Mania

A manic week, I think I've only slept for one night of it. Today's performance was, back when it started, a little performance of some sort of make Carol Finch's launch interesting. Then I decided to do a 5 track Marius Fate performance, including the first live performance of The Trees. Then, Deb reminded me that if she were to read then I should really play too, as half of Fall in Green, so that split the evening into two, 15 minute sections, and involved a costume change, my 20Kg digital piano, Korg synth and two mics. Then I bought a cheap projector a few days ago, and decided to make videos for every track we, and Marius, performed. Stopping the show to play with projector menus isn't an option, so the most efficient way is to make a video for every track, although this means 26 videos (if you include the 'gap' videos between the tracks).

Then I decided that the projector needs a stand, so, at 4pm yesterday after a day in the Macc Art Lounge, cut a base platform from wood, and drilled some 4mm holes into it to screw into the projector base, then fitted it to my Cayer tripod quick release plate, allowing me to use the tripod as a projector stand. It's not perfect, as the two plates that come with the Cayer are annoyingly different, but it's much better to use than putting the projector on the floor. I've just ordered a new 3M lead for it.

And today, I need to memories the lyrics to 5 songs, and memorise the piano music to 7 Fall in Green tracks, before leaving at 5pm to set up the 800W PA system, 150W mic amp, two synths, projector, and everything else, and all for the glory of art and to make the best show I can. As the first use of the projector, it will be a useful field test of new equipment and procedures.

Now, to rehearse and piano practice. Less than three hours to go. This week has been too much and I'm verging on an unhelpful mania. I can't wait to enter a quieter week next week, although my plans for December are ambitious.

Projections, Rehearsal, Existence

Manically busy day today, have made 14 new videos to accompany each of our pieces for the Saturday event, including videos for my Marius Fate songs. Some of these have backing music or sound effects built. Many are relatively simple loops or film clips, the only thing I have time for, not much time for special effects or artistic editing or synchronisation; but they will certainly add to the show. I really need to make some sort of projector viewing platform that I can attach to my camera tripod, but I won't have time until after the performance.

Managed a 45 minute break to gulp down some food before continuing and then a full technical rehearsal at 3pm. All seems to work but the USB still did a few unexpected things; the order of the files was not as expected (the order was but the first one in the list was no the first). I'm also getting some hum from the projector audio cable (definitely not the projector's fault, it hums even when not connected). The cable is too thin, too unshielded. 1/4 inch jack cables seem better and more solid, but spindly 3.5mm cables are a bit rubbish, yet so many devices now use the tiny connection. I might find an adaptor to use with the thicker cables.

Awake a lot of the night with panicky nightmares. I became acutely aware that we are part of a network of humans, a network of friends, to make a nation, a network of countries, a network of planets, stars, galaxies; but also that we are composite beings, made from cells that form a network of tiny animals that make us, that cells are composites of organelles, and they are made from molecules, made from atoms, and subatomic particles. We appear to be individuals but are merely part of this train of information storage and organisation, from tiny to massive, a sort of quantised existence of a broad flow, the ocean of existence. Our cells could be seen as quantised particles, and we could, as particles adrift in society, phasing in and out of existence relative to social contact.

Top Projector Tips

Projector experiments today. I have Yaber Y30 projector (also known as a Yaber 5500, supposedly the lumen rating, but it's not 5500 lumen, closer to 1500, which is still pretty bright for the vastly cheaper cost and reliability compared to a similarly capable Canon projector).

This info might be useful to contemporary projector owners as a lot of the menus and such seem to be the same across these cheap Chinese projectors. This applies to USB use. Obviously, everything is simple with a HDMI or other live video input, but the USB input can be very powerful and reliable if used in the right way. Why bring a laptop when a stick will do?

1. Will show images, videos, text, or play audio files, but only one of each type; it won't skip from a video to a still for example.
2. Stills will pause for a few seconds (on my projector this time can't be specified and is about 5 seconds) and then move on with a random transition. This is pretty useless, as a slideshow that skips on command would be more useful for presentations. The best option is not to use stills at all and make a video of the still image.
3. Video files are read, mostly, in copy-over order, and this is the order that the videos play. The filename is not relevant. Windows often (for years) copies over the last file in a selected list, then the others in alphabetical order (or any old order), so don't just drag and drop and hope that the order will be correct. The way to do it is take a blank AND newly formatted USB stick and copy your video files over one at a time in the order you want them to play. I tried this with a blank but not formatted USB stick and it STILL put the first file copied last in the list. With a formatted stick, the order was exactly as copied.
4. At the end of playing it will skip to the next video automatically; again annoying and useless. One way round this is to create a blank and silent video and interleave it between your videos, then the skip button will skip to the next one.
5. Videos can't be made to loop (unless you just play one, in which case it will keep looping whether you want it to or not).

