Women and Wives Production, Smile To Fall

Mostly working on my cover of 'Women and Wives' today. Yesterday I updated Prometheus to v3.91 with a new feature to change the instrument on a range of notes to any at random between two values, and added the inverse function: to change a range of instruments to a specific one. This was because this song uniquely uses many 'random' bass-drum sounds.

Recorded the vocals today. This was a little harder than expected as I first needed to match the actual vocal melody. For my live 'Wonky' performance I used my own melody because I was primarily focused playing the chords, I didn't listen to the actual melody much. Interestingly I matched it in a line or two anyway. Anyway, today started by notating that. I thought the vocal takes were instantly fine, but tonight when listening back they sound flat and bad so I'll have to try again.

The production ended with a piano sound, a D-minor chord stab and reverse piano at the start to drive this steam-train of a rhythm. The mixing has proven difficult. I had two basses, the buzzy synth bass and a fretless bass because the synth was too thin, but I couldn't quite get it right. In the end I removed the fretless bass and beefed up the synth bass more, so this is the only bass now. The chords use filter sweeps, which sound good and rich, but these can often cause mixing awkwardness and the mid-range richness competes with the vocals.

For the vocals I added a 2 second (4 beat) echo, and a fast Heartbreak-Hotel echo too, which worked well. These are switched off the for the dramatic 'Chasing Tomorrow' line, which drops to near silence.

But there's more to do. I wrote a new song last night, a possible B-side for this release. I've adopted a few McCartney-isms. I'll repeat the first verse at the end, and mentally hummed the melody first to keep it simple and memorable. It starts in C-minor but plays with jumping from G to F in the pleasing chorus, before plunging back to C-minor for the key dramatic moment. Here are the words so far:

Smile To Fall

In the ballroom
Everyone is waiting for her
Black silk ravens
Everyone is waiting for her
Smile to fall
They're waiting for her
Smile to fall a-

Sleep on rainbows
Life is harder than your childhood
Sometimes fate can
Wave its wand and blow away a
Smile to fall
They're waiting for her
Smile to fall away

In the ballroom
Everyone is waiting for her
Black silk ravens
Everyone is waiting for her
Smile to fall
They're waiting for her
Smile to fall away

Other news. I've been notified that 'Punishement of the Sun' has been accepted into the RBSA Prize Exhibition, so my 4th juried exhibition this year. We, as Fall in Green, were mentioned along with the rest of the Morecambe Poetry Festival line-up by Matt on his Morecambe radio show, which was nice. At 2pm today, Deb came by for a third rehearsal of our set.

Onwards we march.

Good Vibrations, Women and Wives

Mike kindly gave me a lift to the Good Vibrations event yesterday. We normally attend every 4 weeks, the event takes place every 2, but Deb happened to be free which caused me to ask about attending; it was this which led to Deb's suggestion of a lift, so a somewhat unexpected participation. It was a nice event, as ever.

I've spent most of today working on a recording of 'Women and Wives', my cover of the Paul McCartney song in the form performed at the Wonky Pear, but I'm unsure if I'll bother releasing it. It seems, according to Emubands, I can do this relatively easily if I submit it to streaming-only services. My main reason for releasing it would be to test this exact mechanism.

My melody is a little bit different to the original, but I think close to be considered it the same song, 100% McCartney's, even if I added the solo that I think the second 'chorus' will benefit from. I wouldn't care at all at 'gifting' ownership of that, with the hope he wouldn't be offended at what I might do to his work.

Backups, Frame Photography, Gravestone Code

A routine busy day of monthly backups, then photography and weighing and measuring 5 paintings in frames. I have a scan or photograph of (just about) each painting I've made, but I also ideally want a photo of the work in its frame, plus all measurements and weights. I have much of these data and tend to take it when I need to exhibit a painting, so did a bit of this today, photographing 'Penalties', 'Punishment Of The Sun', 'The Lady With The Unicorn' (from 2006, which has been on my wall for 20 years but not on the website), the first Claire Luce portrait, and 'Home Life'.

I also updated my will and developed a new code which I'd like to put on my gravestone to tax any future cemeterians. The code is simple to decode, even mentally, when you know how the code works, but fiendishly difficult when you don't. I've not encountered a code quite like it, so I thought setting a puzzle would be fun. The message will indicate the location of a treasure, and I already have in mind what this will be and approximately where. Hopefully it will be a few decades before this is required.

All The Broken Hearted Complete

A night of worries, about the sudden crisis in my father's heath, the care costs and perhaps losing our home. His health is better today, perhaps he over exerted himself yesterday.

Of dreams, I recall a few things. At one point David Lawton was painting a miniature, showing me his process. Wearing magnifying glasses he used a single pubic hair for the finest of details, but seemed embarrassed at using a pubic hair, recommending only 'a single hair' and hiding away the one he used. I also dreamt that shares in a diamond mine which I owned shot up by £20,000, though this only enough to nearly break-even after years of being deep in the red. The feeling was one of neutrality, not joy of making money, not sad at losing; a shrugging of shoulders. Perhaps this is an indicator that worries can be baseless, that all will be, or can be, well.

I painted today but it was a chore and horrible. The first session was so very dark and rainy, and my mood low and anxious. I had to put the light on just to see, and at 10:30 had to run to the shops for house shopping as my mother is now too strained and too busy looking after my father for such things. I did so, one mile there and back in 30 minutes, and the sun appeared as I returned for the next session which was much better. The feathers were difficult enough without the darkness and anxiety.

Things, the light, my mood, gradually got better while painting and the result was adequate, thus the Heartbreak Trilogy is complete. Where to show it? Will it be seen at all, by anyone? I must at least prepare for it, so I must aim to make three frames.

