Claire Luce Underpainting

I decided to underpaint the new Claire Luce portrait today.

I'm less used the painting on smooth panels these days. There are pros and cons to each surface. The pro of a smooth panel is that it's easier to smooth shading, to polish the pure paint to 'perfection', but the paint can slide about. You need to apply more paint, about one hog-hair thick (yes, for me this a lot). This gives you enough to blend and move the paint into it's final place. Painting works in two stages; apply the paint, right colour in the right place, then blend, feather and smooth it to slightly move it into an even more correct place! After that, more, very delicate amounts can be applied.

The likeness changed with tiny changes to the jawline, tiny changes to the eyes, nose, mouth. Here's a close up to reveal the detail level.

The colours are muted. The face shines the yellow of the toned layer, and the shadows look grey-violet rather than alive and warm. This is painted from a monochrome photo. I rather like that, it gives more options to colours, but of course can't be 'realistic' whatever that means. I can't realistically paint a long-dead woman from a black and white photo, unless I paint a black and white copy of the photo.

Donovan Night, More Mixing

Wednesday started with the delivery of three paintings for the annual Bickerton Village Hall Art Exhibition, then later the Donovan night, which was a lovely evening as John's events always are.

I performed 'Donovan Before I Was Even Born' and 'Superman Sunshine' as planned. Both songs are a little similar, having simple two-chord riffs for the verses and a few single-strum chord changes for a chorus of sorts. The melody is generally monotone and tracks the chords. This is a symptom of my writing for guitar. Next time I'll write as I do normally, at piano, and work out the melody, then try to adapt it to guitar. I was unhappy with my performance of the first song. Deborah fortunately video recorded this, allowing me to coldly analyse my performance. I needed to take more time. My few fumbling mistakes were due to rushing, and the feeling I needed to rush, when this was not at all needed. A pause to get it right was required.

The second song fared better, though I was somewhat unhappy with all of my vocals. My throat was tense all night. I felt thrown in at the deep end to perform 'Colours'. I'd volunteered to help with the vocals, only to find myself asked to sing AND play guitar. Due to these events and the library strums this year, I've played guitar chords and sung about 4 or 5 times this year, this for the first time in my life. On my recordings, my guitar is predominantly melodic lines, very rarely chords. I still find it quite a challenge to sing and strum at once. I suppose it's a compliment that others want me to do both, it must appear that I can easily do it. 'Colours' was also 2 semitones lower than the official recording, starting on F# and moving down to a low A; an ugly range for me, the A is the very bottom of my vocal range. I could manage the high F# perhaps better, except that John, who sang alternate verses, sang low, so I'd have to leap an octave up as I followed him. All in all, it was a bad song for me. I volunteered because it was stated as an ensemble piece (I imagined a group of us all singing), but it turned out to be John and I (with help from John Miller and some in the audience!). I didn't expect to have to play too, and it was a lower key from the song which I'd practised. All tricky challenges to navigate!

Yesterday was spent recovering. I sent Tor details of the new album release, and sent off an email about a Fall in Green performance at The Little Street Cellar. I also promoted a little sale of SFXEngine, sent off my new single to Pete Saxer, then watched the latest episode of his YouTube show, The Flip Side.

Listening to the indie music on The Flip Side made me reconsider my mixes on Another Violet Night. I was hit by a sudden paranoia about the mixing of the 'parents' song. So, today, I made a few adjustments. The changes were raising the high pass filter on the vocals, and lowering their overall volume, adding a high-shelf to the strings (the whole song needed more sparkle), and lowering the bass a little. I made more changes, but gradually rolled back on almost all of them. I ended by comparing the mix to 'Hello Earth' by Kate Bush, which is somewhat similar in feeling. Kate's sounded mid-heavy and far more like my mix before I made the changes! This made me feel more relaxed. An odd thing about raising the high-pass on vocals is that it seems to make them louder, clearer, despite technically making them quieter.

The other tracks were fine, but I decided to add Zeitraum effect on the 'Daytime Teevee' vocals. They weren't too bad before, but this made them a tiny bit more interesting. This was because I listened to one of my favourite songs, 'Kinda Outta Luck' by Lana del Ray, and I noted how many of the vocals were layered.

Between mixing today, I toned a panel and traced over the underdrawing for the Claire Luce portrait.

Slam,. Superman Sunshine

Took part in a poetry slam in the brilliant space of Percy's Bar in Whitchurch. it was nice to see a few old faces from the Nantwich poetry days, a time shortly before 2020 and Covid struck. I've barely met with poets since, and barely written much poetry, but songs have become a new focus. The 'slam' element, the competition was not relevant really. Winning such things are a matter of writing jokes or other happy and simple rhymes to please an audience; never dark, deep, thoughtful, or quiet; but for me this event was an open mic, a chance to hear new poets and perform on a good stage, with a delightful 3-minute limit (oh that all open mics were like this).

I felt like an outsider there, a distant moon to the planet of the Nantwich poets. Sometimes nothing more than the simple circumstances of seating and occasion prevents partaking in the social.