Admin

Awake for most for the night with stomach pain, but used the time to make detailed Christmas present plans. I seem to spend too long promoting or planning rather than doing. It's easy to slip into or obsess about trivialities. Tomorrow; rehearsals for Carol Finch's book launch on Saturday. As Fall in Green we will perform 15 minutes or so of new material from Deb's Wilkommen Zum Rattenfanger Theater, and I will need to do a costume an equipment change to perform as Marius Fate too. A lot of work. I'll convince myself that this is how Rick Wakeman must have felt when touring in his heyday.

In December I must try to charge into new art.

Euston Book Signing

Long day. Left at 10am for the train, which was ten minutes late. Arrived in Euston at about 1pm and set up our table. Nicole, the Virgin Team Leader, was really nice and helpful, and come to think of it, most of my experiences of ever doing things, as an artist, with Virgin Trains has been really good, with friendly, supporting, and efficient staff.

The stall looked as good as it had before, with better signage, but it was difficult to engage with the passengers who were often busy, rushing, generally prone to ignoring stalls, but we (well, mostly Deb) spoke to several nice peripatetic aficionados of art, writing, poetry. Deb sold two Testing the Delicates and a Rattenfanger, and a joint Fall in Green CD. I sold a copy of Songs of Life, and metaphorically kicked myself for making a mistake on the sub totals; a calculator would be useful.

Bought some food and left, the train again ten minutes late. Overall we lost money on our 370-mile round trip, but we were warm and met some nice people; although I generally didn't say much. Perhaps I'm a little out of practice at human interaction these days, feeling often at the moment like I did in 2007 or so when Andrew Williams was my only friend, by email or pen. Art must be in phases, in, out. Each has advantages and disadvantages. I find I'm often happier the more I withdraw and the less I interact with people, although we have different moods, different personalities that become dominant. Perhaps, I hypothesized recently, our cells club together to form different creatures, each talking to another; the voices in our heads must necessarily be one fraction of our self communicating with another.

When The Time Is Done, Euston Signing

Yesterday was a spare day between two busy days. I decided to plan the next live ArtSwarm event a bit, some ideas for Felines, practice guitar, and record a song and make a video for the next ArtSwarm programme which is very probably the end of the show itself. I needed to do more. I'm anxious to create and finish work as soon as possible. I have, at least, a plan for Burn of God. I can't allow myself to rest, sleep, stagnate.

Here's a clip from my ArtSwarm video, When The Time Is Done:

When the time is done
and the world is only shadows
the echoes of our actions, our lives and loves
live on

When the time is done
we continue through our impact
we can never be erased
for we are part of all things

Only Andrew Williams has submitted anything for ArtSwarm so far, and it seems that ArtSwarm has gradually wound down. Over the run, one or two people had submitted one video once, people who stumbled across the programme perhaps, or saw my call in the Arts News newsletter, but they didn't seem to want to send more, or really get involved with the show. Is making an interactive show not really possible? Perhaps this is the limit of creativity.

Perhaps the idea will resurrect one day, it is a worthy successor to ArtsLab on RedShift, and always more popular, but that was partly because of the way RedShift did things; ArtsLab was for a long time the most popular show on the station because the format included so many people, and even if only the contributors listened that would break a few records. The RedShift producers always seemed to dodge the question when asked how many people listen, the actual answer was usually nobody at all, and when I was there the majority of the station's full-time output had less than ten listeners. I learned that the station didn't exist for the listeners, or to produce good programmes, it was there as a community scheme for the presenters who wanted to play their favourite records. In learning to present live radio and becoming part of that family, my experiences at the station were valuable, enjoyable, and life transforming. Everyone there was there because they were doing something they loved, and every person and experience I've had with RedShift has been positive.

Off to London today to sign books in the Virgin 1st Class Passenger Lounge in Euston Station. I'll be showing off a painting, and a poem by Martin Elder from the Write Out Loud poetry group, the biggest poetry collective in Britain and perhaps the world! This makes the event a spectacle. So, this little stall can be a participatory art show in itself.

ArtSwarm First Time

A busy Saturday, all spent preparing for the live ArtSwarm event, First Time. I always fear that not many people will come, but there are always a few people who come who weren't expected, and always a few who don't come for whatever reason. Three performers pulled out, two of which I expected and one who let me know shortly before. This is an inevitable consequence of organising any participatory event, whether unpaid and voluntary or paid. I try to make performers feel welcome and that they should want to perform or try something. I rarely ask people to perform because most of the will and desire should come from the performers. Myself, I have a 'show must go on' attitude and I don't think I've ever cancelled an appointment or gig or appearance or event of any sort (but then, even at my senior school I had a 100% attendance record for all 5 years, attending even when ill).

