A steady day of music work today, three tracks are in small stages of progress: Herr Kasperle for the Fall in Green album, and two new songs for the electronic 'Plastic' album, one of which is based on Yellow Balloon Attack, a tune which I love by Oldfield One. Gone are the days when one track takes a day, now every track or song seems to take a week, with little bits added each day as with a painting. The results are certainly better this way. There are lots of reasons for this, from the fact that I now like to make each note have the right feeling and use more live and custom recorded sections, but also things are more musically, temporally, timbrally complex.
Ultiumately I'm aware that any automation gets in the way of expression, so the less the better, which is my long-term philosophy for music and art. One only has to listen to the gulf of difference between the first Tubular Bells record and the 90s Tubular Bells II... the second is certainly cleaner, but vastly lacking in emotional gamut by comparison. Mike Oldfield said that the first recording was full of mistakes - but for me there are no mistakes, every piece of expression done by hand is correct, assuming the unconscious is working correctly then everything is as intended by the spirits of art, the muses, even if not the consciousness of the artist. Of course, if a cup falls off the shelf when the mic is on then that could be a mistake, but perhaps the artist's unconscious put the cup there especially to fall at the right moment? Again the muses assert themselves.
I've played a little more guitar today but my progress is slowing. I'm playing tunes on each string well, and slowly moving between strings, and playing the odd chord, and bending the odd note. Perhaps I need to try to techniques, new pickings, tapping etc. Also, repetition itself is still progress. Things like speed and accuracy increases generally occur without being noticed. The key is to assume this is happening, and to keep playing something, anything, regularly.
