Heart Of Snow is released today. I'm pleased with the music, the songs are as complex and interesting compositionally as any I've done, though, like any of my music, the launch event will go unnoticed by the wider world. To help combat the march of entropy, I've been working on the sheet music and today have completed it for all of the tracks.
I've added a couple of new features to Prometheus to help; the bunching up of notes (regimenting) and a feature to kill (stop) notes when another starts, even if the other is in another track. This suits merging transcription to MIDI better, as notes can't overlap there. These features helped a lot with Hotel Scarborough, a rather freeform piece, which was much more easily transcribed with the new features.
There is a slight problem though. Prometheus is a 5-octave instrument, and MIDI uses just over 10, so some notes can be limited. Ideally I'd upgrade Prometheus to MIDI standard and give it 10-octaves, but it would invalidate the 1000+ existing sequences, so I'd have to develop a new song format AND recompile all 100+ plugins and check that they will work. This is a lot of work considering that my sequences haven't really needed a full range. One hint was when using some of this year's MODX samples which span an entire keyboard and set Middle C as C4. My Middle C is C2 (though I can make it read 'C4' is needed). I could store a flag with each note so that MIDI notes can be exported or imported correctly, remembering their 'true' MIDI pitch, while also holding a Prometheus value, there is room for this.
For now, though, all of the planned albums are now scored. I'll add chord symbols to the Salome scores, which will take another half day. I've added them to every score after Salome so far, they can be useful for players, and if later adpating the work or adding more layers.
I walked to town yesterday for the first time in what seems like months. I felt remarkably dizzy, I think it was a mix of the dark sky, bright lights, and my failing eyesight, I felt that a migraine was approaching. The feeling hasn't entirely vanished.
