A change of heart

Well really a slight change of mind.  I have made two changes to the last sub-section (1.3.3. Gravity).  The first was I wasn't happy with my humming harmonies and so with a stroke of typical genius (and modesty) I have instead substituted some mellotron playing.  Much better.  

The second was a couple of concerns about the ending, having listened to it.  There is a low humming which comes in and lasts up until the backwards cymbals.  At the front of the whole track it is fine, but here, backwards as the outro it felt like there was a little bit too much of a gap between the fade of the hum and the cymbals.  Also the hum is an E note, while this section is in D. Really the hum needed a couple of changes.

Option 1: pitch-shift the audio to take it down a tone, easily done, but doesn't fix the gap.

Option 2: same as above, but add a bit of the same sound in to cover the gap

Option 3: rerecord the first section without the hum, and superimpose the hum at the right pitch

And the winner: option 4: make temporary changes to the first sub-section, lowering the hum and bringing it in slightly earlier especially for this ending.

Something that appeals to my slightly twisted sense of humour is that this ending still sounds like it is the intro backwards, but you would have to be pretty observant to realise that it is different from the actual intro. 

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.