More work on the new Fall in Green recordings today, actually a full and tiring day. First, completing Sunchild (I say 'completing' in the loosest of terms; these new tracks all lack words at the moment, and there are probably many stages of refinement to go). As mentioned in my previous post, Sunchild is largely MIDI driven recordings, so the composition involves tailoring those.
Then work on 'Ponderous Tomes', a poem from the Rattenfanger collection about the book Of Human Bondage, and about Persian rugs, with images of dancing in hotel rooms. The poem is packed with information that echo patterns in patterns, and the complex philosophies of human nature and the universe. We've played this live a few times, and my melody was trivial, too simple. It was a waltz in a dulcimer-like instrument, vaguely Middle Eastern, or harp-like. To echo exotic scales, I made the melody pentatonic and (to make it fun for me) only black notes in chords of G# and F#.
In the live version I play the melody as an introduction, then play it again 4 times in a row while Deb reads the first two verses (though the structure is such that the first 'verse' is actually one line, and the next is effectively 4, 4-line verses). This is too simple, so I've composed a little bit more here. The waltz continues moving from G# and F# but in scales that overlap like knots tying; this references the words about knots and weaves. I don't go so far as a fugue or anything like that, these are simple up and down staircases, harp-like, to retain that exotic quality.
The next part is about thinking (the 'pondering' of the title), so the rhythm breaks here into a thoughtful part. For this I played it live, as trying to sequence something so raw and authentic isn't as efficient as just feeling and playing those feelings. Then, for the finale and epiphanic conclusion, the melody of the intro returns for the first time.
The tune is largely sequenced in Prometheus using samples, but the solo parts are recorded 'live' from the MODX, so I needed to use the exact samples. This isn't too easy, as the MODX sound has lots of layers including strings, so I've stripped those off for my lead instrument, and my strings now follow a separate melody. The Prometheus lead has random panning, so I've programmed that into the MODX too, so that those live solo parts have the same effect. The result is rather a close match. I don't mind that it's not exact - I could make it so, but I like the balance here between controlled and free, and the sound itself reflects the changes between both.
This tune isn't scored at all. I know the melody from memory and confirmed the structure by listening to recordings of our old live events (the first version used an organ lead on the Microkorg). Looking at these events made me rethink how I file such audio, and the audio for use as live backing tracks. Now, live backing tracks are filed with the appropriate album, but there are a few tunes that we've performed live but not recorded (like this one, though this one never had a backing track), so those are filed with the event. Maybe a 'blank' album would be better.
Make no mistake, filing principles can have a marked effect on productivity. Not being able to find old stuff is as bad as not having it at all, and having a nice blank space for a new project is an incentive in itself.
