Christmas Eve, but a normal day of work here. A busy day of work on music. I created a new SoundCloud profile for Oldfield 1 and uploaded some tracks, then some tracks to mine.
Then started on music once more, new backing vocals for The Girl with the Pearl Earring, and The Laughing Cavalier. I used a new technique for these. The Engram Watergate plugin can gate/vary the volume of one track based on the output of another. I've used this before for a 'fast duck' effect, making some tracks go quieter as the vocals go loud, a common audio effect, but today I did the opposite. I can set independent volume levels for a 'match' to the trace volume as well as a 'mismatch', so today I used the volume of the main vocals to trigger the backing vocals so that they exactly track the lead vocal. This works remarkably well. I also experimented with using the same trick by making an artificial lead trigger the lead vocal itself. This was fun to try on The Laughing Cavalier, but the main vocal there is bouncy and full of character as it is.
I did a bit more work on Franz Hals, Tycho Brahe (this is nearly done, but I need a solo, and perhaps something afterwards...). Then added some guide vocals for Rembrandt, which sounds good already despite the parsimonious arrangement.
I've done a lot on this music, but I'm unsure if I'm proud of it, and keep questioning why I'm doing it. The new changes to my software, my improved techniques, playing, singing, which grow with each release are good motivations, these are worth something, but I want more. Are these artistically relevant? Will these get me anywhere in any way? Endure? Be noticed at all?
I've now spent two and a half years work mainly focused on vocal music; The Dusty Mirror, The Myth Of Sisyphus, Nightfood, Secret Electric Sorcery, Heart Of Snow, and Remembrance Service, as well as a lot of remastering and re-recording of older albums (five or six or seven albums) and two new Fall in Green albums. A productive time, and each is indeed better, and better, but I keep questioning the artistic merit beyond this.
Perhaps that is and will alwyas be enigmatic. Perhaps David Bowie or Sparks in 1990 questioned their last decade (I've made as much in the last 30 months as perhaps they did in the 1980s - though Sparks were ever-productive).
Next for me, on this album, is structure. I've neglected it, yet this is my love and focus, and this for me defines my best work. it is the structure of Nightfood, as well as the emotional impact and narrative, that makes this my certain best and favourite album since Shadows from Cycles & Shadows. It's interesting that Nightfood, Cycles and Heart Of Snow are all roughly structured, yet half-sized as albums. These seem to work better than the other structured works of Burn Of God, and Sisyphus.
I digress. I must now think of arranging these painter tracks, then I can structure them. Generally the narrative flows through day, and night, to dawn again, so this is a start. Can I add more musical links...
