A Drive Though Admin

A very anxious night after a day of non-stop work on album admin and little tasks. I've created a few pages of cover art and find myself darting between jobs anxiously, uncomfortably.

Here's a glimpse of the final tracks and timing:

Of the many little jobs done yesterday and today; I've completed the sheet music, and initial registration of the music with the authorities. Created about 4 pages of album art, but I'm unsure if any of these are complete. I can't afford the time to be too picky. I've completed the pdf lyrics booklet, and printed the sheets and prepared the filming room to record the spoken lyric videos.

Trying a new audio lead and connection with my camera took over an hour, the levels were difficult to set correctly, and impossible to monitor, so I've ordered a new mic to help with this. If I'm to create a new weekly video programme, I need to make it as easy as possible.

I also tested the Microkorg with the new power lead extension, this works brilliantly, I can now perform using mains power rather than cumbersome batteries. The MP3 player tripod attachment fell off however, the hot-melt glue would not stick to the smooth aluminium, so I've tried 'Super Glue Power Gel' for tonight's performance at The Red Cow.

The little jobs on the album all add up and are quite hard work, and for little response, yet each has some impact. I now have a systematic release plan and program for albums, which will grow and evolve with analysis. I know from software, music, painting and elsewhere that this will improve things and ultimately lead to success, but it is a slow and steady approach, rather than fast and exciting. I wonder if Aesop's Hare and Tortoise story was ever scientifically proven to be correct! I know that in painting technique, the acts which appear fast and exciting are actually created in a slow and steady fashion.

The problem for me is that I can spend a year or more on one album, working on it full time, and no matter how brilliant I think it is, it may still reach nobody, and be as overlooked and ignored as everything else I've made. Perhaps my plan is there to help with this. Without a plan, results will be effectively random. Still, my music since 2020 was, for me, experimental and learning. I knew this, and wasn't happy enough with the results to promote them widely. I started slowly with The Golden Age, but We Robot was the first album I considered worth promoting. Four years in, and I've reached the beginning.

The music for 'Drive' is complete, I think, but I need to listen to it carefully and check it all again. I will release a single or several this time. For We Robot, I made Spotify Canvases for everything, and full screen videos. Do I need to do that?

No matter what I do I'm torn between doing more on it, or making more new music, or more new art. I need to make something sellable, and something artistic, and at times feel I'm doing absolutely neither, yet I'm doing what I always have; constantly work, constantly do my best, aim highest, push for that which is better. My albums, or even track lists, can dart between the mainstream and catchy, to the strange an arty because I get bored of each thing quickly.

This year musically I'll aim to re-master The Dusty Mirror, and perhaps create another album, but I want to get some painting done too, and perhaps write a new book.

A Drive Through Mastering and EQ, Keytarring and Plans

Two full days of work on the album. Various little jobs; more on the artwork, and final checks of the audio and mastering, which is a simple job of volume balancing.

I never now use EQ when mastering, I've hardly ever done so. I consider a failure of mixing and general production/writing, so I tend to balance the audio in the composition stage. The balancing is more a matter of a feeling than anything more objective, but the spectrum feature on Prometheus that I've added in recent years (I think The Golden Age was the first album to involve it) really helps. I can see at a glance if any frequencies are way out; it tells me what needs changing and these results are always right. When I address them, the mix sounds cleaner instantly. The general philosophical concept is to turn the pink noise of a mix of infinite tracks into the white noise of a result which pops all frequencies equally.

As I said though, this for me is the balance of instruments rather than applying the 10-band EQ I spent so many tortured weeks developing!

Once mixed, the mastering is, for me, a simple matter of turning up the volume to the right level. For We Robot I mastered everything to about -14dB LUFS, which has become something of a de-facto standard for streaming services. This is a little quiet for CDs these days, but lots of my favourite CDs were/are much quieter, like those Queen and Kate Bush albums. I've said many times that I tend to like that, but for most people loud sounds better, and most of my Bowie albums are more like -10dB LUFS, and I like those too! A Drive Through The Town will be my first album since The End And The Beginning mastered to about -11dB LUFS. It sounds great and may become my new standard.

In practice this is about double the first peak on a song, and for several songs this is about right. I then adjust the others to sound about the same - nothing more scientific than that. I'm using my Cathedral Limiter for this, which, I must say works wonderfully. Looking at the waves of some of Bowie's tracks from Heathen, one of my favourite Bowie albums, my tracks are far less 'walled' or compressed. I generally dislike compression, not only because it's ruined my Björk albums - sob!). I never use compression on a whole track, only for individual elements like vocals or acoustic instruments that need it.

I think the album is more or less complete. I loved the first listen and feel that many tracks are destined for greatness! I'll listen more over the next few days, but the music is nearly complete. I've also adjusted the cover art. Here it is so far:

In other news, I practiced some of the live tracks for Tuesday's Open Mic. I'll perform 'Style Guru Fashion Queen' from the new album, with a solo synth and a backing track, and 'Norman Bates' from The Dusty Mirror. This is the first time I've tried playing a backing track through the Microkorg and it works well. The MP3 player is bolted on to the keyboard with a camera-clamp, making me look somewhat Borg-like when playing. Actually, it felt great to stand and play a keyboard this way; this may become my performance instrument of choice. I wondered if a second row of keys on the back that flows right to left, for the left hand, may help and make a unique performance instrument. Either way, a Microkorg played like this is already much better than a keytar; using both hands on the keyboard is important. That silly arm than keytars have is primarily for show, not function.

May is coming and I must charge into it. The only money I may have from now on is what I can scrape to make, but I'll muster my resources and create brilliant things for a world which needs brilliance. Step one is to work out the detials of my television programme, and step two is to work on a release of Argus; as well as at least a month of videos and other work on this album.

Onward!

A Drive Through Work

Two busy days. Singing aside, I spent a lot of time yesterday mixing the album and making little changes. They're getting smaller and smaller; the album is nearly complete. I also made sure I have simple piano tune versions of my songs, of the easy sort I used to play as a child. The music for 'Anyone Can Fall In Love' is particularly fun to play; it fits on one page and includes bass and treble clefs for the lead, and interesting chord changes, yet the rhythm is simple:

Last night was one of intense stomach agony which lasted many hours. I barely slept and awoke in a zombie-like state. I seem to have one good day of charging, one of retreat. Perhaps this is due to charging too much on the busy day, or perhaps this is nature itself. Many things have up then down days, the stock market for example.

I updated Prometheus today, adding a feature to warn me if notes are to be deleted when quantising. Then I started work on the album cover. I had a clear image in my mind of pastel colours and a car coming out of an art-deco style circle. I started by photographing a toy car:

Then a simple background based on the Walk In The Countryside album:

I spent hours on colour combinations of the rays, the car, the spots. Extreme contrast seemed to help to add an illustrative look, and the cat-shaped halo made it look interesting from a distance. If in doubt, I choose the option with the most information in it, the most content and interest. Anything interesting wins:

This has something of the 1950s about it.

Nigel Stonier texted this evening to ask how Deb was and if we'd be at the open mic on Tuesday. I thought this was touching and replied, and he replied with a request to like and re-tweet his Twitter posts to sell tickets to Egan's Words & Music gig. This is the third time he's asked me to do such a favour (excluding the favour to include his music on Snow Business), and it made me feel foolish for considering his first enquiry sincere. I will acquiesce, though I find these requests annoying and I feel I'm owed a return in kind. An important irony is that Egan is a great person and performer, and would not and does not need such prompts for recognition, which I'd willingly give. It's somewhat sad to see the public likes and comments, which I know are due to his father's prompts and prods behind the scenes. How can he discern genuine praise from the fake and the forced? Perhaps I'm blessed to face the cold indifferent judgement of real life.

