So the last two sessions have been working on the Still Alive section, my version of the song from the Portal credits.
In the first of these sessions I went back and re-recorded the guitar parts - quite fast for the rhythm, quite slow and fiddly for the lead lines, but I incorporated some twiddles which I'm quite pleased with, with no speeding-up tricks and my patented sound which I like. That took a long time, and the use of a handkerchief on the neck of the guitar. When I;m playing stuff high up the neck I have found it helpful to have the strings muted rather than able to ring as open strings, so this time I tried tying a hanky around the neck near the head and it seemed to work.
And then I listened through and thought about what other things should be in the mix. Well some bass of course, so I did that. I tend to find that bass lines get recorded really fast, probably it's my best instrument. (actually there's no probably about it, it is my main instrument although I took it up after guitars). What else? How about a nice wide synthy pad sound? Yes OK. So I did that with one-handed chords. I think that's everything.
Which brings us to tonight. One of the consequences of the rather odd way I work is that I want sections of precise lengths. This has generally turned out to be easier than you might think when using the cubase software to keep precise time, as I can easily get it to an exact number of bars. It becomes a bit more tricky when I have a tune I want to do at a specific speed, because run-throughs then take a specific length of time. I have found with this section that I wanted to run through 3 times, and with the right lengths for intros and so on this didn't quite come to the 4 minutes I am aiming for. I have 8 bars spare.
So I did a "bridge" after the second "chorus" and before the 3rd run-through.
And I wanted it to be a free-form weirdy bit. For a start I held a B chord, which the last note can be held over, but is not the normal chord. I have had some time to think about what I might like here and had some ideas.
For a start I wanted a cymbal that didn't fade, just went on with a really long crash. So I played a cymbal on the drum samples, rendered it and brought it in as a sound file. I chopped it off before it finished and made a reversed copy which I stuck on the end. I chopped off the end of that (which because it was backwards was what used to be the beginning), made another copy and re-reversed that, sticking it on the end. I then stuck on backwards and forwards copies until it was a long "shhhhhhhhhhhhhh" sound, albeit waxing and waning. I then used the volume control to make the quiet bits louder and vice versa so that it was more or less constant volume. The tone changes interestingly and it finishes with the backwards beginning.
The next thing I wanted to do was with the hanging guitar chord, which I edited into fragments, and extended the fragmentedness by copying some fragments and reusing them. I then went through and did pitch changes to the fragments, scattering them across the stereo image. It finishes with the chord going backwards and ending exactly where the music box notes start.
This was a good start, I then went hunting for sounds on the internet. I found a strange site where you enter a sentence and they turn it into a GlaDos style spoken sound. (This is the voice of the artificial intelligence in the game that the song comes from) They warned on the site that it takes a while for each one to be created and that there was a queue in getting your sentence made. I don't know how long they have been running but the current queue length is measured in several months! However, they did have all of the previous sentences created available for download, so amongst the obvious dross and filth I found some sentences that either are from the game, or could be, including the first few lyrics for the song.
So I took 6 of these, and put them in the bridge, with some overlappiing, stereo placing, a bit of pitch tweaking and different levels of reverb and volume. It ends with a coundtdown to the music box sounds.
Finally I wanted to fill out the background a bit, so I found a little softsynth I have with good spatial atmospheric sounds, and added two different ones. Finally after a bit of listening, tweaking and rough mixing I'm relatively happy to let people hear the results. Here it is:
Thursday, 21 March 2013
Wednesday, 13 March 2013
Using a flute as a Q-tip
So I've done a reasonable amount of work since I last blogged, in several sessions. Let's see how much I can remember
I worked on the section I was talking about last time, slow chords, a refrain and some weird chords inbetween. I finished off the organ, did guitars and bass - hey presto the backing trak was done. That was the longest ago and I cannot really remember if anything interesting happened.
The next session was quite interesting. After a bit of guitar fiddling for teh weird chord sections I decided that what I really wanted was a flute. I felt truly uninspired about writing the solo so I called on a flautist and asked her if she felt like improvising to weird chords. It turned out she did. Her name is Kathy and she is my Mother-In-Law.