But when organising anything, one or two missing acts are inevitable. I aim to be forgiving of such things, especially for things like ArtSwarm where performers might well do something next time anyway and where the atmosphere is ersatz, experimental, fun; but I still want to treat the audience respectfully and the performers professionally. Special guests who promise to be there up to the last minute, but don't turn up, insult everyone and had better be dying and unable to apologise for it!

This didn't happen on Saturday though, there were no special guests and the whole night was easy and relaxed. It's amazing how different each of these nights are. I sometimes struggle, as I did with ArtsLab, with the balance of fun and entertaining versus serious and artistic. I made another post about the fun being serious, and indeed, every expression is still art. This time, perhaps due to the shorter span, I felt the need to be more entertaining. I did struggle with the topic, First Time, too.

My first, very silly, song was about Neil Armstrong, sang to a simple backing track with a few live synth elements. Alice Smith supplied an image to project, and Nick Ferenczi kindy brought his projector for this (I hate borrowing or relying on other people's equipment! I need to test and check everything and know the tech inside and out, this is a lesson from the two years of Mash events; with technology, rehearse and try everything). Alice's piece involved her talking to her younger self. Maggie sang a few songs, as did Nick, and we had poems from several people. I read random words from first lines of books.

Highlights for me: Nick sang a song which was more like a prose poem, and used the guitar to make sound effects more than actually play. It had a punk-like feeling. Deborah had a silent disco in the dark. All of the lights were switched off and, in silence, the audience stood up and danced. We could make out each others silhouettes, but not faces. It created a strange feeling, communal and intimate and yet distant and free too.

There was enough time left to just chat for 45 minutes or so, something I rarely get time for. It made me appreciate the meeting aspect of the nights, which were an important part of some of the Mash nights, all of the parts in between the performances. Perhaps the acts could be inside the group more, like a 'happening' or spontaneous show. This is another balance between a staged, rehearsed performance, and an improvised, loose performance. Loose implies interactive, which normally feels better for the audience, but is less controllable, and less reliable; a bad audience might ruin the show, or at least transform it. Anyway, with ArtSwarm, the acts can choose what to do; anything goes.

Eleven people came in the end, plus Deb and I, too few to pay for the hall so I subsidised the costs a bit. I had decided that I would stop hosting these when this happened, but I nearly broke even, and also feel that this is an important thing for local arts, and (more selfishly) that I'm still learning and want to do more. A lot of local groups and meetings seem to have stopped or paused this month, so I think I should push on, and after the dark winter months, perhaps the events will grow again. Next time I will have a projector of my own for acts to make use of, another reason why I thought I'll organise another show.

I got home at 11pm, tired out after lugging around the heavy equipment. A sleepless night of shivers and exhaustion, I need to find a way to eat and drink enough during these nights; I assume this is the problem. I was up early this morning to take the freezing box of bus to Macclesfield for a day as a volunteer shopkeeper in the Macc Art Lounge. A few sales today (not mine) on a busy Treacle Market day, but not exceptionally busy in the lounge according to John.

Art sales are difficult now it seems. It seems that people buy these things for decoration, no regard to the artist or artistic development or knowledge. Is this due to the mechanisation of creation? Is this ignorance about the arts? Is this always, has this always been, the case with contemporaneous art? Hindsight creates masters, not current knowledge. I'm more confident than ever of my artistic path, busy, inspired, more skilled, full of new ideas, goals, targets.

I must get Burn of God finished. It's dragging on and is difficult.

Macc Lounge, Wave-Field

A long day in the Macc Art Lounge today, a very cold and quiet day, with 10-20 visitors or so, which is a typical Thursday. Spoke to a few people and the artists. The creative output and choices were in hanging some new abstract paintings. Almost all of the paintings in the shop are abstract or landscape, this is what sells in a commercial setting like this. People are broadly looking for decoration of the right quality and price, the artist, and the investment in the art itself, is a secondary factor.

Returned home and went to the first evening of Wave-Field, some musical see-saws in the Lyceum Square. These are fun, they are simply see-saws which light up when used and play sounds. It appears to have been thought up as a clever idea, with no artistic value or comment; the creator is (apparently) an architect with little interest in art itself. This is interesting in a field where hyperbole and all sorts of nonsense is written about art. Of course, this writing is important. No writing about the artistic content does not mean the art is meaningless.

There are many things Wave-Field could be about in an artistic sense; the saws, in a row, made me think of digital sound waveforms, and this was reinforced by the strange electronic sounds. The installation is sold as an interactive social experience for strangers or friends, but well, every and any see-saw is that. It made me think that a plain see-saw could have been called an art installation a few hundred years ago. Ultimately though, any creation always reflects the personality and emotions of the creator (or group of creators, a group can have a personality and emotion); so even the coldest and most technical construction can be touching and 'be art'.