Singing

Singing practice this morning, including to some older songs. I was struck by a few things. First that every album before We Robot isn't sung as well as I can manage now. The Golden Age is close, but I can certainly improve on Secret Electric Sorcery and everything earlier. We Robot was the first CD I had pressed in years for good reason. This was a bit dispiriting, though I embarked on this journey exactly to learn, with the hope that I would improve as I have. The 4 years since The Dusty Mirror is a mere blip in the long expanse of life. Vocal music has been my primary artistic focus for all of that time, and must be thought of as an investment, like learning to paint.

Many of the earlier songs were at completely the wrong key or pitch range. My new recording of 'Incomplete Version Of The Writer' is 4 semitones higher than the old version. 'Norman Bates' sounds 5 or 6 semitones too low for me (ie. exactly the wrong pitch!). I can manage those notes (they're not that low!) but I wouldn't write a song in that range now. I remember that the climactic 'Norman Bates' in the chorus was almost too high before, now it's trivial to reach. I wonder if I'll need to (or should...) pitch it up, when I eventually re-record it.

Lower notes just don't sound as good, and I wondered if this is due to my physical build rather than my voice. I wonder how much the bulk of singers like Pavarotti influence the sound. I wonder how big Scott Walker's chest was, or other famous baritones. There are slight singers with famous voices, like Karen Carpenter, but she sang gently and relaxed at all times. Even for choruses of the more impassioned Carpenter's songs, she remained sleepy in her tone. The also slight Freddie Mercury was a natural baritone, apparently, but I don't think he ever used that range.

This made me think of the physics of sound, that sound reflection must come from a heavy, dense surface. I wonder if a singing jacket could be made, something like a 'body warmer' with a dense wall, like a bullet-proof-vest. This might change the timbre of lower notes.

Self-judgements are important if one is to improve in any skill. I must detect weaknesses and form a plan to fix them, and repeat this process constantly. It's difficult to be objective. Feedback from others can't always help. Even if they were sincere and honest in their assessments, they may be less qualified than you to identify flaws, or not understand the direction of change in the different metrics of a skill; what's been done, what needs to continue, what needs to stop. Comparison with your former self is one aspect, and comparison with a goal or target, but each voice is unique and so a target can be difficult to find.

As I've said many times, the performance and production skills on the new album are good, on par or better than We Robot, so I must continue, and at some point apply these skills to older work. Ultimately, the music I've written so far is an important artistic expression, irrespective of any self-perceived flaws (or self-perceived brilliance!). I've recorded more songs than Salvador Dali or Vermeer. I've painted more than Freddie Mercury or Kate Bush. I feel I'm better than ever in many skills, and I feel I am improving.

Onwards we march, stoic and brave, rolling our Sisyphean rock, towards the great sun.

Scoring Complete, Spiral Hub Suspension, DSLR Webcam

A full day of music scores, and in record time I've scored the album of 14 tracks. I've cut the occasional corner. I've excluded many of the solos, those which were live at the time rather than sequences.

I've also only scored the main theme to 'Thinking About the Cats I Used to Know'. The actual recording is a quasi-improvisational drift of that theme over the course of 3 or 4 minutes. It would be rather torturous to score it exactly, and not particularly useful. I have scored the exact notes many times before, for many of those Fall in Green piano tunes, for example, but in this case it can largely wait. It's part of the spirit of this tune that it IS an improvisational drift, a dream-like melody blown on the wind. If played live, I'd probably do the same; use the theme and improvise it.

I had the idea of making some sort of roller-skate that used large pneumatic wheels, like a bicycle, primarily as a means of transport. I was trying to think of a good way to add suspension to the system so came up with this design which uses several spiral springs, something like the rotary pendulum in a watch:

The thickness and curve (and quantity!) of the springs can be adjusted to adjust the resistance of the system. One advantage to this system is that the holes can be cut from a disc of steel (with a laser or mill), making it easy to make, if you have a spring-steel disc and a computer controlled steel cutter!

I've also turned my DSLR camera into a webcam, which is interesting. I had the idea of making a TV show, something like a short version ArtsLab, but haven't developed the idea fully. One option might be to live-stream it to Facebook or YouTube, so I wanted to learn how to do this, and with a webcam it's easy. One problem is that my computer is in a different room from the 'studio'... A long cable (very long, 10M?) could fix this, though it may require a technician or two to run it all live.

Deb's cold is getting better at last. We may soon be able to meet without the risk of me catching it - hurray!

A Drive Through The Town Scores

Back to work on A Drive Through The Town in stoic fashion. One problem is that, as I become more accomplished in music creation and publishing, the list of what to do for each release grows. For my early albums, like The Spiral Staircase back in 2002, I'd simply burn a CD, make the cover art (maybe only doing that months later) and perhaps print a few copies. Then I'd call the album 'done' and forget about it, ready to move on to the next one. I can't do that now, it would feel like an insult to the album to move on so soon.

Now I still have to make that cover art, but typically 8 pages at 635dpi, plus rear and on-disc art. I make the sheet music for each track, a Spotify Canvas for each track, and a full-size simple video too for each track, for YouTube. I file the tracks, lyrics, credits, and register the music rights with many authorities before publication. I make a lyrics booklet, list it on my website... and more and more. All of this work is perhaps better in the long term, but it hugely increases the time to create an album, which harms the spontaneity of the art, at very least. For me the benefit is the security of the information. I'm treating my work as a major label might.

I find myself doing some of this work now for the old albums like The Spiral Staircase. Back then there was hardly any music released. I could actually sell albums and get reviews and attention. This is much harder now because, I surmise, of the sheer quantity of music released; but this perhaps make this long-term re-enforcement of the music content important. Who knows, if I'd have done all of this back in 2002, The Spiral Staircase might have been a bigger hit.

Today I've been making the sheet music for the new album. I've managed to transcribe 8 songs, with several variations to make 20 scores. This is good going, partly because these pop-sequences are easier to transcribe, as well as the increase in my skill at this job. I find these scores most useful for live performance; nay, essential. Without them I'd have to listen to the original and try to copy by ear, and do that every time, which would take more time than it takes to score these.

I've enjoyed making a few arrangements. The piano arrangement for 'Incomplete Version Of The Writer' is rather nice.

At this rate I could perhaps finish the scoring tomorrow, but I won't because I've jumped the gun a bit and started before the music is finalised. I might tweak the Mister Moan song a little.

All of these scores eventually go on my itch channel and website, but most have only had one download each (and that might have been me!) but one day these will go into print. When I'm 70 I might be 'discovered' like Havergal Brian, but unlike him I'm working now as fast and as best as I can, every day, anyway.

Turing Test Problem

Assuming there are only two beings in the universe, A and B, separated by a wall. If A applies the Turing Test to B, and it passes, would it be fair for B to then attempt the test on A? In other words, if any test for intelligence, or any test for consciousness, can (or must) be applied by one person/being an another, then how could this work correctly if there are only two beings in the universe?

Consciousness, intelligence, and independent thought, I submit, are social labels and only applicable to others, not ourselves. This is the opposite of Descartes view; to correct his paraphrase: We are because others think we are.

