A strange night, I awoke many times into dreams, thinking that I had awoken, only to awake again and discover I was still dreaming. At one point I even phone called in the dream to tell Deb I had just awoken, to discover that was a dream too. Objects from the room seem to jump at me, as though attracted to me by magnets.
I wrote a light-hearted song, almost with echoes of Noel Coward, in the night called 'Fear is Everywhere', a response to Sparks' new single about an existential threat which has a fantastic video and wonderful words, although not much tune, the words are crammed in really tightly, perhaps like psychological worms into a can.
My Fear song causes me problems. If I put it on the new album it would mean a delay while I work on it; I had thought the music complete. If not, I could put it on YouTube, but then be potentially cursed with its success only to have it remain absent from the album, or I could hide it from the world for a future album, but when might that be?
Today's recording of it features my first guitar solo. While playing I experienced a transition for the first time from focusing on playing to 'letting go' and simply playing how I feel. This second way is the correct way, and the only way I've ever played piano (although it is hard to say because when I first started playing the piano 'properly' in 2015, I had owned a keyboard for years and probably did struggle in my youth when playing to those old music books of Beatles' songs). The feeling is paramount but there must be a certain logical focus to maintain a standard of sorts. A guitar solo, like a piano solo, demands timing accuracy, but when I play the piano I totally ignore the music's meter and play to my own time... I've not thought about doing that for guitar, perhaps because I'm used to hearing Brian May on Queen records playing with perfect timing to everything.
Another difference between piano and guitar is the recording process. I must record my guitar on my Zoom H1 near the amp, which means the room noise is present and it means that I must wear headphones to listen to the backing track. I expect this is how Mr May recorded too, as the sound of guitars is set my the amp, so the recording studio people probably just put a mic in front of it. It is, however, not very nice to play with headphones on, and, importantly, I can't hear exactly what I'm playing (but can roughly, my backing track isn't loud and the guitar generally is).