This is a strange creation. It's steel and plastic and LED lights; as steely as something from a 90s Star-Trek series, or a Paul Verhoeven film. The sounds are curious digital squalks and squelches like a robot's belchy intestinal sounds. The writing speaks of social interaction, but it feels strangely alien, something like Marvin the robot (he wasn't an android) from the BBC Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Perhaps, Wave-Field is about alienation, a seeking to connect with humanity in a digital world. Perhaps the see-saws are bones or nerves of hope.

There is probably an element of this being the result of a new type of art that is not there to satisfy the artist, or to touch an individual, but crafted for a strange amalgam of public service, practical entertainment, spectacle. Perhaps this process is the alienating force, but Wave-Field is not a warm beast, it's a buckled, silvery conduit for communication, a clonky, imperfect, social medium.

Confession

More work on Burn of God. The progress is Sisyphean, achingly slow, but I have about 30 minutes made now. The album is strange, includes speech, prayers and I'm not sure if I even like it. Perhaps this is a good thing, as all of the best art, music in particular, takes time to like. I must complete it anyway and must fight, must do my best. I will certainly learn something, and already have made great strides in learning vocal production techniques. I've added a lot more vocals in the past week. The key to singing is to use as little breath as possible, and no tension above the waist. The abdominal muscles control breathing for singing because they are fast and responsive. I can understand the similarity between singing and piano playing. I am still very much learning.

Here are the lyrics to Confession, a fast rock, drum-n-bass, Prodigy; rip-roaring ride of a song.

Confession

Listen boys and girls we're gonna find out your sins today
The eye of God is on you
Watching everything you do

Go there to that solemn place
bow your heads and pray
think of all your bad deeds
and beg forgiveness from
the priest

Jesus is giving
Jesus is kind
Always keep Jesus in your mind
Jesus will cure you
Of everything naughty
But if you try to hide
you're gonna get caughty

Oh...

Listen!

Enter the confessional, kneel upon the floor
everything is secret there
every word is like a prayer
tell the priest how bad you've been
tell him every sin
he'll write up a prescription
a punishment to save
your skin

Sigh, Programming

One of those wasted, pointless days when something old and computer related gets updated, instantly destroying your old work. Today I updated my websites to use the latest PHP version. There are only a few changes, mostly to the database access code and the shopping cart systems.

But, I have 7 websites (my main art site, IndieSFX, Lost in Flatspace, Pentangel Books, Cornutopia Software, Cornutopia Music and Bytten Reviews) and each has several pages, sometimes several hundred. My main art website has over 1000 pages alone (not counting one page that can show several things; my painting page for example can show any painting, if I counted all of those as separate pages, my site would easily be 2000 to 4000 pages large). Each page that accesses a database needs updating and that means hundreds of lines of code that need changing, all just to stand still and produce a website that was, at best, exactly the same as it was before. This sort of nightmare situation is something every programmer must simply tolerate. Perhaps my years of doing things like this was training to work for no reward!

Fortunately, I have created a program that can search and replace a specific text stream, and search for it across a folder of files and, also fortunately, I tend to use the same code across each site, so I've used this to batch convert all 3000 or so files and, in each, search for the five troublesome lines that need transforming. Then I needed to make a few changes to the shopping cart, but this had to be done by manual search and replace in each file.

It's taken all day to get back to where I started, but now everything is updated to the latest version. A few odd symbols now appear on my site; characters like é and £ now need the correct HTML, but these are minor issues. Apart from that no creative work was done and it's been a frustrating day. I hardly feel like an artist. I must rush my music through, but it feels like I'm pushing through a thick soup that goes thicker as I push harder (a dilatant colloid?). I must work at it, work harder, push against these forces.

Framing

Framing today, a simple matter of measuring the artwork, sawing the pine framing with a fine-toothed veneer saw, using 8 exact cuts. One mm too long or too short would make the frame out of line, so generally these cuts need to be 0.5mm accurate. Then distressing the surface with a wire brush, sanding, staining, glueing, clamping and stapling the frame. Leave 24 hours to dry.

In the mean time, measure and cut a backing board from 3mm MDF. Mark mount-board for the spacer, using the frame recess as a guide, cut an aperture to make the width of the spacer 7mm or so. Laser-print the labels, adhere one to the rear of the artwork stating title, medium, date. Then measure glass using the recess of the frame, score with your Toyo glass cutter and snap.

Next day, unclamp the frame. Mark holes for fixings; mirror plates or D-rings, by measuring the appropriate distance down and using a scratch awl to mark the centre points, then drill with a 2.5mm drill. Varnish the frame, sand and retouch, revarnish, or paint if needed.

Once dry, polish the glass with glass cleaner or methylated spirits and assemble in the frame, followed by the spacer, painting, backing board, removing dust as you go. Check the image from the front for dust and that all looks well. Apply pins to hold the painting in. Add optional framer's tape all the way around the edge to form a dust seal (I tend to avoid this stage because it can look messy and make disassembling the frame awkward and damaging). Apply the second label to the back. Screw in fixings, tie nylon hanging cord, apply masking tape to loose ends of the string.

