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.

Ahhh pants! Just lost the last hour's worth of work when cubase crashed and I hadn't been saving at milestone points like I should. Never mind, I'm not going to redo it now, but it will be faster when redoing.

I did some last night too, so I should report on that. At the end of the previous session it was noticeable that the computer was struggling, given the number of different things going on at once. The solution: given that this sub-section is split into little ideas, is to make a separate project for each one. So I did, it means even more stitching together.

Following on from the scales idea is a harmonic/counterpoint idea (the sequence of ideas is intervals->scales->counterpoint->chord sequences, which is in itself more or less a primer in harmony). For some reason lost in the mists of my memory, this idea was conceived to be on a harpsichord, and why not? The sequence of chords/notes is a little odd, which I think I'm fine with. I could have done a fairly generic harpsichord-type-piece in the style of Gibbons, but instead there is a secret in this bit - a hidden tune which was used as the coat-hanger to hang the section off. I think I like it, but it has led me to some un-typically-Elizabethan chrds, diminished 7ths and augmented 5ths and so on. As an explorationof harmony this is valid, but it's odd. Odd can be good.

Scales in F

This current sub-section is turning out to be quite complicated. I am now working on the second idea in it, in which I switch from C# (and a bit) to F. the drums continue, and I have an F Major scale played alternately on piano and glockenspiel. This has, partway through, the chords, Dm, C# and Am played on a distorted guitar, and underneath has some nice synth bassy paddy sounds. I might want to add something more to the repeat, and so far a lot of work is going to make the guitar sound right.

the point behind this idea is that we have moved on from simple musical relationships, or intervals, to the diatonic major scale - the foundation of western music. hence the scales. The chords are because scales are not intrinsically interesting and I want to spice up the background.

The list of things being dealt with by cubase right now though is quite big - and there's more yet to come. The harpsichord for example for the next idea.