A long day yesterday of work on the Otesanek song, and another long day today. I'm using quite a lot of guitars, partly the continuing process and joy of adding this instrument to my repertoire, but also it suits this monstrous song. The timing and structure of the song is complete but there are more questions about the layering and instruments. I've used "Aah!" choirs of startled awe in the chorus to good effect. Matching the right mood and balance in the rest of the song is time consuming. Next I will attack the bass, I typically spend a day crafting this to fit the feeling, as I do the drums. Working at my sequencer, typing the notes, I feel more and more like Beethoven than, say, a recording artist or producer of the 20th century.
I toyed with the idea of an alternative instrument for the quieter sections, maybe even using strings to deliberately link with the 'red light' sections of the former song, but I'll set this idea aside for now.
I wrote most of the basic melody for the first song, Heart of Snow, late last night too, so this is ready. These little songs now take me days or weeks. I'm impatient to move on; the next project is always the exciting one, and I'm filled with ideas. The work of the past seems tired and not nearly as good as the great work of that great world, the future. I must keep striving to make this song and this album the best I can. Time seems to run away each day.
Another job done today is some end of year administration, and I've added the songs and poems from 2020, and most of 2021, to my website. These can change; everything on there is a work in progress until it is published somewhere in the real world. I've also added pages for new albums. How tiny my oeuvre is. I work constantly and seem to achieve so little. So much more can come, if I had the time and resources.
Covid-19 is all around and many people I'm connected with have the virus. I hope that we can all stay safe, words which are used so commonly now that they seem trite, but the right words, just the same.
2021 hasn't been a bad year for me really, though of course everything in it has been attenuated or disrupted, as with everyone. Deb and I have performed three gigs and we have a new website. I've released Sisyphus (that seems like years ago), and Nightfood which remains, for me, an artistic pointer to a new path. I've painted some good works, perhaps some of my best, and exhibited in London for the first time, and re-connected with the Macc Lounge. Everything, hwoever, feels like it is on life support; sleeping, awating the dawn.
I suspect that coronavirus will dominate 2022 and 2023 too. There is a huge incentive for a 'universal' vaccine - and perhaps this will be necessary to some degree. I suspect that, sooner or later, multiple vaccinations will start to affect people's health themselves, or become less and less effective. Inoculating the entire human population several times a year appears to me unsustainable, yet this disease will remain severe and perhaps mutate to become yet more deadly. We have been very lucky that this hasn't happened, and lucky that the first vaccine candidates worked so well. Simply luck, and against the odds.