In ourselves, parts of us judge other parts to reach these conclusions to varying degrees. Humans are composite creatures made of independent animals, cells, as well as sub-components on many levels, physical and psychological. In this way it is possible for one 'individual' to be 'social'.

SFXEngine, A Drive Through The Town

Last night I realised that I didn't have to, and indeed could not, translate the components of the SFXEngine plug-ins as the sounds use the name to locate them. I started work on the broad translation work today, adding German text and a manual, but the job grew in workload. One problem is that there are specific terms, like 'Engine' which are used in the program and I expect that a similar specific term would be needed in any translation. I expect I'd encounter similar problems with any other languages too.

The simplest solution is to ignore that and simply translate the English entirely, as if 'Engine', though that word and its meaning can vary in other languages. The best solution would be to translate by, or have the results proofread by, a native language speaker. Both options were overwhelming today. I had aimed to make some simple steps towards translation, and the job grew into something that has taken days and could take weeks. I've sold 7 copies of SFXEngine in the (almost) year since launch, so made less than one-morning's minimum wage to date, so on one level it's not successful enough to warrant the work I'm putting into it. On another level, one could argue that if I put more work in (more languages?) it might become a hit, and that I merely haven't reached that threshold!

This is my life's dilemma.

I've decided to update the code, and ignore the text translations for now. The next update is ready for translation if I deem it worthwhile.

I've listened to my new album, A Drive Through The Town, in proof and need to make a few mixing changes. It's generally good. It's one of my most mainstream albums, with less of a theme than We Robot and several short and snappy songs which could be cult hits, or actual smash hits if the album were to be published by a major label. I've pushed myself in a different area in each one, and it's perhaps my most technically accomplished in production and performance terms. I'll probably release a single or two, and not tour or perform many. I'll make the sheet music. I'll file the album and enjoy it and feel proud of it (or perhaps not-enjoy it and cringe) while nobody but myself pays any attention to it. I've certainly grown as a performer and singer during its creation; this is perhaps my greatest benefit.

What next?

SFXEngine Updates, Anniversary, Bogi

Spent much of yesterday creating videos and sample sounds for the SFXEngine Bolt-on DLC, and the admin of the launch of Gunstorm II in the evening. It was a tedious and unhappy day of endless menial admin jobs; so what is increasingly a typical day.

Today has also been working on SFXEngine, with an aim of adding multiple languages to the program, but this is difficult. Five things need translating: icon text, error text, main menu text, the manual, and the text in the plug-ins/engines. Each presents its own problems, and I've spent today working on the main menus, integrating those with a single text file.

The text in the plug-ins may be the most difficult. The text strings are part of the plug-in files, and I've never needed to translate these before. I did program in some simple multi-language support to prepare for it, but that too is hard-coded, meaning that if and when I add another language, I need to put it into the plug-in and recompile it. This not ideal. Ideally, I think, each plug-in would simply link its text (name, names of the parameters) to text in an external file, making translation a matter of changing that file.

Either way, I'm faced with a lot of work. Translation to just one other language would require a lot of re-coding, and re-compiling each of the 100 plug-ins, at bare minimum. This is possible. Is it worth it? Who can say. Perhaps auto-translation by Windows will soon eclipse this sort of manual translation, and perhaps do a better job than I. Of course, I can't speak (or can barely speak) other languages anyway, so any translation of the bulk text would largely be automated.

For such complex and unqiue software though, it may find a niche in a non-English area.

I will muse on the best way to proceed.

Deb is still ill with a cold-like virus. It's been over 10 days since she fell ill with it, and the doctor seems to think it will take 28 days for her to recover. Eight years ago today we first met when I interviewed her on ArtsLab on RedShift radio, an encounter which is happily preserved forever in the radio archive (which is on Mixcloud at time of writing).

I saw her today for a rare time (we've only met up once in the last 10 days) and we had an nice walk in the sun and shop visit. I returned home to find the house empty, my mother at the hospital with her sister. Bogi has apparently hit her head while parking her bicycle, fell backwards and became unconscious. She apparently feels fine, but head injuries are tricky things at the best of times.

Tic-Tac-Two

Had a nice night at Mark's art preview last night. I miss painting. I miss visual art and artists. My life feels like a treadmill of hope and isolation at times, but I am creating something with my treadmill.

Today's creation is an idea for a 'sequel' of sorts to the simple game of Noughts and Crosses, known as Tic-Tac-Toe in the US. This thought was probably inspired by my mural, and my recent work on games. How it plays I don't know, but here is an outline of Tic-Tac-Two:

As in the normal game, the game is played on a 3x3 grid. Players choose X or O as their side, and the aim of the game is to make a line of 3 symbols either or orthogonally or diagonally.

The game would be best played with tiles (perhaps with X on one side and O on the other) rather than pencil and paper, as the grid is more dynamic.

Players take turns, but this time a 6-sided dice is rolled first. The sides determine the player actions and are as follows:
1. Place. The player must place their symbol in an empty space on the grid. This is the normal play for the classic game.
2. Move. The player can move any existing symbol on the grid to an adjacent square (orthogonally or diagonally). The symbol moved can be the player's or their opponents. Moving into the same square as another symbol will destroy/subsume it.
3. Remove. The player must remove one symbol (of any sort) from the grid.
4. Flip. The player must swap a symbol for its opposite; an X becomes O, an O becomes X.
5. Skip Turn. The turn is skipped to the other player without action.
6. Change Side. The players swap sides, the X player now becomes O, and the O player now becomes X.

For these actions, if a play is not possible (eg. if the grid is empty on a Move, Remove, or Flip action, or is full on a Place action) then no action is taken and the turn is skipped. Action must be taken if an action is possible.

Notes:

Rule 6 is the most interesting, as it could upset any strategy and would require some empathy with the opponent (if it's disruptive, this roll could be Roll Again instead). The game may play better on a larger grid for reasons of strategy; 4x4, 5x5, or larger. It could also either win with a longer line (line-of-4 or line-of-5) or use shorter lines, eg. 3, which score points rather than end the game. Play could continue until the entire grid was full. It could also be used for 3, 4, or more players, with some rules to govern the symbol-flip and change-side rolls (a second die-roll could indicate the destination symbols perhaps).

I thought last night that this might make for a fun game called Battle of the Sexes where the male and female symbols were used. It would make the Change Side roll particularly amusing, if not overtly topical.

Bolt-On Work, Mark Edmonds Art Preview

A full day of work on the Bolt-On sound effect packs for SFXEngine, preparation these for distribution. First, rendering all 100 sounds and checking them for volume and looping. Then creating text for the itch.io page, and the 10 images for that. Creating Readme files, zipping the contents. Then preparing the animations for the YouTube videos to showcase these, and putting together the combined preview file; all of the sounds chained together. There is more to do. All this to hopefully sell a few. I must prove that SFXEngine is the best sound effect software in the world! I firmly believe this is true.

This evening, I'm going to the preview of Mark Edmonds' new art exhibition in his Spode works studio complex. I like Mark, and it will be the first time we've met in many years, certainly since before the Covid-19 pandemic. I will dress in a dark suit, with white shirt and black tie, dark silk-linen trousers, bowler hat, black umbrella, and a briefcase; like Magritte, or more correctly John Steed. I really need a red carnation and some grey kid gloves. I will have to suffice without.