Prime Numbers, Macc Lounge, Ears

Yesterday began early with the launch of Future Snooker, this involved a few technical clicks plus several basic messages and emails, and a newsletter sending. This had to be complete before 8:15 when I had to leave for the Macc Art Lounge, to help set up the shop. It seemed to take hours to set up but I had an enjoyable time in the fragments of retail space, and spent time getting to know the abstract artist Diane Nevitt. Both bus journeys took nearly two hours on this epic day.

In the evening, I noted down some millisecond timings for my new 'choroleight' audio effect. Audio effects need prime numbers because otherwise delays will reinforce. This made me think that prime numbers are essential for every digitisation and every quantisation process, and are probably vital in quantum mechanics for this reason; the primes might constitute unresolvable infinities, and the non-primes something more concrete, a better, more attainable area, due to this reinforcement.

Today was a full day, and began at 8am with programming the audio effect, which sounds amazing, I'm so pleased with it. Then a long bus trip full of the drama of an olde worlde ocean voyage; a 15 minute breakdown in the middle of the road, a bus switch-on-and-off-again, then a winding country lane flowing with a slow trickle of traffic, a horse and cart at its snake of head.

The day was mostly spent hanging work; a large cluster of paintings to hang on every space. John Eastwood, John Gardner, Ché Finch, Clare Allan, Brian Law and Diane Nevitt were all present or visited during the day, and the shop looked sparkly and ship-shape at the end of Saturday, and a trickle of visitors popped by too, with a two small gifts and one art sale today. Here are some of us at the end of the day:

I left just after 4pm, and at home guzzled food and responded to Future Snooker duties (the game was launched yesterday on Steam, this involved a few technical clicks plus several basic messages and emails), then off to a friend's party and some lovely relaxed social time. I have a totally different personality at every party and today was quiet and enjoyed chats with one or two friends. The music was too loud. I must state for the first time that, since excessive earache during childhood, my hearing has been sensitive and painful to even moderately loud noises. It's somewhat amazing that I should have become an audio engineer when my doctors predicted hearing damage back then, but perhaps this has made me take care of my hearing that bit more. We somewhat sadly left early due to the noise, and my tiredness, it has been a long day.

Now to rest my aches. Tomorrow I will brave the freezing rain to urgently make a new frame for an older painting.

Art Lounge Setup

A good but long day setting up art at the Macc Art Lounge. Little time to work on Choraleight, the new audio effect I'm developing which sounds very like multi-layering many vocals and uses a chorus of voices based on prime numbers. Ché invited Deb and I to perform there, to launch Deb's book and add a party atmosphere, so we are booked to put in a Fall in Green show at the Macc Art Lounge on December 14th.

I'm back there tomorrow all day, but I'll have to remember to launch Future Snooker in the early morning before I go, and might get behind a little on those essential game developer duties. I've also heard from the Euston Station staff about a separate book signing event in November, will await developments.

Things feel rushed, but I like this high-energy mode, I tend to drive myself crazy with only one mere job. Soon I will miss Burn of God, so much keep working at it and set myself a tight deadline. The immediate events due this month are the Rainbow Arts performance night on the 21st, the Cirque du ArtSwarm night on the 23rd, Carol Finch's book launch on the 30th (which will include a Marius Fate performance, and my 800W sound system and electronic instruments). The 30th is also a launch day for a new shop opposite the Art Lounge, so it would be good to be in Macclesfield and still get home in time to set up the P.A. system and instruments etc. at the Memorial Hall. I fear this is an impossible ideal.

Onward.

Art Lounge Preparations

A busy day, starting with preparations for setting up work at The Macc Art Lounge. The last time I was there was in 2016, where I visited Macclesfield just about every week to help staff the shop, and took part in every exhibition. Here's photo from back then.

The shopping centre was undergoing renovations at the time and the use of the Lounge space was on a rolling contract. Throughout the year, the brilliant managers Ché Finch and John Eastwood were never sure if the space would be in use, and certain that the place would close at the end of 2016, but the deadline kept being pushed back at the last moment. Amazingly, the shop has kept going since. I asked to return in autumn 2017 after being told that I would 'always be welcome' back, and felt hurt not to even be replied too, but I feel pleased to be asked back for November and December.

I've no idea how much space I'll have, so I'll bring a selection of paintings based on how many I hung last time, and a range of prices, mostly in the lower bracket with a few 'showcase' paintings. One big change since 2016 is the framing, I've re-framed most of my paintings so they look much more stunning than before. The Sunset with Rose Petals, for example, now has glass and a black and gold gloss frame. I'll also show a Richard Dadd print; I've sold five of these limited edition prints at the Art Lounge in the past.