So we had an interesting session. I've got very used to recording myself, so recording someone else was a refreshing change. Most of the session was spent giving her the chords and her working out the stuff to do. In the end we managed 2 of the four "verses" and she went away with promises to work the rest out and practice.
Now I knew that there was another section I would want flute in - so I thought, if that section was ready enough for her to flute into it, we could tackle that as well when she came back. One of the four tracks is all about my gaming life, and for this section I really wanted to do the tune from the song "Still Alive" from the end of the seminal game "Portal". You can see it here if you are interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ljFaKRTrI . Anyway I wanted to do it slowed down a bit and with a flute doing the melody for the first and last sections.I didn't have time to create the whole of the rest of the track, but I focussed on the bits the flute was to be in. I did acoustic guitar picking and a soft, tremelo electric guitar on the other ear for the first run through. The second run through is to be electric guitars and more rocky, and I recorded the rythmn guitar and the lead lines, with a nice compressed sound. Unfortunately the sound was quite "dirty" between notes (hums and clicks) so I did some volume editing. I have found this seems to be a common problem when I want a compressed sound, when no note is playing the hum from the synthesized amp is amplified to loud levels.
I ignored the 8-bar "break" in the middle except to decide the starting chord would be a B, which is different from the other stuff, but fits with the final F# note of the tune played by the lead guitar. I have some interesting ideas for that break but we'll have to see if I can achieve them.
Then for the 3rd and final time through I did like a tinkly music box sound using Absynth, breaking it right down to just that and the proposed flute. There is a harmony line in the middle of a runthrough and while in the first run that fill be flute, in the second it is electric guitar, in the third I introduced a mandolin, played with little extended note trills. The backing builds up with the guitars coming back in and at teh end there is an outroduction with flute playing tune and mandolin playing harmonies.
So that was all hunky and dory. Kathy came back and we recorded her created lines for sections C and D of the other section, and then ploughed into the Still alive tune.
Kathy is a classical kind of musician, who does things with music paper and dots that I kind of theoretically undersand but find hard to use in anger. I'm more of a "playing by ear" kinde of person, which is helped by the fact that I seem to pick up lines, riffs and tunes quite fast that way. I had recorded a fake flute version of teh tune with a simple flute sample and played it to her and she attempted to transcribe what I assumed as a simple tune, but turned out to be heavily syncopated. Her bars were twice as long as mine were in my head, and her bar lines were in a different place.
We eventually found a really simple solution, doing something with Cubase that I had never done before. I took the MIDI part for the fake flute and opened a "score view" which showed it in musical dots. Now of course I had not programmed it exactly styraight, I had played it quite fluidly on a keyboard, and Cubase attempted to reproduce that fluidity - the music was a nightmare!
So we had a little race, while Kathy tried to transcribe the silly music score into a reasonable and sensible one, I went back into teh cubase editor and straightened the notes out until they were exactly starting on the beats, and exactly finishing in the right places too, and printed out a "corect version" of the music. I won but only just.
So we recorded the tune for the first pass, and again for the second pass (I have a strong resistance now to just copying and pasting, especially with real instruments, it should sound like it was played subtly differently each time). Then the outro and finally the harmony for the first time through. Thanks Kathy, we'll see how it sounds when I get chance to produce the sound and make it shiny.
So tonight I have come back to the middle iteration, the rocky one. I programmed the drums and have developed a new rule - if you are going to have drums DO THEM FIRST! My timkeeping is much better to drums than to a click track, and all of what I had previously done was far too rubbish in terms of timing to keep. I rerecorded teh rocky rythmn guitar, and then actually spent the rest of the session with Guitar rig, trying to create a better lead sound. It took quite a while, but I'm pretty happy with it. It is high and compressed but much cleaner than the first one, and it has a gentle subtle stereo phase and a quiet stereo echo delay (called a "ping-pong" echo because it bounces from ear to ear). Most importantly, I have found out how to use a "noise reducer" which gets rid of the annoying sounds between notes. What I haven't done is re-record the actual tunes though because I got bored after a while and wanted to stop. Then I thought I could blog. So I did. Now it's supper time.
