A slow day because I'm near the end of the songs in my list, a time or reflection. I need to charge forwards, but need more of a plan where, so I need to decide what other songs to create; if I continue to create songs. The songs on this album are great so far (or at least I'm happy with them!) it's certainly a step up from We Robot, this is always a key criteria. They are, however, rather short.
Today I did a bit of work on a song called 'What Happened To All The Good News'. The backing began as a jazzy, slow, instrumental tune called Jazz Cats (and something else before, I forget what) which has been around for (literally) years. I thought I'd use it here. It's rather sad and discordant in mood, slow and late night.
The first verses follow an odd chord arrangement of E-minor, D-minor, then C-minor, Bb-Major, G#-Major, G-Major; but I'm stuck where to go next melodically. I don't want to continue in this mood to much as it's too slow and strange, and could verge on the boring. So, I'm now thinking of imagery and melody, and ignoring the words for now. They are, so far:
What happened to all the good news?
Did it get lost going home?
Have you seen it in the alleyways
among the foxes and the dandelions
What happened to the future?
Did someone drink it all away?
I think I saw its honeyed bottle
in a dream of yesterday
The cold cloak of the night
surrounds us like castle walls
and the orange autumn fire
welcomes ragged animals who have lost their way
The endless sky of nothing
is velvet to my calls
the fire is burning low
and we've nowhere else to go
so we reminisce about the start of spring
we watch the clouds for clues
and sleep to seek the child
of good news
This was/is a poem, not a song, so the scanning isn't quite right. I need to think of musical precidents to match and better.
I've also added the vocals to Cat Parasites, that works as planned and is now complete. So, lots of songs are finished. It's unusual for me to have got this far and still feel directionless. The shortness of the songs means I need to add more, but the lack of structure makes it difficult to see what and where. The completed songs are (at 26 mins): American Lawyer, Cat Covid, Cat Parasites, Excessive Consumption Has Laxative Effects, Go To Bed And Miss Me, I'm In Love With My Car, Pictures On My Telephone (not quite finished), Style Guru Fashion Queen, Thinking About The Cats I Used To Know, Walls And How To Hit Them.
The tuner has arrived. In retrospect I should have bought the CA-50 tuner rather than the CA-2, but the only key difference for me is that the CA-50 has a stand. I've connected it to the Studio 26c headphone socket and it now shows the pitch of any instrument (or vocal!) played on the computer; nice!
I feel that time is short. I've spent so very long, so many weeks, months working on these songs, this transient medium that pays so badly in both financial and critical terms. I feel more able than ever as a performer and producer, and I'm making better music than ever, so in a way it's a sort of duty to make lots of music now while I'm at my best; it would be silly to stop and make my inferior music of the past my main legacy, but perhaps this is a workaholic's trap. There isn't much incentive to make music but this, very solitary, feeling, so I'll continue.
I'm full of art ideas of all sorts, including two ideas for books, and for a painting series, as well as the game ideas and updates... what to do? Why to do it? In art, anything is better than nothing, and it doesn't really matter what. Everything, provided it is one's best, is good. It would be good to produce a hit though; something popular, something appreciated, something worth money, as well as being my best.