My sleep was long and shallow until nearly 10am. I completed more audio admin work related to yesterday's new releases, and created a new artist listing on a Japanese website called Top Music Japan.

The day has flown. I've spent too long trying to get Superman Sunshine to work as a song. I've re-written the words and changed the chords, but it's still not as good as the other Donovan song. I'm highly unlikely to ever record this, or any of the songs I've written especially for these special live nights (I may already have a full album's worth!) yet I still want to make these songs the best I can, so I'll try try to work on it. Of course, I have less that 24-hours to the performance day...

The words so far:

Superman Sunshine

Sipping from a coffee cup and wishing night away
Goodbye stars, see you yesterday
Here's a new hero carving up a line
Giving me a sign
Telling me it's gonna be fine

It's superman
It's superman sunshine

making a flight
hotter than a beam of kryptonite
harder than a diamond stone
he cannot be broken

Standing on a broken beach and staring at the sky
See that ray, all alone and high
Is he like me or is he divine
Giving me a sign
Telling me it's gonna be fine

It's superman
It's superman sunshine

making a flight
hotter than a beam of kryptonite
harder than a diamond stone
he cannot be broken

Superman
I'm superman
Superman sunshine

Music Admin, Poetry Slam

A day of music admin. Transferred 3 more albums, plus the new 'All Controlled By Someone' single, and the 2025 remaster of The End And The Beginning for a 22 August release. I'd prefer a longer pause before that major relaunch, but the new album and its single also clutter up the release line. I really need to finish transferring the remaining 16 albums or so to clear everything, and I'd perhaps like another new EP about war. I wish I lived near Tor so we could collaborate and communicate more on such things.

About 50% of my albums still need sheet music, and I need to reorganise the sheet music I have. Many albums lack videos of any sort. It would at least be nice to have more for The End And The Beginning. The only tracks with videos are two instrumentals and the song 'A.I.', which has my 2009 vocals. The videos do not at all indicate the sort of music on the album, which is 80s electro-pop filled with Tor's amazing (and Alison Moyet-esqe) vocals. I feel I can't really make high quality videos without Tor being in them, but perhaps I can make some animated videos of some sort, something that is better than nothing. That would at least help showcase his considerable 2009 talent (I'm certain he's an even better singer today).

'Challenger' took 45 minutes to compile today using FFMpeg. Argus could probably animate it much more quickly. I may have even been able to duplicate and re-animate the entire video in one day, and make it better looking to boot, but it's interesting to see what is perhaps the origin of this sort of 'lights matching the notes' video. There's an old blog post on here all about the making of this video using AviSynth.

Tonight I'm taking part in a poetry slam. I don't really write 'slammy' poems, which are typically amusing and full of rhymes, more like stand-up comedy than literature, but with even more of a 'look at me' cry of desperation. I must remember that if Shakespeare were to enter, even with his 500-year-old poetry, he would certainly win. It's nice to be invited to a poetry event. I've neglected poetry since 2020, that year of a shift in my art. This might be my first participation on a poetry event in 5 years.

Superman Sunshine

Spent today rehearsing some poems for tomorrow's slam in Whitchurch, and finishing the music for Wednesday's Donovan night. I've written a second song for it caller 'Superman Sunshine'. These melodies are different than those I'd compose for a recording. The need for acoustic guitar feels limiting to the chords, and I tend to work out a lead melody on the piano. The song was originally about welcoming the sun itself, but I added a dark subtext. Here are the words:

Superman Sunshine

Sipping from a coffee cup and wishing night away
Goodbye stars, see you yesterday
Here's a new hero carving up a line
Giving me a sign
Telling me it's gonna be fine

It's superman
It's superman man
It's superman sunshine
Making a flight
Hotter than a beam of kryptonite
Harder than a diamond stone
Richer than a diamond mine
It's superman
It's superman man
It's superman sunshine

Standing on a broken beach and staring at the sky
See that ray, all alone and high
Is he like me or is he divine
Giving me a sign
Telling me it's gonna be fine

It's superman
It's superman man
It's superman sunshine
Making a flight
Hotter than a beam of kryptonite
Harder than a diamond stone
Richer than a diamond mine
It's superman
It's superman man
It's superman sunshine

The jobs never end. I also burned the archive copy of the All Controlled By Someone single, and made a slight mix change to it (yes, even at this last stage). I need to register it with many different authorities, and prepare the Claire Luce painting, as I may enter this into the Castle Park Open, due at the end of this month.

She Just Looks Empty, All About Eve

Underpainting complete today.

It's come out to plan and, for an idea I've been toying with since 2018, has come out better than I thought. I listened to songs by the 80s band All About Eve as I worked, and the songs of doomed romance seemed to resonate with the figure in the painting somehow, so I've decided to rename it 'All About Eve', in homage of the band (not the Betty Davis film; though perhaps I could paint Betty Davis one day in further homage to homage!)

It could be called finished but another layer will make it look at the smoother and yet more polished, so I'll glaze it in a couple of weeks.