As well as packing work, price lists and labels need to be made, hanging tools packed and the day documented for future reference.

Not much time today for other work but I managed to buy presents for my mum and aunt's (they are twins) birthdays. I'm also toying with a new chorus effect which uses eight voices that rotate at specific frequencies. This is a distraction; I know I should get back to music, but for some reason I am a little unmotivated.

I'll visit Macc at least once per week until Christmas, a long and somewhat costly bus trip both ways, but this will be a change to my routine and I'm rather looking forward to it. Since the end of the monthly 'Mash' nights, I've hardly been to Macclesfield and I've gradually lost touch with any artist friends as there is no art community here, except any I might build myself.

Brother

Here is my poem for the Nantwich Speakeasy I wrote on Monday. Kevin Emson and others pointed out how close to a war memorial it was, but that was pure accident. I had in mind school friends, the generation we are lumped with at random, and must sail with through life.

Brother

I rest and recall childhood
a land of mists,
misremembered hills of moss
and lost voices.

The comrades there,
pushed together to train
to survive the seas of a hard journey
towards shrouded monoliths.

With jingle bells we trot together
bemused at the younger and older ones.
Equal gifts are unwrapped
for our fun.

I turn, and find myself alone
among the stone.

Lullaby From Your Cells

A slow day that started with a dark tiredness, listlessness. I awoke with stomach pain and wondered if the stomach represents a connection to the world, as though Bergman's effusive stomach was an outpouring of something. Mine is more knotted, contemplative perhaps. The moronic politics of lying, blame, and selfish bitterness in Britain, and the wider world, at the moment, would sadden anyone, but ignoring these fools is the best option. Politics is an essence of gossip and ego, the domain of the loudest cackling moron, and yet these squabbling idiotic chickens can have power over us all.

To art. I started to day by recordings some vocals for one of the Burn of God songs, Lullaby From Your Cells to Your Mind, which is the Bach-like Air On A G-String sort of tune. It's a song sung by cells. Cells, this community of creatures, perhaps perceive our overall consciousness as a sort of god-being:

Sleep and rest your tired mind and dream of a better day, our god, dream of the people of your world who struggle for your love.

Like most of my words, the poetry is more important than how the fit musically; unless I'm working on a specific pop-song that is. There are an infinity of choices and structures available to choose from.

I then re-framed a print of The Paranoid Schizophrenia of Richard Dadd, print number 12 of 100. I framed this yesterday, but there were slight dots of white dust in the frame (the framer's regular curse!) so I just had to take it apart and reframe it. This uses mirror plates to hold the print in place, which is both secure and kinder to the frame and materials than nails or 'points'. I sold a photographic print years ago and for reasons of correct limitation have designated that print 13, so the one after this will be print 14.

This afternoon, worked on the Kyrie intro again, adding some monk-chant like vocals, and finalised the production of the Confession song, although the vocals are to do. The song is in B-flat minor, partly because the next song starts in that key, and I wanted to preserve this flow.

Then, wrote a poem for tonight's Nantwich Speakeasy poetry group. I like this groups because we talk about the poems rather than merely read, and generally have just one poem each. A lot of poetry groups can be a bit ego driven, people really reading too much of their own work and not caring about others. A large group with a small number of poems works better, although, it necessarily means a very varied quality, but then, we can each choose our favourites.

I'm keen to get this album out of the way as soon as possible. Perhaps I'm too impatient. Life is learning, training, exercising, fitness, becoming better, and these things are best done slowly and with rational consideration. Nothing too fast, nothing too slow but at the most efficient place. If the album takes a year, at its most efficient, then that is the right time. No must has taken me this long, but learning new skills and pushing to new areas necessarily takes time. Nothing easy is good. That which is difficult is good.

Kyrie Vocals and Macc Art Lounge

Two days of steady work. I realised that small additions to work can be a lot less stimulating or encouraging than making large changes, or rushing out something finished. A lot of my music now, my art generally, unless I'm very lucky takes a lot longer than in did, but that's because I simply, literally, spend more time on it, to make it better than that which has come before.

Yesterday began by recording the vocals for the Kyrie, 40 layers of vocals in the end, which produced a wonderfully smooth sound. Each layer was 30 seconds long, so that's a lot of data and processing to edit together. A female voice an octave higher would probably have suited the song better, but the results are good enough, remarkable for a song made on a computer, actually. Blessed be Prometheus.

In the evening I started on the next song (the kyre still barely half complete), a fast drum and bass or rock style song called Confession. It's so fast that it was all over in 45 seconds, but more was needed and a mid section came to mind, a twangy slow section in 3/4 time. the song is about a first confession, and being instructed in this, so I included the word naughty to recollect childhood and as some light relief from the otherwise sinister feeling, and to push the effect further I rhymed it with 'caughty' meaning caught later; truly surreal.