Sound Effects, Pointlessness, Octopus Brains, and a Dynamic Higgs Field

Have spent today creating example sound effects for the different Bolt-on Effects/Plug-in packs for SFXEngine. These were to be used exclusively as free bonus content for customers, though I am aware that there are, so far, no customers of these packs except for legacy owners of the full $100 version, they get all of these.

It's been long and tiring work that has taken until 9:30pm. I've created 100 new sound effects for the 10 packs, each using the core engines plus the selected pack's engines. I'll make these free somehow, I think that the IndieSFX itch.io channel, plus a YouTube video might be an appropriate showcase for these, as well as giving them to the customers as the intended bonus.

A lot of the work I do seems hard and soul destroying, and today was no exception. I seem to spend my life doing pointless or ignored tasks with little aim, except that, of course, I remind myself that everything I make is for other people. My games, my music, my art; and, I remind myself again that some of it is indeed seen and experienced by others every day, and must be appreciated by at least some people. By the same token, most of the art or other things I create are not seen by anyone except myself. But, isn't this the case for everyone? We can't know the impact of our actions on the world, and artist is one of the most personally expressive, and uniquely contributive jobs.

I'm feeling particular ignored, isolated, obscure, and useless today. I reflected that my life has always been a struggle and scrape, endless work for bare scraps or the hope of scraps. Each year and each month I hope for something better, and each year and month is a struggle. Perhaps it will always be so, perhaps it will not. Perhaps I will have a 'hit' one day, perhaps not. I will, however, whether I experience great success or not, keep striving, keep trying, keep working, keep doing, keep rolling my Sisyphean rock, keep defying the gods and cruel world, and keep battling fate.

Two interesting thoughts:

First. Deborah informs me that the nervous system of the octopus evolved in two halves separately; the head and eyes part, and the stomach part. These two systems later merged into one brain. I would guess that the same occurred in humans (perhaps this occurred in the common ancestor of octopuses and humans). The brain and gut are separate nervous systems, and are often conflicted or have differing personalities and viewpoints. The gut consciousness is probably the result of much of the social, animal feelings which are out of balance with the civilised world, which known to and better engaged with the brain.

Second. I'm still thinking about the Higgs Field. I wonder if, rather than matter and mass spontaneously forming from it, that there is more of a communicative, symbiotic system in effect between the two; that the two systems of seen and unseen matter are in a subtle flux of communication; a dynamic relationship. Thus in inter-galactic space, where dark matter does not exist, light matter does not, and perhaps cannot, either.

Final Town Vocal Recordings

A day of vocal recording and production for A Drive Through The Town, as planned. I recorded the vocals for 'Anyone Can Fall In Love', 'Burning Meat Outdoors' and 'Pictures On My Telephone'. The latter was the most fun due to the drama of the tune, the first the most difficult because of the odd melody which shifts key with each chord change, but also required delicacy, being a gentle love song. Burning Meat was a bit frustrating, as it's focused on a low-E, a note which lacks power. I decided to move up an octave for the second repeat, which became rather high. Most songs benefitted from harmonies.

I did some general training too, though this served to remind me how difficult singing is.

The rest of the day was adding the vocals and tweaking the mixing all of the songs. The track listing is now:

I'm In Love With My Car
American Lawyer
Go To Bed And Miss Me
Excessive Consumption Has Laxative Effects
Pictures On My Telephone
Anyone Can Fall In Love
Style Guru Fashion Queen
Mister Moan
Incomplete Version Of The Writer
An Autumn Tale
Cat Parasites
Cat Covid
Burning Meat Outdoors
Thinking About The Cats I Used To Know

I'm reaching the end stages of the creative phase before the long mixing, mastering, filing, and promotion phases. These stages make me wonder why I'm doing this, making music nobody will hear or care about and will earn me little in money or prestige, perhaps even be forgotten in a blink... but no! This is wrong! Perhaps we shells on the beach can shout a sound, a burble in the puddles among a population of other burbles.

This is the soul of art: any sound is infinitely better than silence. Many great musicians of the past and present lose heart or vision, and sit in their silence. Yes, the world ignores me, it ignores us, it ignores all of us sooner or later; that's the nature of civilisation - only intimate relations are not ignored, and those relations are transient. This must be known and internally conquered. Nothing is ignored forever.

I listened to some music new to me recently, by Peter Godwin, a musician most well known for having his song 'Criminal World' covered by David Bowie, yet, I liked his early/mid 80s sound and wished he'd written and recorded more. Of course, back then, he may have wished the same.

This album is better, I think, than We Robot, a continual step up in performance and technical skills. A step up from the slow start of Fear Of The Thing Itself, and The Modern Game, and The Dusty Mirror. It took a long time, over a year, to make small improvements at first, but now I'm making better albums faster and faster, which must be a positive thing. This is one of my key aims; to learn and improve. Today's vocals were done quickly and easily; more easily than ever before.

There is less of a theme and message in A Drive Through The Town than in We Robot. Some songs are social or character observations. Some are surrealistic; unconscious inspired songs which then evolved new narratives, such as Cat Covid and Excessive Consumption. Incomplete Version and Autumn Tale are some of my oldest songs re-recorded. I'm sure that trend will continue as I've got a lot of older songs, several of which lack vocals but have some production laid out.

Let us burble. Onwards we march.

Album Work, A Drive Through The Town

Back to work on my new album today, and production work on the three final tracks: 'Burning Meat Outdoors' (another fast-paced surrealistic race, a bit like 'Someone Else's AI' from We Robot), 'Pictures on my Telephone', and 'Anyone Can Fall In Love', which was originally called 'A Gift Freely Made', but the first words are more memorable.

Most of today was work on Pictures on my Telephone. The sounds are much more electronic than I first envisaged, which was something like Heartbreak Hotel, but I realised that I should actually move in the opposite direction and aim for a highly electronic sound, partly for this very reason, that classic blues is rarely electronic. Also, the song is about technology so the timbre should be too. My recent toying with the Microkorg has reawakened an interest in analogue waves, too. Much of the song was balancing noise and silence, sharp dramatic stabs lead to pregnant silences.

Finally, work on the new song, 'Anyone Can Fall In Love'. It will follow Telephone, so I began by using the same bass, but I realised that the dead end of Telephone must remain. The sounds here remain electronic and analogue. I made some simple synth-strings using saw and pulse waves and band-pass sweeps, and added a regular pulse of a saw, a little bit like the intro to 'My Baby's Non-Binary'. These however, play along more to the melody. They also start in the centre, then move apart spatially, alternate notes to extreme left and extreme right, like distant lovers singing to each other. At the end of the song these pulses re-unite; a romantic gesture in one tone and told entirely in stereo placement.

There are some Vangelis-style brass sweeps, and much romantic drama. Perhaps I need to add some booming drums or gongs like Ultravox's 'All In One Day', but as things are it still sounds rather nice, epic, lovely.

The vocals for these all need doing. Hopefully I can record these tomorrow morning. Deb is too ill with a cold-like virus for us to attend the open mic on Tuesday. She is coughing and probably infectious, so the lack of attendance is as much precautionary for others as it is for her health. Still, I aim to sing on Tuesday, as has become my regular day.

I'm really pleased with this album and must make plans for its release. For a title I toyed with two: Cat Parasites, as named after one track. This would be a play on Bowie's Diamond Dogs. I've decided on A Drive Through The Town though, making this a partner or follow-up to A Walk In The Countryside. There is a cat link between both albums, and as a pair they pay homage to Queen's A Night At The Opera and A Day At The Races (and those in turn paid homage to the Marx Brothers).

