Great day. Added my full music catalogue to my wbesite, and started work on framing. I de-clamped the small one from yesterday and sanded it to make it smooth and almost bone-like. Pine is so lovely when sanded soft like a pebble. I stained it black, then cut glass, backing boards, and spacers for both new frames. I also deframed the old 'So, It Has Come To This' painting which is in an ancient frame, I'll try to neaten it up, rather than reframe because the deep transparent green colour is very nice.
Then an hour of singing; new vocals for I, Sisyphus. The production didn't sound right, so I thoguht I'd try a new melody, but that didn't really help. In the end I added more layers and complexity to the vocals and adjusted the song production itself. It's such a complex song, there are three layers of different guitars (heavy backing, a wailing lead, and something inbetween), a rock organ, strings, wailing synth lead, full drums with lots of toms and a gong, bass. Trying to simply insert vocals was perhaps always too simple, so I toyed with the arrangements to get everything to fit.
It's strange that I didn't consider this difficult to sing when the chorus climaxes at a high G#, really near the top of my range (for reference, the climactic 'youuuu' in Roy Orbison's 'Crying' is a high A (though it sounds slightly lower, the tuning sounds a few cents off 440hz tuning to me).
Working on this production is a bit like working on a highly detailed and complex oil painting, like Ricahrd Dadd one; it's a matter of very slowly and meticulously working on each part separately. I've got several main sections; three verses, a two-line part of wailing (I've used that word a lot!) words, a dramatic part about crying to the gods and hearing nothing but a raven (the grating guitars come in solo to represent the raven - will anyone notice this?) and the chorus. I've added secondary echoes for several lines, two beats apart, so parts of the song sound like a canon. I've also added 7th harmonies (lower) to the highest parts. Perhaps a higher voice (female?) at the same pitch would help there. I imagine a gospel choir.
I also sang to Style Guru Fashion Queen but the screamingly strong high G notes on the chorus were a bit too much for me (again, think Hellraiser by The Sweet) - fun though they were to sing. After the hour my voice didn't feel particularly tired and still doesn't despite more singing this evening too. I realised that I had a tendency to hunch my shoulders or twist my neck or face to add 'feeling' to certain notes, but this didn't really do that; so stopping doing such things was a good lesson.
My neck and shoulders do ache though, and my eyes are tired. I noticed that pressing on my temples causes a shooting nerve pain across my skull and down my jaw which feels like a minor version of the migraine.
21:10. Time to rest.