I worked on the section I was talking about last time, slow chords, a refrain and some weird chords inbetween. I finished off the organ, did guitars and bass - hey presto the backing trak was done. That was the longest ago and I cannot really remember if anything interesting happened.
The next session was quite interesting. After a bit of guitar fiddling for teh weird chord sections I decided that what I really wanted was a flute. I felt truly uninspired about writing the solo so I called on a flautist and asked her if she felt like improvising to weird chords. It turned out she did. Her name is Kathy and she is my Mother-In-Law.
So we had an interesting session. I've got very used to recording myself, so recording someone else was a refreshing change. Most of the session was spent giving her the chords and her working out the stuff to do. In the end we managed 2 of the four "verses" and she went away with promises to work the rest out and practice.
Now I knew that there was another section I would want flute in - so I thought, if that section was ready enough for her to flute into it, we could tackle that as well when she came back. One of the four tracks is all about my gaming life, and for this section I really wanted to do the tune from the song "Still Alive" from the end of the seminal game "Portal". You can see it here if you are interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ljFaKRTrI . Anyway I wanted to do it slowed down a bit and with a flute doing the melody for the first and last sections.I didn't have time to create the whole of the rest of the track, but I focussed on the bits the flute was to be in. I did acoustic guitar picking and a soft, tremelo electric guitar on the other ear for the first run through. The second run through is to be electric guitars and more rocky, and I recorded the rythmn guitar and the lead lines, with a nice compressed sound. Unfortunately the sound was quite "dirty" between notes (hums and clicks) so I did some volume editing. I have found this seems to be a common problem when I want a compressed sound, when no note is playing the hum from the synthesized amp is amplified to loud levels.
I ignored the 8-bar "break" in the middle except to decide the starting chord would be a B, which is different from the other stuff, but fits with the final F# note of the tune played by the lead guitar. I have some interesting ideas for that break but we'll have to see if I can achieve them.
Then for the 3rd and final time through I did like a tinkly music box sound using Absynth, breaking it right down to just that and the proposed flute. There is a harmony line in the middle of a runthrough and while in the first run that fill be flute, in the second it is electric guitar, in the third I introduced a mandolin, played with little extended note trills. The backing builds up with the guitars coming back in and at teh end there is an outroduction with flute playing tune and mandolin playing harmonies.
So that was all hunky and dory. Kathy came back and we recorded her created lines for sections C and D of the other section, and then ploughed into the Still alive tune.
Kathy is a classical kind of musician, who does things with music paper and dots that I kind of theoretically undersand but find hard to use in anger. I'm more of a "playing by ear" kinde of person, which is helped by the fact that I seem to pick up lines, riffs and tunes quite fast that way. I had recorded a fake flute version of teh tune with a simple flute sample and played it to her and she attempted to transcribe what I assumed as a simple tune, but turned out to be heavily syncopated. Her bars were twice as long as mine were in my head, and her bar lines were in a different place.
We eventually found a really simple solution, doing something with Cubase that I had never done before. I took the MIDI part for the fake flute and opened a "score view" which showed it in musical dots. Now of course I had not programmed it exactly styraight, I had played it quite fluidly on a keyboard, and Cubase attempted to reproduce that fluidity - the music was a nightmare!
So we had a little race, while Kathy tried to transcribe the silly music score into a reasonable and sensible one, I went back into teh cubase editor and straightened the notes out until they were exactly starting on the beats, and exactly finishing in the right places too, and printed out a "corect version" of the music. I won but only just.
So we recorded the tune for the first pass, and again for the second pass (I have a strong resistance now to just copying and pasting, especially with real instruments, it should sound like it was played subtly differently each time). Then the outro and finally the harmony for the first time through. Thanks Kathy, we'll see how it sounds when I get chance to produce the sound and make it shiny.