The cover art will, as Queen's did, be an approximately negative version of the other. I'll release singles, press CDs, and do more for this album, a worthy successor to We Robot, but there is a lot of work, a lot of months, to come yet.

A P.R.S. payment came today and I found the stats interesting. My most popular tune in terms of raw performances was 'There Is No Love, and the More I Search the Less I Find' from The Love Symphony, via YouTube India. The most royalties came from 'Lou Salome Remembers' the biggest European hit, and indeed lots of the Salomé album is popular, more than expected. 'The Planet's Oracle' is the most popular vocal track, with 420,000 plays in Spain, for example, and 'Sit With Your Ghost' is popular too. Of my songs, the most popular is 'You Make Me Happy', with 1.5 million performances via YouTube India, but a large 149,000 in the UK, and over 10,000 in Germany, France, South Africa, and Sweden. In the UK, my next most popular song was 'Remembrance Service' from that album. I find these statistics fascinating and encouraging, but I'm unsure what they really mean. They do however indicate growth over time, and with each passing quarter, so that must be a good thing.

Many of my songs from The Dusty Mirror onwards were, for me, conscious exercises in training; certain to be improved upon, and always intended to be remade at some point. No matter how things are now, things are getting, and will get, better.

Final Mural Day

Some images, by Peter Robinson, from yesterday's Day 2:

After that, there were a few paint drips and little accidents, plus many star-like dusty fragments of broken yellow sponge. Last night I vowed to revisit this morning, with the dark grey paint to hand to fix things. I'm so pleased I did. I managed to overpaint the drips perfectly, and the yellow bits were extensive. I could have done with a wide soft brush to clean them all, but had to wipe everything by hand.

I fixed up lots of smaller bits, tiny areas where the grey was untidy, then stepped back to check it all. There were many areas of the wall which had larger-scale problems, including mould growths, dirt and mud, missing paint or bare areas. I couldn't correct everything by any means, but I could use new paint rolled and blended with the old to give the whole surface a cleaner and more uniform finish.

All of this took another two hours, but made all the difference to the final presentation. Here are a couple of finished shots:

All in all, it's taken 4.75 days, since 31st August, excluding the three council meetings (half-a-day each), plus 6.5 days for the rejected first design. Some of the planning from that first design would have been useful for the second. Costs included the unused high-working platform I bought for the first design, but almost everything else was needed, so very little was wasted. I estimate I spent £300 to £400; that platform, the insurance, and the paint being the biggest costs. I'll calculate this soon. I didn't need the quantity of paint by any measure, I must have used only 15% of it, but I bought the smallest amounts I could, and the quality of the paint (Wethertex AP77 Flexible Smooth Masonry Paint) was excellent.

My mum was a huge and vital help on the first day. It was kind of Peter Robinson, a star press photographer by every measure, to come on the first two days to document them, and nice of David Lidster to come too, in case I needed help on the first day. It was nice just to have someone there rather than working alone. The council were as frustratingly slow as any bureaucracy, but that can't be helped. I'd have still have loved to paint the first design, but yes, perhaps that was beyond the remit of this small and cheap job. My first thoughts are always big, dramatic, spectacular.

It is done. Onwards.

Mural Day 2

Two hours of minor finishing tasks to the mural today, removing most of the guide lines, and adding the lines which connect the circles, which couldn't be done on the day due to the masking requirements. I missed one line, and one large drip fell onto the work. Once dry, tomorrow or later, I'll need to remove the final guide lines, these were amidst today's painted lines, so couldn't be removed today. I'm toying with using some of the grey to paint over and fix some of the white marks.

Peter Robinson visited again to take a few photos of the work in progress. Here are a few of his wonderful photos from yesterday:

David Jewkes was there today. It seems that he envisages his design to take several months of occasional spare days. He seems to relish the public spectacle of painting outdoors in summer. I'm more of a military-precision planner, with no time or tolerance for inefficiency. I'm relieved to complete this in the planned 1.5 days, and still rather amazed that it worked so exactly to schedule.

This is my second Cheshire East commission, the other was a series of postcards in 2011 to celebrate the centenary of The Lyceum Theatre; the Council ran the theatre back then. David Lidster suggested that my work was like that of Fact, Liverpool, asking if I'd worked with them. I could probably do more work with and for other arts organisations if I were more proactive. I have a general policy of doing things when asked, but never asking or enquiring myself. My years of enquiring with games companies, where every contact led to exploitation or abuse, led me to deeply distrust this way of working. My personality has changed dramatically since those dark and strange days.

Now I must recover physically from the busy two days, and move back to music, and possibly an Outliner update. I've done a lot this year; updates to Gunstorm, Gunstorm II, Bool, and Firefly, most of my next album, and scored two albums; but only completed and released the Gunstorm games. The album is on track, though, and the open mic events have further boosted my performance experience and abilities. I need to complete and publish more. Any creativity is a treadmill of creating, publicising, releasing, publicising, creating; a chain of products and ideas.

Onwards we march.

Mural Day 1, and Higgs Field Dark Matter

My day of mural painting on the Lyceum Square, Crewe. All went to plan, though was (is!) very tiring, complete with over a mile to walk there and back carrying all of the equipment. My mum came with me and helped, helped hugely. I could not have done it so efficiently without her. I'm so pleased, and amazed to some extent, that it did go to plan and worked so correctly. So many plans and contingency plans were made. The days and weeks of planning paid off.

I started work at 08:30 and finished at 17:00. The drawing out was complete before 11:00. A few lines were missing and needed redrawing. I got through two watercolour pencils just for the guide lines. I needed three pencil sharpeners, the first wasn't sharp enough, the second had a fault. The mask adhesion, my biggest worry, was the biggest problem, as feared, but masking tape stuck well. A few masks fell off during painting, but only one (the first) resulted in paint in the masked area. After that, I moved more slowly and used the faults as part of the design. A sort of industrial grunginess, and imperfection, was always part of the idea. Firstly perfection is so elusive; there's no way a smooth design could be done, but secondly, the concept is about order becoming organic, the balance between mathematics and nature. Thirdly, the format of wall painting lends itself to a graffiti-like, raw look.

Photographer Peter Robinson visited twice to take some photographs of the work in progress, and local arts volunteer and co-ordinator David Lidster came by too, to help supervise things, and find me a barrier for site safety.

I needed my bright orange workwear. I needed much of what I brought, though not the staple gun.

My morning began, however, with thoughts about the Higgs Field, after reading about Peter Higgs. A scalar field which is non-zero everywhere doesn't seem right somehow, and there is also the problem of 'too much' zero-point energy. I wondered if the Higgs Field, rather than being ubiquitous and homogenous, could clump, and that Higgs Bosonic Matter of some form could be dark matter.

Earthly concerns now concern me. I'm exhausted and have a second, though lighter, day of work tomorrow finishing the mural. Two of the designs need separate masking after drying. It seems that today is (amazingly) the first non-rainy day of the year, and even tomorrow is due for some.

