Black Mombazo.  There are a couple of chord sequences, the most common being I, IV, I, V repeated ad infinitum.

Bring in two sporting occasions being held in different hemispheres - Wimbledon and the World cup.  Take an iconic moment from each - the end of the Isner Mahout match at Wimbledon (70 to 68 in the final set) and a certain English goal that wasn't in the England/Germany match.  One is a cause for celebration, the other a disappointment, and two sports which in themselves are poles apart....

So the first job was to extract sound from the TV.  With some foresight I had recorded relevant bits on my Sky+ box.  Sound out of the Sky+ box - phono sockets.  Sound into the break-out sound card on this computer - 1/4 inch Jacks or XLR.  Well I have Jacks to phono leads, no problem.  Except... this computer is upstairs at the front, and the box is downstairs at the back.  Poles apart you might say (I'll get over it some day).  Alternative solution: use my laptop for recording.  OK.  Sound into my laptop: 3.5mm stereo jack.  No cable.

So for a while I thought I might have to get soldering for the sake of this section, but I managed to find a custom lead.  Cost £7.  Total cost of the album so far: £16

Next problem: my laptop runs Vista, and the sound recorder will only output .wma files.  Tragic. lack of usefulness.  Anyway with some fiddling and fussing I found a converter and eventually had my audio clips in mp3 ready for inclusion.

I tackled the SA sound first, bringing in the African drumming patterns I used in subsection 1.1.1, but going faster (I wonder if anyone will notice they are the same patterns?)  Lay on some simple guitar chords on the electric, and create some trumpet tuney bits.  I still need bass (but my bass is at church) and I need to tidy this up somewhat.

And then brass band.  In preparation for this I had been imagining what I might do with a brass band. Just in case you don't know, a Northern England brass band is not like an oompah band, or like a New Orleans brass band, it's mellow, long drawn out notes and several parts.  It comjours up images of parks in the summer with a band playing in the bandstand.  Anyway, as I tried to write tunes I found that what I really wanted was the hymn "Abide with me". I checked, and apparently it's out of copyright.  Hurrah.

So I used the sampler and the keyboard, creating two trumpet lines, a tuba line, a French horn line and a trombone line. The actual tune seems to have disappeared a bit due to having created a nice descant, so I might want to pick it out more, but the overall effect is pretty nice, and feels almost entirely plausible (one of the samples is repeatedly breathy which means I could tell it was a sample).

I've basically put the bones down and it needs a good tidy-up

Filling the gap

Last time dear reader, we left off with just a couple of things to do to the Electricity sub-section (or is that sub-station?) - a synth solo and matching the end of the previous section with the beginning of this one. Both were done tonight.

The solo took a while, first of all I had to find the right sound.  I tried lots of sounds in the softsynth "Massive" at the weekend, but nothing seemed to fit.  Today I decided to try Pro-53 instead, and the first sound up was ideal.  Synthy and electric (to my ears).

Some days solo lines come easily, some days they are impossible, today was about half-way.  it took a while but i think I'm there, as usual the test of time will be applied.  Some of it was played, some of it was programmed.  I guess for me it is a bit more "normal" than the electric piano solo later in the same sub-section.  There was one particular line which I came up with which on playback seemed somewhat familiar, I realized I'd used it before.  When I played the whole thing back I found out where - in exactly the same position in the electric piano solo.  Not a problem.

Then came an interesting bit - matching the start with the previous end. Both were the same type of electric guitar, but it's in a part where nothing else is going on, and I basically had a precise gap of a few seconds in which to modulate from E to A with exact timing, but not to a rhythm.  it took a few goes to get the pacing right but it seems to have worked.

Bifurcation Revealed

The time has come, dear imaginary reader, for me to reveal to you what is going on in sub-section 1.2.3.  This first track is all about the physical universe, and this second section is about the scope of the universe.  1.2.1 was space, 1.2.2 was time, and now 1.2.3 is about parallel dimensions, alternative universes, the 5th dimension, whatever you want to call it.

Now although I personally don't subscribe to the theory that at any quantum collapse event the universe splits and goes in two different directions, the concept that the universe splits at particular points is a fairly neat way of explaining this concept of extra dimensions, and so this sub-section displays what Terry Pratchett calls the "bifurcating trousers of time".

And this is how I have done it.  The rythmn, (clock and guitar chord sequence) from 1.2.2 carrries on, bass and shaker is added to give a slightly different feel, and the acoustic guitar plays a tune which fits the chords.  This keeps repeating (and this time I have deliberately looped the same recording so it stays exactly the same.) The idea of the split is that two alternatives run in parallel, but over time they become more and more different, so first of all I intruduce a second acoustic guitar playing exactly the same, then they separate in the stereo image, then the "new" one plays a slight variation on the same tune, then it changes for being player with a plectrum, giving a harder sound, then fades into an electric guitar instead of acoustic, then it plays a harmony with the first (constant) one, and then starts to "noodle" over the chords, different to the tune.  Eventually everything fades out and leaves the electric guitar alone, which stops short of the 3 minutes end - the electric guitar is going to stay the same and start up relevant playing for the next sub-section.

My only reservation on this is wondering if the repeated tune is going to get a bit boring, time will tell as I let it "settle in".

One thing I am finding quite interesting is that having done two sub-sections as one recording project file, over this 6 minutes I only have one midi track, all the others are "real" instruments, guitars, bass, percussion, triangles and all - quite a few of them.