So tonight I have come back to the middle iteration, the rocky one. I programmed the drums and have developed a new rule - if you are going to have drums DO THEM FIRST! My timkeeping is much better to drums than to a click track, and all of what I had previously done was far too rubbish in terms of timing to keep. I rerecorded teh rocky rythmn guitar, and then actually spent the rest of the session with Guitar rig, trying to create a better lead sound. It took quite a while, but I'm pretty happy with it. It is high and compressed but much cleaner than the first one, and it has a gentle subtle stereo phase and a quiet stereo echo delay (called a "ping-pong" echo because it bounces from ear to ear). Most importantly, I have found out how to use a "noise reducer" which gets rid of the annoying sounds between notes. What I haven't done is re-record the actual tunes though because I got bored after a while and wanted to stop. Then I thought I could blog. So I did. Now it's supper time.
Wednesday, 27 February 2013
A little bitty bit
Hello all you readers of my blog, it's been a while.This seems a recurring theme at the moment.
So I've started work on another section. This one follows straight on from the "waily waily" section I did way back (first section done I think) and keeps the chords and pace, and drum sound, and probably guitar sounds.
There is a "refrain", a sequence returned to several times, which cycles D and Bm four times. It's inspied by a worship song called "day by day" (which is actually in A not D). There are then "verse" passages between them, each of different lenght and with differing chord sequences. There are four of thes and I will bore you with the chords:
A:
Em, Faug, D/F#, G7, E7/G#, A7
B:
G, D/F#, Bb/F, C/E, Cm/Eb, D7, Fmaj7, Cmaj7, A2(no3rd), A7
C:
C, B7, Em, A7, Am, Adim, Aaug, Bbaug, G, C, A7, D, B7, Em, Am7, A7
D:
Ebdim, Em, A7, D, Ebdim, Em, G, A7
To be honest most of my time was spent creaing those chord sequences which I hope will be satisfying (to me). I mapped out the structure with markers, and have adapted the drums from the previous section. I also did about 50% of the section with a nice hammond organ sound. To follow: more organ, 2x acoustic guitar and Bass. And then some decision about solos and lead instruments.
I'm off sick at the moment, and meant to be mostly relaxing, so while I want to get into doing more of the music again, it should be short sessions. To he honest, I might have done guitar, but after messing about on the guitar so much trying chord sequences, my fingers were hurting which is why I tackled the organ.
So I've started work on another section. This one follows straight on from the "waily waily" section I did way back (first section done I think) and keeps the chords and pace, and drum sound, and probably guitar sounds.
There is a "refrain", a sequence returned to several times, which cycles D and Bm four times. It's inspied by a worship song called "day by day" (which is actually in A not D). There are then "verse" passages between them, each of different lenght and with differing chord sequences. There are four of thes and I will bore you with the chords:
A:
Em, Faug, D/F#, G7, E7/G#, A7
B:
G, D/F#, Bb/F, C/E, Cm/Eb, D7, Fmaj7, Cmaj7, A2(no3rd), A7
C:
C, B7, Em, A7, Am, Adim, Aaug, Bbaug, G, C, A7, D, B7, Em, Am7, A7
D:
Ebdim, Em, A7, D, Ebdim, Em, G, A7
To be honest most of my time was spent creaing those chord sequences which I hope will be satisfying (to me). I mapped out the structure with markers, and have adapted the drums from the previous section. I also did about 50% of the section with a nice hammond organ sound. To follow: more organ, 2x acoustic guitar and Bass. And then some decision about solos and lead instruments.
I'm off sick at the moment, and meant to be mostly relaxing, so while I want to get into doing more of the music again, it should be short sessions. To he honest, I might have done guitar, but after messing about on the guitar so much trying chord sequences, my fingers were hurting which is why I tackled the organ.
Thursday, 3 January 2013
Friday, 21 December 2012
Gannin' down the Scotswood Road
Well it's been quite a while, but here I am back again in music-making mode.
About 18 years or so ago I was in a band. I've been in several bands of various kinds - this was a Soul/Rock band called "Heart & Soul" and I was mostly the bassist, but occasionally I fronted it and sang. I wrote a few songs for it too.