Back to Painting, All The Broken Hearted

Gamer night last night. I've been lacklustre and distracted in August regarding painting compared to July, for a few reasons. The weather has turned duller and cooler, and I've had a few performance dates; the Macca Night, and rehearsals for Morecambe. Plus, I felt that the painting season was coming to an end, a grass-is-greener gaze towards music, but perhaps also a tiredness and general lack of drive for painting after many constant months of it.

Seeing my friends reminded me of how important art and painting is. I found myself in the night hours comparing my life with that of artists past at my age, Vermeer and van Gogh; Rembrandt and Beethoven. Life is short. Their lives a struggle in various ways, as is mine, yet art has a great power over time, over death. I suddenly became enthused with painting again, and decided to work on the paintings in progress today, starting with 'All The Broken Hearted', so for a rare time began a glazing day with enthusiasm.

The colours were simple, mostly burnt sienna and ultramarine grey-blues and browns, with yellow ochre light (a superlative colour by Winsor and Newton which I've used in almost every painting), and a few minor others like reds and greens for small areas.

My father's illness is difficult to manage and he fell twice today. Mum talked about care concerns, selling the house and other terrors, but these worries are I think excessive for now. An assessment of his needs is due.

Macca Night, Stockport, Exhibition Entries

A ram-packed Paul McCartney tribute night on Thursday. A great night of great music. My rendition of 'Women & Wives' went well. I'm inspired to record it as a cover, as my version is sufficiently different. This project has filed my mind but there are challenges. I'd like to play lots live, but I only have so much space for huge recordings, one track per song really. It's not so much a memory issue as ultimate storage space, I don't want to store massive songs because I have a large quantity of output, it's not efficient. The backing is quite repetitive so it makes more sense to sequence it. I've already created a few sounds on the MODX, I may sample those or re-create them again in Prometheus. I played it live with a heavy saw-synth bass on the Microkorg and it was a challenge to duplicate (well, a close copy) on the MODX.

I prepared an equally ambitious synth version of 'Live and Let Die', but there was no time on the night. A pity, as all songs bar one were Beatles songs, only mine and one other was a McCartney solo song, and there were no Wings songs. I hope to play 'Live and Let Die' at a future Good Vibrations event. Here's a photo by Deb of the 'Hey Jude' finale:

Slow days between. I feel lacklustre and not in a visual art mood. I've updated my websites today, and the IndieSFX licence, to explicitly exclude the use of sounds for AI training. The old licence (and all of the sounds) pre-date generative AI. I'm spending time each day tinkering with the MODX, making new sounds here and there, but this is often time wasted. When writing a new song it's best to think of the sound needed, then make it, rather than make a sound and then write a song with it.

Half of yesterday was spent going to Stockport to collect the 'Song of Innocence' painting. I've heard that two paintings have been accepted into the first Crewe Create Open Exhibition. Also, the biggest tribute website to H. Beam Piper, zarthani.net, has added my new portrait to it today. This has inspired me to contact a few other Beam Piper enthusiasts.

Telepathic Day 2, Rehearsals

A second half day of glazing the Telepathic Daisy painting yesterday, then treated the oak Blood of Winter frame for woodworm. There's no indication of woodworm apart from a few ancient holes, this is a preventative measure for the hardwood frame after advice from Zoe from the Oil Art Advisory.

Today, a second Fall in Green rehearsal for the Morecambe Poetry Festival set, and for the Paul McCartney night tonight. I decided at the last minute to have 'Live and Let Die' in reserve, so quickly looked and played/sang that through. I noted that in this and 'Women and Wives', the song ended with the first verse and chorus repeated, and Hey Jude too for the most part (the coda replacing the chorus repeat).

I'm also helping a lot with my father's name change. Everyone calls him Damien, buth this is his middle name and he's decided to make to removal of his unused first name official as he got really annoyed at its use during his recent hospital visit. This is causing me and my mother lots of work and stress for what we consider to be a trivial matter. Not a huge job, but lots of little jobs that take up and break up each day over several weeks.

Telepathic Daisy Glazing

A slow and difficult day. Glazed the sky part of the Telepathic Daisy painting but made many clumsy mistakes in my room including dropping the ultramarine, causing it to eject a line on the carpet like the result of a lunar meteor strike! This stain is now a permanent mess. I didn't at any point feel like painting, my energies here are slowing off, but I must and will continue until the season ends.

I mixed up some test wood stain but the ethanol I bought for the purpose didn't at all dissolve the oil paint I'd planned for this! I need bottles to test different solvents. I'd fully expected the paint to dissolve easily and quickly. I regret buying the ethanol at all. I should have bought either isopropynol (which I've used often and know to work well as, for example, a Laropal A81 solvent), or methylated spirits. I expected the denatured ethanol to be meths, but it's not.

Made a new sound for some of the Fall in Green tracks, how I love my MODX! 'We Used To Store Sunlight' has strings on the lower part for the left hand backing, with a wind-chime for the lowest note for occasional accents. There's a triangle-wave arpeggio on the upper octave which matches the one in the recording, and a melodic lead of a flute for the right hand. A press of the AF1 switch and the flute switches off and a piano appears for the second half of the song. If I light AF2, I get a second piano an octave higher for the initial piano appearance. It's a full orchestra at my fingertips!

Rehearsed for the Paul McCartney night and made some financial moves. A frustrating day that felt terrible at all times, yet I can see that there are positives. Nobody knows, in the long term, whether a day is good or bad. Things done today may be crucial to success in ways that only hindsight can determine.