A busy day, started by updating the album pages on my website and Cornutopia Music, to list albums by year in a matrix format, like the artworks. This has pros and cons. For a small number of albums, a list can look better, and having just one in a year can look empty, but it is simpler. Generally, the fewer links and pages, the better.
Then spent over an hour printing the new maintenance manual for this PC. I may need a hard copy, as if it breaks, I won't be able to read it on it. Printing double sided was problematical as the paper tended to stick. About 6 pages were wasted!
Then lots of work on Tycho Brahe. The dour and morose middle section is now gone. It dropped a semitone in key but it sounded too ugly, as well as not having much meaning or feeling, so I've rewritten it. Now the song has an AABCBA structure where the C is a solo, and the chords grow through E-minor, F-Major, G-Major, E-Major then into an A-minor guitar solo. This then breaks into the old D-minor part in 'outer space' which reflects the start of the song. In the first draft, the whole solo was in D-minor, so the break made more sense, and that led into the third verse as it does the opening, but now, it breaks into a second refrain. Well, in music anything goes; we can learn and accpet anything new or startling. I could drop the D-minor section, but some 'peace' of outer space is beneficial to the mood and the concept.
The new words enjamb over the lines which adds more excitement and tension than before. Here are the full words so far, with the new middle sections:
Tycho Brahe The Noseless Astronomer
Hey, I'm Tycho Brahe noseless astronomer.
Wide brimmed, copper skinned I pose like a foreigner.
Nobody knows what it's like to have no nose like me.
I gaze at the moon an orb of serenity.
I look at the stars and feel them look back at me.
What can I find in the universe to unwind with my mind?
Inside my hall of stone,
beneath the golden claws
of dome, I seek to un-
derstand his plan, I seek escape.
(solo)
And I, in vaulted space
and free from Earthly care,
my body whole, my mind
at peace, can see God's eye
watching us live and die.
Brush my starry eyes with dust of eternity.
See my many wives they pour love all over me.
Count up to ten, take a telescope to bed then, my friend.
The 'watching us live and die' line was originally 'watching the world go by' but the new line has more emotion and drama, a reflection of the casual lack of care of this God; perhaps a sentiment echoed from Star Maker, which I've just finished reading, although the Star Maker there wasn't as cold as I expected. Apparently, C. S. Lewis didn't like the casual uncaring nature of the Star Maker, but he's a far nicer deity than Philip Pullman's.
The guitars are rather loud; grungy, clanky. I recorded a great guitar solo but forgot that the music bleeds on into D-minor, so had to cut off over half of it. The physicality and time of guitar recording is tiring and tedious, even for these small sections.
I've put in so much work, too much, to this song, which was partly sequenced before I even started on this album (which is now called The Golden Age). The problem with this song, and Girl Reading a Letter, and Franz Halz, is that they were written before I sang, and are set at a poor pitch. For me, perhaps most male singers, the high C area sounds best, with a transition at the E above. Lower pitches may suit a mellow song, but not a rocky or powerful song. Art For Me really benefits from being written with vocal pitch in mind.
Well, I'll need to record the new Tycho vocals another day. I'm unusually exhausted now. I didn't sleep well, worried about life, money, stomach pained as usual; yet I'm full of joy, enthusiasm, ideas, lust for life. On we charge.