I wrote this one song, called "Guilty" - it was about being trapped in behaviour patterns you cannot break even though you know they are wrong, and unhelpful. Musically it was the source of many arguments between myself and our drummer. I wanted it to be in "a very fast 6/8" and tried to describe what I wanted. He claimed it was impossible. I claimed it wasn't and eventually in frustration played him a live version of Shadows In The Rain by the Police which had exactly what I wanted. He muttered something non-commital and continued to claim that it wasn't possible. We did eventually master it, a breathless rolling train of a sound with a very particular bassline.
And now the rythmn and the bassline are seeing the light of day again. And probably the tune.
I have been working on the last section of the album, which represents my commute home. I had had a crazy plan which was to strap a video camera to the bonnet of my car, and film my commute home. Then I was going to speed up the video until it was 4 minutes long, and then I was going to set it to music.
Instead one day I decided it would be nicer to use "Guilty" - it has a frantic urgency, and it's not a bad finisher for an album, rollicking with high energy. I would also reprise some of the ideas from teh album, and maybe a motif or two from previous albums. I would finish with the sound effect of going over the bridge that the album opens with.
So I've found the speed, worked out how long it is (12 bars) and therefpre how many times through teh pattern I can go (8). I have a snare roll introduction and then it breaks into the frantic hurrying. So far I have programmed the drums (probably needs humanising) and I spent a long time doing the bass. My fingers are a bit sore. I'm quite happy that there is a bass focus again, this seems to be a feature of this album and I like it - given that it is probably my best instrument.
I have also added some electric guitar, following the same pattern. There is one section which will be electric guitar soloing, and I have done 4 bars of that, which is identical to 4 bars used a few times in the "Electricity" section on teh last album - a bit of a cross between Jesus Christ Superstar, The Magic Roundabout and something by Thin Lizzy, and uses three guitars in harmony.
So after the guitarring my fingers are even sorer. Oh how I suffer for my art! Still, that's most of the rythmn track down now, tehre's more guitar, some piano and some trumpets to go. I think.
About 18 years or so ago I was in a band. I've been in several bands of various kinds - this was a Soul/Rock band called "Heart & Soul" and I was mostly the bassist, but occasionally I fronted it and sang. I wrote a few songs for it too.
I wrote this one song, called "Guilty" - it was about being trapped in behaviour patterns you cannot break even though you know they are wrong, and unhelpful. Musically it was the source of many arguments between myself and our drummer. I wanted it to be in "a very fast 6/8" and tried to describe what I wanted. He claimed it was impossible. I claimed it wasn't and eventually in frustration played him a live version of Shadows In The Rain by the Police which had exactly what I wanted. He muttered something non-commital and continued to claim that it wasn't possible. We did eventually master it, a breathless rolling train of a sound with a very particular bassline.
And now the rythmn and the bassline are seeing the light of day again. And probably the tune.
I have been working on the last section of the album, which represents my commute home. I had had a crazy plan which was to strap a video camera to the bonnet of my car, and film my commute home. Then I was going to speed up the video until it was 4 minutes long, and then I was going to set it to music.
Instead one day I decided it would be nicer to use "Guilty" - it has a frantic urgency, and it's not a bad finisher for an album, rollicking with high energy. I would also reprise some of the ideas from teh album, and maybe a motif or two from previous albums. I would finish with the sound effect of going over the bridge that the album opens with.
So I've found the speed, worked out how long it is (12 bars) and therefpre how many times through teh pattern I can go (8). I have a snare roll introduction and then it breaks into the frantic hurrying. So far I have programmed the drums (probably needs humanising) and I spent a long time doing the bass. My fingers are a bit sore. I'm quite happy that there is a bass focus again, this seems to be a feature of this album and I like it - given that it is probably my best instrument.
I have also added some electric guitar, following the same pattern. There is one section which will be electric guitar soloing, and I have done 4 bars of that, which is identical to 4 bars used a few times in the "Electricity" section on teh last album - a bit of a cross between Jesus Christ Superstar, The Magic Roundabout and something by Thin Lizzy, and uses three guitars in harmony.
