A day of working on Heart of Snow, the opening (and last to create!) track of my Christmas sonata. This is something of a transition project. Secret Electric Sorcery was/is perhaps my most commercial pop-like work, partly written to gain experience and push into new areas, but it's not pushing any artistic boundaries. This project has conventionality, but creativity too.
I'm struggling with moving into creative mode after the intense work of the book and sound effects. These hours are more subtle, hammering away. Identifying problems on a rational level, listening to precedents by other artists, noting and calculating the mood and trying to enhance it.
This track is tricky because it's very image based; a snowman in a field, clawing at a farmhouse window; but the mood and tempo is rather slow and sad, plodding, which can harm the drama. I've removed the heart-beat rhythm at times, but this can leave things rather loose. There are more free, time-loose improvisations here. Today I played two key piano parts, an intro fantasy, the first thing heard of this EP/album, and a finale, which I'm unsure where to put, perhaps at the very end of the project.
The chords were deliberately strange, I seem to include all 24 major and minor chords. I'll have to keep coming back to this over the next few days. So far the song is about 7 minutes, which is far longer than expected.
In other news, I'm ready to order the Neorenaissance books but am having difficulty in contacting the museum to ask how many copies they might like. I will try again tomorrow.
At lunch, I'm watching Sorry on DVD, having been gifted this for my birthday. Series 3, Episode 6 complete today. During 2020 I watched all of Cheers, missing just two episodes from the rubbish Kirstie Alley era, plus all of Twin Peaks, and Tales of the Unexpected.