Burning Meat Outdoors, Pictures On My Telephone 2

A day of song production work. The final layout for the album is now set. I ended up creating or toying with about 25% more tracks than were actually used in the end. The provisional track list is now:

I'm In Love With My Car
American Lawyer
Go To Bed And Miss Me
Excessive Consumption Has Laxative Effects
Pictures On My Telephone
A Gift Freely Made
Style Guru Fashion Queen
Mister Moan
Incomplete Version Of The Writer
An Autumn Tale
Cat Parasites
Cat Covid
Burning Meat Outdoors
Thinking About The Cats I Used To Know

Of the discarded tracks, some just didn't quite fit and may end up being used in future. 'Rock And Roll Is King' needs more work on the production side, and didn't fit thematically. 'Walls And How to Hit Them' is fine, but the theme doesn't fit the album, I'll certainly use it in future. 'What Happened To All The Good News' is half complete and needs more work.

Burning Meat Outdoors is itself an older track, dating from The Dusty Mirror era. I spent a few hours today adding to it, though it was largely complete anyway.

The song's mood is joyous and upbeat in every way. One inspiration, apart from the Kimono-era Sparks, was Polythene Pam, as evident in the brevity, energy, and limerick-like (but not exactly!) lyrics:

I've been burning meat outdoors
burning meat outdoors
I serve it with a sticky sauce
and wait for the applause

I've been burning meat outdoors
cooking in the sun
people don't like eating it
but burning it is fun

I've also started a second version of Pictures On My Telephone today, this time very sleazy and synthetic. The other version used a 'live' played synth-acoustic bass, in a vague emulation of Heartbreak Hotel, but it was too short. It needed an instrumental middle section, and I thought would work better sequenced anyway. I chose a heavy synth bass inspired by Genesis' Squonk, and have spent a few hours making and rejecting various backing parts on the Microkorg, a synth I love as much as ever.

I spent some time getting the MIDI working on the Microkorg. After trying version settings I discovered that the MIDI Clock Send in Sekaiju was causing problems. Once switched off, it was fine. I tend to record best live anyway not using MIDI. I don't know why, because I then start to pick little things I want to change, and wish that it was a MIDI sequence! This time I've recorded about 5 or 6 full backing parts, and like them all, but want yet more control, so I may completely resequence some.

I'm all packed for the long-awaited day of mural painting tomorrow. Months of planning for a (hopefully!) easy job. Deborah is too ill with a flu-like virus to be with me. I miss her. My mum will help me carry things and watch over the site. I don't need help with the work, but being alone on the site presents problems, so I'm lucky to have help.

Final Dusty Mirror Scores, A Gift Freely Made

The last day of The Dusty Mirror scores, and a long day working on the last one. This has been an up and down experience. I'm as happy as ever with the writing and core of the songs, but it's also clear that I can now perform and produce these songs far better. One day, I will do this.

Aside from filing the music, I've tidied up some of the way I store it. I've often kept old and new sequences, the original and the remaster, but not always. It seems wasteful to do so when a new version is almost identical to the original. If the production is largely the same I'll now overwrite it and consider that the definitive version. This relevant to many of my re-recordings or remasters, including some tracks from Synaesthesia and Animalia, some of which were virtually identical. I wanted to hold on to the old versions for reasons of a perfect archive, but in practice I'd never go back and use those when there is a better, newer version. The only reason would be a realisation that the old version was better somehow, but the differences between new and old are often too small to matter and it seems silly to store new and old, so today I've erased lots of old sequences.

Perhaps major record companies keep every tape and copy of every album... a lot of tape. Perhaps they don't(!) but the only value to my older versions is historical, and I have copies of the final track; there's just no need to keep the sequence.

Browsing around, I rediscovered a silly song that I haven't used, but which is largely complete called 'Burning Meat Outdoors' - a satire on barbeques. The Cat Parasites song mentions barbeques, so this seems to be a perfect fit for the end of album, which is now in three rather than two sections. We have a 'broken love' section which makes up the first half, then a few songs which are observations of people, character songs, then the 'cat' sequence at the end.

Last night I wrote a new song for the end of the love section. It uses unusual chords, which ascend every two semitones in major chords. This constant shift of keys makes it challenging to sing and not intuitive melodically, yet pleasantly surprising at every shift. When I played it, it had it a feeling of growth and emergence, which seemed perfect for a love song. The words form a simple poem, and track the feeling of the music:

Anyone can fall in love
Happens every day
The world is full of loneliness
and it can melt away
like a dream
when you give
what is love
but a gift
freely made?

Most records of halves (vinyl) end in quieter, mellow songs. This is due the technical limits of this rubbish format, but the effect is that music culture is now used to albums, our symphonies, which start with a bang and end gently. This form is built into our psyche so I've adhered to it here, though there is little chance of my music ever existing on vinyl (which I like for reasons of pride and association, certainly not audio quality or convenience). This form is notably not like classical music which traditionally starts with a bang, becomes gentle, then ends with a bang.

Dusty Scores Continue

More work on The Dusty Mirror scores today. A humbling experience today. Working on 'I'm Falling Apart Again', 'The Escape Angels', and 'Cherries' - all of which I rather liked a the time, today only reminds me how much better I am at singing now and how these need re-recording; but I know this, and such realisations are good. Sometimes we look back on our achievements only to see how far we've come. Four years is a long time.

These were a lot of work, partly because of the free-form nature of the playing, which was not to time and difficult to map. I'd sequence these differently now, starting with control, then loosening things later; this partly because of lessons learnt during this scoring process; there's no inherent flaw in free-form recording, but it massively hinders scoring and control can aid the structure of a composition. It is no coincidence that Bach made the most sophisticated structures, it was because of the constraints of the scoring process and 'emotionless' instruments (harpsichord and pipe-organ and their lack of expressive quality).

I've re-written several parts and the sheer tunelessness of the vocals became stark. Perhaps this is fine when freely invented on the spot, anything, one could say, is 'correct' in improvisation, but there are times when a melody is needed, and even improvisations can be scored. My improvised piano tunes were scored, and often were surprisingly well structured. This is not the case with these vocals because my pitch tracking and sense was not good enough, this is not instinctive in the way it is for me with an instrument. For some, like those in 'The Escape Angels', the vocals are more like acting or spoken; this is fine.

If (when?) I re-record these, I'll have a lot of work on these unstructured tracks to try to make them neat, and I'll probably completely remake Falling Apart. The tunes with regular rhythm, the pop-like ones, will be much easier.

Only one track left, 'The Fingers of Evil'. This will be another difficult one.

More Dusty Music

A full day or work on The Dusty Mirror sheet music today, with 'Warm Comfy Sofa', 'Norman Bates', 'Two Parents of a Child', 'The Arm' and 'Moments of Terror When Falling Asleep' complete. How good some of the songs are and how badly sung or played! At least now I know how much better I can do, or think I can. Again though, probably everyone thinks this. I have no doubt that Freddie Mercury would have cringed at hearing his early performances - yet, on the plus side, listening to my early songs, from the Harlequin Kings album (a mere blink of time ago) did make me think that those weren't that bad.

Well, that's all that's done today. My night was an awful one of violent abdominal twitches, burning inflammation and about one hour of semi-sleep. When I imagine Beethoven dying (the anniversary was in March) I picture a room like mine; a bed in the same place by the same wall and window, a desk in the same place, though the room is more wooden and Georgian. At least I have abdominal pain and anguish in common with the master.

We never know what is valuable, or what will be valued in future. Countless art was considered valueless once, and proven to be priceless later. For an artist, the important thing is to keep doing, keep making, keep recording and preserving, and to keep improving. Lax is not good enough. If I'm not good enough, I must get better. If I'm not memorable enough, I must become more memorable. Every day must be and should be a struggle. Rest is for the weak and feeble.

