I've been experimenting with my new guitar amp, it sounds so much better, so much thicker than the old one. All of the old songs sound tinny and jangly compared to the new ones; but that's not always a bad thing... it's hard to definitively say that the old guitars are 'bad'... but the thickness of the new ones gives me more to play with, more to remove when mixing and I have a lot more choice regarding timbre.
The timbre choices are overwhelming, but helped a little by the fact that I'm not going to use any of the effects on the unit; but that still leaves 24 virtual amplifiers to choose from, although in practice only 15 for normal electric guitar (the others are for bass, electro-acoustic, and 'plain') divided into three groups of 5. I've been comparing the sounds from this and my Brian May Guitar with recordings from Queen. The sounds are very similar. The 'Crunch' amp is an emulation of the Vox AC30 that (I think) Brian used. When I turn the Gain to 100 and the Master to about 50, it has a nice distortion that sounds about right for Keep Yourself Alive, for example, but the more distorted intro to Great King Rat is more distorted. Anyway, the 'Lead' amp adds more distortion and sounds pretty similar to 'Crunch' on lower volumes. Well, to cut a ramble short, I have every option I could want from very clean and smooth to very distorted and there's a lot of control on the type of distortion.
All of this makes me want to re-record the guitars on the Sisyphus album. There are 10 tracks, and not all use guitars, and those that do don't use that much, and, this evening, I've got new guitars for almost everything. The biggest problem is the first track, I, Sisyphus, which has a lot of guitars and a lot of improvised solos and things that would all need redoing... and that's a bit of a pain because when something is free and easy it can sound and feel nice... but when you try to copy it a second time it feels like it loses that newness and niceness. Often, in pure sound terms, it can sound as good... takes generally get better each time, but it's hard to certainly know that because the feeling of the good first take remains... it's almost needs a pause and new ears.
So I played and played lots of guitar parts today, trying lots of different settings, unsure if one take was better than a previous one, finding new sounds and new melodies all over the place. This can be a problem. There are merits to doing things in one take for this reason... that is the ideal, yet, as I've said often we do actually get better with later takes... it's all quite strange.
The best results are when we play freely, as though it doesn't matter, when we 'dance while nobody is watching' where everything feels free and can explode into a single emotional release, like the 'sublime' moment I wrote about in a earlier post. Sometimes I feel that I need to play until I feel that... find the feeling... this is the key... but I'm not quite confident enough with the guitar yet. I am with piano, but I've been playing that for over 10 years, the guitar only since July.
Yet, I also know that some great music and great painting looks hugely 'sublime' and emotional and perfect, like Velázquez or John Singer Sergeant paint strokes, or Rachmaninov by Leif Ove Andsnes, when, in actuality, those strokes and piano notes were made coldly, mechanically, carefully, rationally... I know now that those free looking paint strokes are done slowly and carefully when they look fast and carefree.
Tonight I played guitar to some of those Queen songs and recorded a little bit, feeling that 'freeness'. The solution to this 'Take-itis' is really to stick with a first take, but the addition of new equipment or a new skill while crating something can get in the way. Howard Hughes must have felt like this when filming Hell's Angels as a silent film, only to realise that it needed to be a talkie.
Generally the day has been somewhat frustrating and stressful, insecure and fluttery due to these new things. I want to get the project finished and out of the way, then a new idea or tool or something appears and I find myself applying it and again visiting all of the old tracks. Yet, this usually happens. There always comes a point when I ache to get what I'm working on 'out of the way' as I spy a new thing on the horizon. Oh for a blank canvas! Oh for a clean slate! It seems so perfect and neat and how wonderful it would be to make something quickly and perfectly from scratch and 'purely' all in one easy go!
Singing training in the evening went well, steady. I managed to sing Queen's Nevermore and make the high 'see' notes, but my high voice is generally pure and weak. Strengthening this is my goal, over the next months or years. Mastery arrives at the age of 50. I haven't got forever to train. God grant me 60 more years to create with! I've barely started and have so many many ideas and ambitions.
