I slept badly due to stomach trouble and a persistent cough, which feels like my ever-present semi-allergy. At times, a frustratingly slow day, but I must remind myself that constantly working on something is sometimes the best possible speed. I must also remember that all of my works seem slow and full of struggles but turn out well in the end.
I worked on the Wasp music last night and incorporated those ideas today. The structure which was approximately ABAB is now AB then a fusion of both (sort of first half A, second half B). I needed an intro so spent some time playing some gentle guitar to this, using quite a complex mix of cables so I could hear both the backing track and my actual recording input at the same time through headphones. I also needed a second angsty-solo in the middle, then a bigger, more bluesy, one later... but after recording all three, I wasn't happy with them. I remembered that I wanted a more structured melody... I can improvise forever, but sometimes I want more than random drifting.
At noon I sang loudly, and high notes, perhaps more powerfully and 'better' (so subjective) than ever, and recorded two new complete takes of We Shall See, a mix of training and experimentation to see what it might sound like, and a take of Style Guru. My voice was strong and clear this time, but the gentleness of the song seemed to suit the earlier vocals better. I might stick with those. The Style Guru vocals were largely good.
One other thing I did was program a new random pitch engine for my software. Now I can specify and lower and upper bound for pitch, so -1.000 and +1.000 would be anything between the current note minus one semitone to plus one. I could apply modulation (vibrato) to one but not the other so introduce a random vibrato for the first time. My inspiration was bass, where the bending, in real life, is often a little haphazard and interesting.
Tonight I had the idea of opening the Wasps track with a piano instead, and using the Take This Rose melody, it feels like being lost in the fog, a gentle dream. I then thought that for the first solo I can use the guitar solo from Take This Rose, which, later in the E.P. will be raw and angry but here will have a different context, despite being musically identical. It adds structure to the whole and saves me recording a new solo. Repetition can sometimes itself be inventive.
I still need the main climax part. Perhaps 60% of the song is complete. There is an ending after the climax.