The jazzy pianos (organs, in the actual song) in Moments sound great. I'd have little hope of playing them from sight reading, yet, but I'd bet Ludwig could.

Onwards we smash though time, our fists of destiny to combat the forces of indifference.

Dusty Mirror Sheet Music, Except For The Hatred Analysis

Charged into a full day here. Scoring my music is a long term goal, and though time consuming and not instantly valuable, I'm convinced of the long term value of this. It has many benefits, from the ability to more easily perform it (and crucially make it easier to others to perform), to advancing my skills as a sight-reader, to providing a long-term archive of my music in a format which has lasted centuries, to improving my composition skills by analysis of these raw notes.

It also gives me a new appreciation of my songs, seeing them in a new critical light. The music on The Dusty Mirror was so good and I enjoyed discovering it again.

I completed 9 scores today, for 'Since You Kicked Me Out', 'Except For The Hatred', and 'Fear Of The Thing Itself'. Back in the ancient days of 2011 when I wrote 'Fear Of The Thing Itself' I thought it was one of my best songs, a worthy tribute to the Queen song which inspired it, but the others seem better now. 'Except For The Hatred' was a particular delight.

The music is in C-minor, and has a lumbering, insane tone. The chorus descends in unusual chords of G-minor, F-Major, D#-Major, D-minor, then C#-Major, in a sequence which makes every chord sound more minor than the one before. A 'circus clown-organ' plays as this happens to reinforce the insanity. The melody breaks into D-Major for a respite, for the hopeful parts, before the madness kicks back in. D-Major is perhaps the happiest of all chords, partly because on a guitar, it's played only in high and singing strings, with none of the boomy power an E or A chord has.

I'm a better producer than I was 4 years ago, but a much better singer and guitar player - a process which is continuing apace. This album needs and will get a re-recording at some point, but not quite yet. As things are, if I re-recorded it in 5 years, it would be that much better than if I re-recorded it now!

Another incentive to do this it that I'm just about the only person who can make these scores. Prometheus, the software I designed and use to write all of my music has good export capabilities which, with a little tweaking in Sekaiju to merge tracks, and then MuseScore to import, makes this process faster than anyone else could achieve.

These days I'm writing tunes with a foresight into future transcription, so doing things like splitting chords into 3-tracks of single notes rather than using a 'chord' instrument. This saves time.

There are 12 tracks on The Dusty Mirror, and I aim to transcribe 3 per day. I have notated 16 albums of music so far, but have 23 to go, excluding the new music which I'll continue writing and publishing during the many years it will take me to do this task.

Tax Year, Microkorg

It's the start of a new tax year, so a day of filing and shredding. I store more than just financial records, but greetings cards, presents, competition receipts, train tickets, invitations, event programmes; memories. Sometimes I'll pass this on again, to keep them for long term sentimental value. I have a 'gold box' of life memories where the most important things stay.

This annual filing tends to take all morning, there's a lot to calculate. It's been a mixed year financially, poor really. My finances are so stochastic that even trends are as difficult to read as tea leaves. I divide income and expenditure into categories: visual art, book sales, performances, music sales, games and sound effects, and other (freelance income, and general expenses which cover all categories). I tend to spend the most money on visual art, but that's partly because paint and entering art competitions is expensive, and I've bought things like a ladder system and insurance for the town mural.

Things were better 10 years ago, and earlier. I spent years making games with joy, then in the hope of making money, but that never really materialised and I felt I was doing a job I disliked and getting nothing back, a worst of all worlds. I became an artist with the reason that I'd rather do something I enjoyed for no money than something I didn't, and then I started to make money from the art. This seems to be a pattern, but now I have many plates, new and old, to spin. Some might be more 'enjoyable' than others, perhaps all equally 'enjoyable' or all equally tedious, yet money from any of them as scarce and unpredictable as ever. Reasoning what to do can feel useless, as does feeling what might be best. The key thing is a passion, an irresistible drive. I can feel a few bubbling.

After the filing, I started work on adding guitar strap buttons to the Microkorg:

As luck would have it, and this was amazing because it never happens, the screws that came with the strap buttons were just about perfect, the right pitch, a tiny bit bigger in diameter (probably a metric/imperial difference) and the perfect length! I drilled out a 9mm recess in the wooden sides for the buttons. The self-tapping screws had pointed ends which I filed flat.

The tiny diameter difference in the already tight screws meant that I needed to very slightly enlarge the holes in the Microkorg's plastic sides. I used a tiny drill and moved it a little in the hole to shave off little fragments of plastic. This was enough. Screwing it all together worked.

I tested the synth and it was fine. Actually it was better to play than a proper Keytar would be, as I can use both hands, and access the pitch and modulation wheels. It does look ugly to perform with; big and lump-like, an unattractive top, but as an instrument, it plays well.

Doing so made me realise that I needed better sounds, so I made some new presets in the afternoon. Most iconic synth sounds (from Van Halen's Jump to Gary Numan's Vox Humana) are detuned saw waves with a bit of vibrato, so I made a few. This took a while, of course. I still need to make some cool power-bass sounds, like the 'Hitler In High Heels' bass.

After that, I powered up OctaMED Soundstudio and MIDI-OX, and exported the presets using MIDI. I'm not sure if these SysEx messages work or will ever work, but it's better than nothing to have a backup made like this. The message in both programs was the same length in bytes, 37392, so that's one good sign at least, but it's a bigger number than the Korg manual says.

The mural can't go ahread tomorrow, it's stormy, so this will happen later in the week or the following week. My plan is to do more sheet music, which has zero chance of generating income, but it part of my long-term philosophy of accurate data storage.

Firefly Complete, Level Map Rotation, Microkorg Adaptations

Completed the Firefly update, to the v1.03 standard with a little more. As with Bool and other games, I now need to work on boosting the game, so I'll pause to plan.

It certainly looks better than ever. This is one of the few games I made with a plot. Arcangel and Taskforce had one, though convoluted, but Firefly and Gunstorm II had more of a story.

One thing I did was code in level rotation, a way to rotate a square map. This was quite complex. The easiest way is simply read the map from top-left to bottom-right, and paste those values into a second map which scans from bottom-left to top-right, and 'clockwise', but that's wasteful of memory as it demands a full second map as a temporary store. I knew rotation was possible with a simple swap function, so spent the morning working this out.

The map is read from top left, but not to quite the far right on the first pass, then it moves down a row and starts at index one, effectively scanning an inverted triangle shape that ends with its point in the centre of the map, like an envelope flap. The important thing is that this shape is 4-way symmetrical. Then each block can be copied in a cycle from its corresponding place in the quarters. Here's the code:

for (y=0; y<MAPSIZE/2; y++)
  for (x=y; x<MAPSIZE-y-1; x++)
    {
      topleft=block[y*MAPSIZE+x];
      block[y*MAPSIZE+x]=block[(MAPSIZE-1-x)*MAPSIZE+y];
      block[(MAPSIZE-1-x)*MAPSIZE+y]=block[(MAPSIZE-1-y)*MAPSIZE+(MAPSIZE-1-x)];
      block[(MAPSIZE-1-y)*MAPSIZE+(MAPSIZE-1-x)]=block[x*MAPSIZE+(MAPSIZE-1-y)];
      block[x*MAPSIZE+(MAPSIZE-1-y)]=topleft;
    }


The next step is to rotate the map parts themselves so that the top-right wall, for example, becomes the bottom-right. This is a simple matter of a look-up table. This was fun to work out. I struggled for ages on it, then the image of the triangle shape jumped into my head and the rest was easy.

