I thought that today was a slow day, yet I seem to have got more done than expected. I sang the vocals to Garden of Love, and the song called Organon (although I'll probably change the title). I think I'm improving at singing, but who can say, perhaps I'm merely more used to hearing and toying with my own voice.
There are many aspects to singing. Each cell should express itself when your body is an instrument. Generally I think of my body like bagpipes; some air in the chest like a bag of potential energy, and a tense stomach like the grip on the bag, used to squeeze the sound, with control, through relaxed upper parts which target the note and timbre.
I took four takes to record Garden of Love. Each was generally ok, the music isn't complex or demanding, but the feeling is crucial for such a personal song, the song of a ghost to his mourners. I remembered that the important part is to speak to, to sing to the listener as though talking intimately to one person. The accuracy of everything else; timing, pitch, is secondary to this. We are speaking directly into a loved one's ear. It's not a performance or show for mass, but an intimate act of communication, this is the key difference between live and recorded music.
The first draft of the album is now complete. Many of the early vocals need to be recorded and finished, and the artwork.
I'm very proud of this album, but know that the world won't care (but I hope, and remain assured, that it will one day). After I've been making videos for my early electronic music I'm reminded that this music is nothing like that (although Riding Pi has definite Jean-Michel Jarre influences), but a massive complex mix of every influence, from Beethoven to Pink Floyd to Scott Walker to Kate Bush, a logical step on from the good second half of Cycles & Shadows, and yet also a commentary on God in the way that Ingmar Bergman commented on subjects.
It feels unique and special. I hope that this will be my first of many such works. Painting, without an outlet for me to exhibit or sell, is secondary and I have few plans for paintings this year, only perhaps one or two for my solo (well, hopefully local community) exhibition in Nantwich Museum in December. This is no bad think. My existing works suddenly become more rare and more expensive!