So after the guitarring my fingers are even sorer. Oh how I suffer for my art! Still, that's most of the rythmn track down now, tehre's more guitar, some piano and some trumpets to go. I think.
Monday, 19 November 2012
Lost in a paperwork desert
..which is the title of the most recent section to be worked on.
A little bit of purple history is called for to give context. On the first album, 11 Bells, I created decided I wanted a single-instrument section (sections were 5 minutes long) and opted for Piano. I introduced a particular musical motif (taken from the guitar part for a song I wrote years ago called "behind the storm"). For reasons lost in the mists of time I called this section "Lost in a Moonlit Desert".
On the second album, Under A Binary Tree, I decided that I would once again have a single-instrument section. This time it was electric piano, and because the first half was all white notes and the second half all black notes, I called it "Lost in a monochrome desert". Once again it featured the same motif, but modified.
By the third album, B:M:S, I seemed to have developed a habit, this time I opted for classical guitar, and the name "The Lust Of The Eyes (Lost in a nylon desert)". While it focused primarily on musical plagiarism, I managed to effectively steal from myself and use the same motif again, as well as many others.
So here we are on album no. 4. I have a hard habit to break. I had already decided that this section would be called "Lost in a paperwork desert" and would represent the insane amount of paperwork I seem to have to deal with at work. At some point I decided that an appropriately "dry" (although not hugely papery) sound would be a Marimba (which is a kind of wooden xylophone). So there is a 4-minute marimba section, and yes I do use the same old motif, briefly at the end.
In fact the section wanders (as is appropriate for someone lost in a desert) through several motifs. It start with a few chords, and then launches into a pattern inspired by rhythmic tapping that I sometimes do. I like tapping interesting rhythms, and this is at least the second such tapping motif that has made it into the music. This gets faster and faster. Then there are a few harp-like arpeggios and next we have a bass-line like boogie-woogie piano and similar to one I used on the first album. After developing that there is a brief glissando and then I use a motif in 15/8 which appeared on the last album. Finally we meet the habitual lost in deserts motif, but backed by the funky bassline which will appear in several other places on the album.
And you can use this widget to hear a rough mix of it... I hope! Apologies it is mixed a little quiet.
A little bit of purple history is called for to give context. On the first album, 11 Bells, I created decided I wanted a single-instrument section (sections were 5 minutes long) and opted for Piano. I introduced a particular musical motif (taken from the guitar part for a song I wrote years ago called "behind the storm"). For reasons lost in the mists of time I called this section "Lost in a Moonlit Desert".
On the second album, Under A Binary Tree, I decided that I would once again have a single-instrument section. This time it was electric piano, and because the first half was all white notes and the second half all black notes, I called it "Lost in a monochrome desert". Once again it featured the same motif, but modified.
By the third album, B:M:S, I seemed to have developed a habit, this time I opted for classical guitar, and the name "The Lust Of The Eyes (Lost in a nylon desert)". While it focused primarily on musical plagiarism, I managed to effectively steal from myself and use the same motif again, as well as many others.
So here we are on album no. 4. I have a hard habit to break. I had already decided that this section would be called "Lost in a paperwork desert" and would represent the insane amount of paperwork I seem to have to deal with at work. At some point I decided that an appropriately "dry" (although not hugely papery) sound would be a Marimba (which is a kind of wooden xylophone). So there is a 4-minute marimba section, and yes I do use the same old motif, briefly at the end.
In fact the section wanders (as is appropriate for someone lost in a desert) through several motifs. It start with a few chords, and then launches into a pattern inspired by rhythmic tapping that I sometimes do. I like tapping interesting rhythms, and this is at least the second such tapping motif that has made it into the music. This gets faster and faster. Then there are a few harp-like arpeggios and next we have a bass-line like boogie-woogie piano and similar to one I used on the first album. After developing that there is a brief glissando and then I use a motif in 15/8 which appeared on the last album. Finally we meet the habitual lost in deserts motif, but backed by the funky bassline which will appear in several other places on the album.
And you can use this widget to hear a rough mix of it... I hope! Apologies it is mixed a little quiet.
Saturday, 10 November 2012
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.
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.
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