After this, I took the wooden sides off my Microkorg. Korg are one of the few synthesizer manufacturers to use wood, and actually these parts are a really good feature because they allow personal customisation. I used acetone to remove the varnish, then sanded them and painted them black. They now await the guitar buttons. I will need, it seems, M3 self tapping screws for these sides. The ones present are 10 or 12mm, but I need longer ones to fit the guitar button. I could do with bigger diameter screws really; these screws are very thin and it's a heavy keyboard. The wooden sides give me options.

Flicker the Firefly, Keytars

Spent today working on Firefly, now temporarily (permanently?) renamed to Flicker the Firefly. I changed the text system and the menu system, but this has taken almost all of the day. There's a new font, hi-res lens flares and a background to the title screen for the first time.

I could to more to tidy it. These early games used numbers rather than defines for everything, which makes them a lot harder to change or tweak. I could swap those, but the game now has everything the 2014 update (the previous most recent) had and more, in the engine. The gameplay is unchanged.

I rather thought this a weaker game, I'm not sure if it ever sold a single copy, but now I find it charming and with stronger potential than many of the others. It is something like a children's book or children's game, but it has character and feeling that the other games don't. It has a character I care about, and it looks beautiful. Perhaps this game, more than Bool or the other games, has potential. As with all of these games, I need to plan a remaster and remake.

I have a sore throat, which seems to be my larynx and throat muscles. At first I thought it was connected with the full and joyous day of singing on Tuesday. It might be, but many people there had coughs or colds, some persistent coughs over many weeks.

I had the idea that it would be good to have a 'keytar' for these open mics, because it would allow easier singing and performance while standing. It annoys me that, despite being around for 40 years, these keyboards haven't really taken off as instruments and there are only really two on offer now; a Korg which is close to a Microkorg with an arm, and a Roland which has tons of features and looks good except that it's huge, far too big, close to slinging a 5-octave full-size synth around one's neck. I can get a strap adaptor for the Reface, but it looks so ugly with them. The Microkorg has wooden sides, so I could, I thought, simply fit actual guitar strap buttons to that. I can't however, fit an arm. Just about nobody makes an external ribbon controller (or pitch controller, or modulation wheel) that can be used as a MIDI controller. It would be almost be easier to buy a £600 Keytar than buy a ribbon controller for the existing Microkorg!

Sunday now looks like 50% rain, as does the next 10 days. The mural business causes me great anxiety. I wish we could wait for a dry week. I'm wondering if dry weeks, or even dry days, ever happen! It seems to have rained every day this year so far. It is at least warmer, though.

Open Mic, Feelings of Appreciation, Firefly v1.04

A good Open Mic last night. The latest night to date, it finished at 23:30, and with two new acts; a poet Martin C and singer songwriter Hilary Wilson. The majority of the music was original, though among those there were a few repeats. June Holland's 'What I Told My Boss' was better than ever, so a welcome repeat. Nick was his usual bungling self, his stage persona modelled on Mr Bennett from Take Hart.

I was pleased enough with my performance, though always find things to improve. I need to relax into it more, this seems more difficult for me now. I generally don't (or ever) get nervous performing, but now increasingly seem to. It's hard to say why, but the events I'm part of are now larger, they matter more to me perhaps. Before I didn't care. I play best when I consider it a sharing or a showing environment, not 'performing'. I must remember this.

My mood has been very low recently, and I felt detached for most of yesterday. Low mood is usually a matter of feeling unvalued, or undervalued. Of course, this has always been my case. Few would notice or care if I vanished now and forever, but I myself know my value, or of its existence at least. It's my job and duty to do my best, be my best, help the world and universe as best I can. 'Feelings of appreciation' are the ultimate causes of all happiness, and lack thereof all unhappiness, and yet are never accurate. Even ants change the world permanently and forever, yet themselves (probably) never know it.

Life is short, we have only a limited time and set of skills and resources to do anything. We can't do everything, we can't do nothing. We can only do our best and try to keep doing. The feelings of appreciation will (hopefully) flow if we help someone directly and personally, but we can also help people impersonally and indirectly, distantly. Those forms of help are the hardest to perceive, and perhaps the more important historically 'in the grand scheme of things'. Still, we get more than the emotional rewards from personal acts, they lead to social rewards and money, and the latter acts normally do not, as Vincent van Gogh will attest, an artist who has helped countless millions, but only after his impoverished death. He is a poor role model in many respects, but is a good one as an icon of hope.

The situation reminds me of the question whether it's better to be rich or famous, but the dichotomy is false. The poor are friendless because friendship is a form of wealth, and the skills of friendship inevitably lead to financial security too. One is either both or neither.

The people at the open mic were kind last night; generous, complementary, a nice group of people in every way, as most artists are. I wish I could have enjoyed their company more, yet the performance arrangement, the programme, limits interactions to quiet listening and a few brief exchanges.

I remained stoic today, and filed last night's event. Then started work updating Firefly. This was much easier than updating Bool because the sprites use a linked list like my contemporary engine, it's much more modern as a game. Here's a screenshot of the new version:

One thing it does differently is merge all of the maze blocks into one huge object. This makes it more efficient than printing up to 900 blocks separately. I had to update the new engine to preserve this. Generally though, in 2 hours I've got the game working with most of the new features. I'll spend tomorrow fixing up a few more aspects, then can file it and plan possible upgrades.

I had an email about the mural installation. The weather for the next week is forecast to be rainy and these annoying prods to gaze at the sky cause great stress. I'm happy and ready to paint it at any time (although, unless Deb happens to be free, I must work alone, carry everything 2 miles to the site, and have no site security while there - this too is a cause of anxiety, I have a limited set of days I can comfortably work). I seem to be prodded to jump to start with hardly any notice. David and I really need a dry week, which is unlikely until May. Well, we'll see what the weather offers next week.

Onwards we roll our rock. Onwards to the next great peak, that one tinged with golden light.

Out Of Date at the Open Mic, Game Research

Today, it's another Red Cow Open Mic, and I've spent most of the day rehearsing my (and our) performance for it. I'll perform 'Out Of Date', and had practised it with a backing track that lacked the piano, but that was largely bass, and the song seems to work better with more freedom - a backing track kills expression to some extent, it's a harsh taskmaster. After a few rehearsals I have decided to perform it just on piano. I had planned on performing 'Warm Comfy Sofa', but the melody and chords are extremely complex, and its angular, jazzy tones are far from instantly tuneful, so I've decided to perform 'An Autumn Tale' instead, as, by chance, the words from my recent vocal recordings happened to be on the back of the 'Out Of Date' music.

I spent a couple of hours developing a Bool upgrade plan, and doing some game research, including watching a Space Invaders Evolution video. This may help inspire improvements to Outliner.

Incomplete Version Of The Writer 2024

A somewhat rubbish and listless day, but I have completed a bit of music work. First, adding a tiny bit of guitar to 'An Autumn Tale' to finish it off, then adding last Tuesday's vocals to 'Incomplete Version of the Writer'.

It's amazing how very small changes to the vocals and their effects can transform the quality of the song. I added a faint and distant echo to the vocals and this really improved them, then faded the reverb so that there was a lot less in the verses to choruses. The chorus needed some extra melody too. Most of the difficulties in the sound of a song come from inadequate backing. A song should sound great without the vocals; if not, that should be improved.