I went to bed late after making some last minute changes to Prometheus, reducing the max delay for samples from 500ms to 200ms (my samples can have a random delay before starting). Until today I didn't appreciate that audio effect buffers in instruments take up a lot more memory than the same effect in tracks, because instruments can be played on any track, so all tracks reserve memory based on the largest instrument for that 'slot' so a song with 10 tracks might use 10 times the memory for an effect in an instrument, compared to the same effect in a track. Fortunately, delays in instruments are rare... delays and reverbs tend to be a track-level effects. Anyway, at 11pm I found myself programming.
I slept well and dreamt of a monastery or ancient college which I and two colleagues, academics of some sort, were visiting. My colleagues went ahead and I was taken to a side room by a rather chubby red-haired nun who seduced me. I became suspicious at her actions and she revealed herself to be witch. Later on I found myself talking about salt crystals and how they are uniquely cubical, and observed a growth of salt on the walls of the room. Still later I was playing a calypso on some sort of small keyboard in a shopping centre or other public space. The dreams made a lot of sense in their entirety but I can't recall everything now.
It was Jabberwocky release day today, the day that our Fall in Green single went live. Much of the day was some form of online work about this, sharing links on Twitter, likes and follows of related accounts, an email newsletter, some posts and shares on Facebook etc. The video premiered this evening at 7pm. I'm pleased with it and all of the Fall in Green films.
I also managed 30 minutes or more of singing training and recording. How I love this rare and special activity now. Already about 25% of the album vocals are recorded.
I will get this done carefully but as best as I can. I feel like I am at the start of something special, like Beethoven in 1802. Blessed be the forces of unity and J. G. Sulzer!
I've been thinking, once again, about music structures. In the 20th century, music was structured around the medium primarily; the 7-inch single was about 3 or 4 minutes (Hey Jude aside) and the L.P. two sides of 20. These defined a format until CDs in the mid 1980s made an album up to a comfortable hour but most CD releases until the 21st century were designed to fit vinyl too. Radio also favoured short tracks, but still, the grand artform was (is) considered the album; a performance of 45 minutes or so and 12 tracks or so - but mainly due to the media format, not any fundamental philosophy. Mike Oldfield might have made a 2-track album but this was an exception and even he had a 'single' release, sort of, due to the catchy opening appearing in The Exorcist.
We're now in the digital era where the format can be anything. In a concert, one might expect a couple of hours of entertainment with a gap in the middle. Classical concerts in the 19th century evolved towards this too, as public performance vs. performing for princes became the norm. For private, non-live, music, what is best?
I've been inspired by Beethoven's piano sonatas. Most sonatas were/are three movements of 5-10 minutes and often a fast one, a slow thoughtful one, and a fast one again. They are long enough to have some depth in there but short enough to be unified. I like the idea of three (or indeed four, but 12 seems like a lot). My Walk in the Countryside was an E.P. of two sets of three, and for me it always felt like two 'concertos' or 'sonatas' of a sort ('sonata' means for one solo instrument, but I associate the word with a unified feeling more than this definition, something more tight and intimate than a concerto which, although also often in three parts, involve an orchestra and so a large expense and degree of grandness).
So I hope to explore some of these sets of three. The digital release systems are a bit odd in their links to concepts like 'singles' (now 1 to 3 tracks that are each less than 10 minutes), 'E.P.s' (4 to 6 tracks with a total running time of 30-minutes or less, OR 1 to 3 tracks, with one track at least 10-minutes long, and a total running time of 30-minutes or less) and 'albums' (anything really). This doesn't concern me. I want to make something unified and neat, like those sonatas (or indeed trios or quartets, also similarly intimate and neat packages) but of course with vocals and a full gamut of modern instruments... these are song cycles; rock songs, spoken words, instrumentals, everything. There are no limits.
These will come after Sisyphus. Oh, and after a painting or two. How short life is.
