Very busy over the last two days working on the new Fall in Green track. It's been a new experience in some ways as I've used live instruments more, and added more to the basic piano track. It's also so long that I've broken it up into sections. It's the first track that features me playing live acoustic guitar, a tiny section near the start. I couldn't play this any on early tracks as I lent the guitar to a friend a year ago, before I could play, and have only recently got it back.
I've also added some rock-style drums, organs, and many more layers than normal for a Fall in Green track. Always at the back of my mind is that we are to play these live, and one of the bits I've found difficult here is coping with this. Ideally I'd forget that, and make this as good as I can, and in the end, I've done that, but with the odd caveat.
Live and recorded are two different media... the live show will always have something the recorded one doesn't and vice versa, so perhaps recorded music should always be full of bells and whistles and have no relation to any live performance. Yet, in many ways the recorded version is, especially in the recording era (ie. not classical) the definitive version, and live performances should aim to match that. Perhaps this is a little silly, and many rock and progressive bands, King Crimson for example, seem to go out of their way to add 'more' to the live version - but do they also take away?
I was reminded that the early Queen albums were musically complex, that some tracks like The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke were never performed live, and with News of the World they decided to write simpler tracks for live performance.
Of course, in the 18th century, music was only for live and a lot was left up to the performer, free improvisations were expected. In my track I've added a section for improvisation. One reason why the short guitar piece is in there is that it should permit Deb to play that, while I play the piano for a short while, leaving time to change instruments... these are some of the things I've been thinking of.
But generally I've grown to ignore any live-play concerns and aimed to make the recording as good as I can. One thing I've avoided though is too much sequencing. I hate that anyway, and I've tried to played all of the piano parts live in one smooth take and of course the guitar parts. This is important to get the feeling right... too much editing kills that and it makes is harder, slower and a less efficient was to work. Also, the result sounds less authentic.
This is so lacking is music now. I heard, by chance, the current global Spotify top ten a couple of days ago. The music is amazingly similar sounding and amazingly fake sounding, well produced and mixed, but so very sequenced sounding, all all of the vocals heavily autotuned. There seemed to be no element of actual playing skill in there, and if there was, nobody wanted to show it.
I love Beethoven, the Romantics, and progressive rock, because they aim to show their skill, that itself is part of the art, an extra layer. The writing is showing skill, the production, the playing, the performance. This also defines me as an artist; I've designed and programmed all of the music software and plug-ins I use, now the video software too, played all of the instruments, produced and engineered the music, designed the album art, founded the record company, made the music videos, and every other aspect. Even Beethoven didn't print and sell his sheet music. The point is to do everything because that makes everything unified; a total artwork that is the best in every dimension. Of course, it's also good training in a wide range of disciplines... every aspect can always be improved on.