Lots to do on both songs, and I feel I'm making so so slow progress on it all. I've been offered an opportunity to show paintings in the Macc Art Lounge soon, which will be a lot of work but it's a perfect time for this, so it seems that the next eight weeks or so will be busy with some painting retail duties, assuming this all works out.

Perhaps I'll re-record The Infinite Forest too, a project for next year. My skills and instruments are much better now than the ones in that old album, and I could work on some new 600dpi artwork for a possible CD (there are less than 20 copies of the current CD-R burned album, very few have been sold, but one or two have I think, at places like the Macc Art Lounge, or other public events).

Kyrie Eleison

The end of a few listless days of programming and the angst and self-avoidance of creative work. A few bugs found in my music software, mainly related to effect buffers, and one naughty one about division-by-zero when copying a blank engine, I'm back to music.

I spent an hour or two last night, visualizing and feeling how I want the album to move next. I had been stuck partly because of dead ends, which when pursued, can linger in the mind, a desire to finish them or use them, but there are times when the best option is to discard. I've had a few false starts with this section.

The first 'movement' (well, the first few songs) lead to a natural gentle close, and the next step, the start of the next section always felt like it should grow from darkness, like the sparkles around the creature in Night of the Demon, or the golden letters in Rembrandt's Belshazzar's feast. I also wanted a Christian Catholic section in the album. I could make some general comments about god-ness and beliefs, but my experience is this, and this is where the emotion must come from. I can't be emotional about analysis.

I've spent the morning working on the entrance of God the father, as stated, something like Zadok. The goal chord was D minor, the broad tonic of the album, so I began with it and migrated away on a wandering journey, in steps like something from The Spiral Staircase. The hard part is adding a melody, the right amount if it, of sorts to simple two-syllable words and powerful chords that generally lack the need for melody, but without it, music is nothing, it's a void.

Anyway, the chords are complex:

But the music is progressing well. The key part, with sequenced music, is to work dry and simple, so that the melody and the mix of notes are clear and as simple and efficient as possible. I never use any form of equalisation to balance music, merely melody and the timbre and loudness of the instruments, and I keep effects to the optimal level, which, when composing, is as few as possible. After this, space can be added and the feeling of each note sculpted.

After this orchestral choir music, the music will jump into drum and bass, or something like it, a high speed rock song about confession.

Wednesday

Started the day with coding, first locating every time I'd used the 'Moog VCF (mono)' engine, which has now been superseded by a stereo version (I chose mono because it was originally faster, but after testing it was nearly the same speed anyway, so I replaced it years later). It turns out that about 150 songs use it. No matter, the new 'conversion matrix' feature can automatically find and replace it upon loading, so for the first time I have all-new and all-recent plugins.

I also found a memory accumulation bug, which has probably been in there for 15 years or so, since inception. Suffice it to say that deleting an instrument didn#t free up the effect buffers for it. Not disastrous, as these are shared anyway, but it would mean this area would grow over time, if songs were repeatedly loaded and saved. Anyway, now fixed.

Then started on a tune called Kyrie, which has a rambling, Indian raag sort of mood. It's one of my first where I played some live guitar on it, but it's all very hard work; the timing is essential in such tunes, they are easily boring and the climax must be amazing. I have in mind Zadok the Priest, and it must at least sound close to this (I expect Beethoven had a bit of it in mind for his Kyrie too).

A second day of headache. I've started to take Phosphatidyl Serine tablets, which are supposed to be good for memory. After two days, I can just about remember their name, so they have worked. I think the headache is stress related more than Serine related. The tension of trying to finish this music, but now the software is updated, so I have no excuses. The next step is to make a clear list and plan.

In other news, the first video for Future Snooker is on YouTube, and is excellent. I'm hopeful that the game will be a success.

Music Coding Updates

Busy couple of days back programming (and, yesterday morning, ArtSwarm filming, editing, uploading).

The problem with software upgrades is that sooner or later, things get superseded, and a lot of my programming updates this time are about trying to tidy up old song files. I have about 1000 pieces of music, and some of the older ones use obsolete effects or plugins. This is fine, except that over time, the number of old ones starts to grow, and eventually the software is more complex than it needs to be, filled with plugins and effects that shouldn't be used or needed nowadays. The efficient solution is to tidy them up, seek every old file and replace the old things with new things, but this is a big job, so I've been coding a few functions to help with this.

There are a couple of options. One is an automatic translator, so that upon loading, one effect can be swapped with another. For this I've used a script, so you can sort of program what to swap with what. This has a few other uses, in that you could use it to, for example, swap all of the sine waves in a song for saw waves, or do other things. This operates on a song by song basis, and so it's ideal for mass updates, but is still useful when replacing (or accidentally finding) obsolete things.

