Day 6 of my new Fall in Green music work. I will say now that the music I've been working on a new version of The Jabberwocky; we wanted to rework a classic poem and this seems ideal.
It's going to plan, and includes more live recordings than I've ever used in one sequence. Generally I'm using the piano for the basic mood, but not always, there are two acoustic guitar sections which work well and which will allow Deborah to play when we perform this live. The hard part is matching the two. I had thought that I'd use the piano as a guide, but the tempo there is faster than the gentle guitar wants, so the guitar section I've played over it doesn't quite fit. This makes things difficult because the piano part is one very long midi track, so inserting or extending parts isn't as easy as it could be, I have to essentially re-record it all as on giant recording and them push up all of the sequence, see if it fits, then adjust and do the same over and over until it sounds correct, quite a time consuming process. This is an essential consequence of playing the instruments myself and having no fixed tempo as a guide... matching the feeling of one play to a previous performance, and coming in at the right time.
It's a long song, about 10 minutes, but not nearly as musically diverse as a Genesis track, like Supper's Ready, for example. That is more like ten mini-songs put end to end, often varying in key, tempo and even time signature; held together by the story, but really only by the recapitulation of sections at the end - which of course works to good effect because any chaotic or dissonance has an bamboozling psychological effect that opens the mind to autosuggestion. In uncomfortable circumstances the mind grasps at straws - this is why noise followed by melody always makes the melody attractive, this is one secret of aesthetics.
I like variety and a show of depth and breadth, but I prefer more overall structure and unity than Genesis; I'm more Beethovian. I've essentially got three parts in The Jabberwocky; a marshy mysterious theme, a monster theme (repleat with monstrous instruments), and a joyous theme. I also open with an overture of all three before the poem begins. Musically I'm hardly using any notes at all, and only about four chords, but there is enough variety in drama and timbre, and this also allows more room to improvise when live without trying to memorise too much - I perform everything only from memory.
The song is sequenced in two big parts and it is largely complete, although there can't be any vocals for a while as Deb needs to record these. The strings and orchestral parts are some of my most lush and dramatic.
But I must try to do something with that guitar. There are also two long-standing bugs in Promethueus that are causing problems. They are only a problem when I modulate the tempo and combine this with importing long samples (over 90 secs). I will, again, try to fix them this week.