I have one plugin "Tuned Flange II" which doesn't even exist any more, either in my code or the software. I thought I rarely used it, and that I never would again, but it turns out I used it quite a lot. It's essentially a 'combed' flange effect, that is lots of delays (7 I think), each slightly different, and all, on average, centered around the frequency of the note being played. When applied to white noise, for example, it creates a breathy tone, a bit like ghostly pan-pipes (you can hear it in a tune of mine called The Train, and the Dance of Spring from The Twelve Seasons). I need to create mock version of this effect so I can replace it with newer, more efficient, versions.

Anyway, my second helper function is to search a pile of files to look for problems. This will list all of the plugins used in there. This could be used as a global 'instant tidy' option, but automatically converting and saving over 15 years worth of music is risky, something might get lost or converted incorrectly, so this merely displays information.

This is all part of cleaning, tidying, organising, sorting. This takes a lot of time, a seemingly endless task. I love tidying and organising (I've surmised often that this is the purpose of life and intelligence itself), but it can harm new, original creative output, which is another vital goal of life. Hopefully I can get these changes done soon, then move back to art.

ArtSwarm and Prometheus

A slow day. Started by compiling the new ArtSwarm show, converting new videos and editing the audio for some, this took until lunch. Then music work, completing the string tune from yesterday, and trying to push forward on the album.

In the evening, I decided the reprogram my software, adding a few features mainly to help with tidying up old songs. The first feature was to expand phrases, which are tracks that are full of notes that are repeated often, for example a drum-loop, so that you can point to the phrase track as a shortcut rather than typing the same notes over repeatedly. I used to use these a lot more than I do now, particularly for repetitive tracks; you might have a bassline that is identical throughout the song for example, but now I hardly use this feature because I tend to craft every note individually. Even when the notes are technically the same, the timing, the volume, and the feeling are different each time in a piece of music, so now my music takes more time to make but is less mechanical.

Yesterday, looking back at the some The Infinite Forest music, I thought that it would be nice to remake it, but the notes in each phrase track would need to be manually copied where it was used, which would take hours, so I've added a feature to automatically expand and copy all of the notes in all of the phrases used in a song.

This programming is a distraction tactic so that I can avoid thinking about composing. I'm most productive when working on several things because one thing is too powerful and too intense. The ideas are too thick and overwhelming to allow themselves to be used, so I need to work on several jobs at once. More coding tomorrow, while the music stews.

I'm listening to Genesis' Trick of the Tail for the first time which is inspiring. Phil Collins' voice on the album sounds remarkably like Peter Gabriel's, and if anything, better. Still, I think the golden age for Genesis was this foursome or the fivesome, rather than the later, less varied, output.

Saw Strings

A difficult night last night, with stomach pain and sleeplessness. I did make notes about the music, at times still a prisoner of the failed parade music. Of course, anything will actually do, anything half-decent will fit fine in the album, but half-decent isn't enough! I listened to the opening to the Missa Solemnis in the night, and thought of a more up-beat opening to the Catholic Christian section of the album. Originally the doubting priest part comes near the start of this, before the guilt-based Dark Night Watchman, but now I think an entry by God might work well first. Now it's a matter of doing it.

The main work of the day, if only to distract myself, is to complete the Future Pool soundtrack, but I also wrote a piece of music which is a bit like Bach's Air on a G-String. My version uses a simple principle of starting high, then dropping an octave at the repeat, and playing a new high melody over the top, then repeating this, until four voices are playing.

It sounds nice, but the string sounds need to be very good for something like this (oh for some real players!). I often toy with saw-wave based strings, and these sound better than ever now, very close to real strings in the upper and mid ranges, but not at all in the lower ranges where they buzz and flange like a Commodore 64 SID tune and don't remotely have the growl and loveliness of real a cello or contrabass. Perhaps a lot more layers are needed; upper strings are very pure, but lower ones have a lot of gravelly noise.

Admin

More Future Snooker and Future Pool work today, so pleased that I decided to work on the soundtrack. Each game will have a selection of tracks. I've also sent out some preview copies.

The other main job of note was setting up a new MixCloud account as it seems that the ArtsLab playlist on RedShift Radio has been deleted, so I've created my own account to create new playlists. More disturbing is that five shows appear to have been deleted too. It appears that one can upload music to MixCloud anyway, so I might have the option of merely hosting the old programmes myself. Having one giant feed for RedShift Radio, rather than one per show, is bonkers. Nobody would want to subscribe to every show, but many people might like to check out specific programmes.

RedShift have announced that they are ending live broadcasting (nobody listened, never in my years there did more than 10 people tune in) and switching to a podcast format. They should have done this years ago, I think, but live radio is more exciting, even if nobody actually tuned in, in practice. With a podcast format, anyone could make the shows at home, and thus avoid the studio all together. In a way, its the beginning of the end of the station, but of course, there is something to be said for grouping together (although I've just argued that grouping together in one account is silly).