Rik Mayall Dream, She Just Looks Empty Underpainting Day 1

I dreamt that Rik Mayall wanted to publish a magazine. I advised that he needed and 'SSN' number for it, a magazine equivalent of an ISBN (in actuality, an ISSN). I became annoyed that he didn't seem to care about this, yet that it was holding up the publication of the magazine. I found a laptop and located the website for purchasing SSN numbers and tried to persuade him to use it, but to no avail. He lazily didn't care.

I awoke feeling so unexpectedly tired and ill, weak, and almost feverish. Still, I pushed on with my plan of painting today and underpainted part of 'She Just Looks Empty'.

All went exactly as planned. The colour study is so massively helpful as a guide here. No matter how I'd have painted it, there are so many options that without a guide I'd be uncertain if this is the best choice. One hour spent painting a colour study potentially saves days of repainting.

All Controlled By Someone Cover, Claire Luce Sketch, and Other Jobs

I feel too slow and am struggling with motivation, yet am getting things done as planned.

First, sized some paper for the large panel primed yesterday, this was annoyingly 10mm bigger than an A1 sheet, so rather than using the larger paper rolls I have I glued a small extra part to it. Then, finished the scoring of the 'I Can Heal' music, which is now in 5 versions, including two simplified piano versions.

Then, did some artwork for that single release (All Controlled By Someone; I Can Heal is the B-Side). Made an iTunes booklet for this too, 7 pages including all lyrics.

Then spent some time, too long due to the way many websites work, organising my email addresses. After that, sketching out a new Claire Luce portrait. One problem I can envisage is that now I can paint more 'realistically' than back then, which means less dark eyes. My sketch already seems to have a better likeness than the old portrait; yet, perhaps I already know that I can't love any new painting more than a beloved old one.

This took 90 mins or less. I expect that the first portrait took days to sketch out. That took 3 days overall and used a flesh mix of Magenta, French Ultramarine and Olive Green, all in one layer.

I Can Heal Transcription, She Just Looks Empty and Masochistic Gaia Studies

Today, started the transcription of the sheet music for 'I Can Heal'. There are very slight differences between the repeat of the second version and first, only because the bass piano comes in a bit later on that second repeat. I've ignored that here, and ignored the idiosyncratic timing of the vocals (the odd note is a half in the vocals, the melody is somewhat robotic in timing). There mark a few little compromises that are sometimes needed for efficiency when transcribing.

After that, I cut a moderately large (80x50cm) MDF panel for a new painting, and primed it with GAC100 each side, then Lascaux Primer. Lascaux Primer is the most expensive gesso, but it is perhaps the best I've used. It has the consistency of single cream. Then, two colour studies for 'She Just Looks Empty' and 'Masochistic Gaia Toying With Humanity'.

I Can Feel Vocals, Donovan Before I Was Even Born

Sigh, a slow a frustrating day, disturbed at night by the annoyances of so many injustices in the world. My main job of the day was to write a song of some sort for the Donovan evening, so I managed this by putting together a few words. This took rather long time; I came up with a few options and didn't want too much repetition with previous songs. I did repeat the same words a few times, because Donovan seems to repeat lines a lot in his songs. My words:

I'm reading up and down
like the colours of the rain
I'm typing up a memoir
of another you again
and the sky is black and white
like yesterday and the yesterday
you saw
In that long ago before
I was even born

And the words are all a flutter
like a butterfly of type
and the flowers in the rain
are moving to the hype
and the sky is sudden yellow
like somebody in a summer field
of corn
In that long ago before
I was even born

And now you're painted mellow
Funny how that goes
Funny how ambition
Dies but never grows
And the stars are all around us
like yesterday and the yesterdays
before
In that long ago before
I was even born

It's also Tuesday, so my only few minutes of free space to sing, so I practiced a little and sang words to the new version of I Can Heal (an old song, previously recorded with a much lower pitched melody for The Harlequin Kings album). I layered the chorus with a main lead plus 2 duplicates, and 4 duplicates of harmonies; all good. The song is certainly much better than before. I wish I had more than an hour a week to sing, but perhaps a regular hour per week is better than lots of time in a rush every few months.

This is all I have given the world today. Too little.

Dentist, Music Transfers, Gaia, Donovan Speculation

A visit to the dentist in the morning. I used to enjoy such visits, seeing them as a challenge of stoicism, particularly if something potentially painful was due. I don't enjoy these so much now; the price is very high, the treatment very scant.

Then, some of my regular music transfers. Just 16 albums remain, perhaps I can mange 4 per week. Some won't need transferring, or must wait a little... I'll need to re-record The Modern Game yet again, for example, as I can't use the Marius Fate name.

Then, a little more work on the Gaia painting, though too little! I've completed the tracing, photographed the underdrawing (it always amazes me how the tiny delicate pencil lines can be photographed) and then printed and prepared a small copy as a study.

Tomorrow I must write some music for the Donovan night. Donovan's music tends to be one note, and the lyrics always about being half-asleep in a stupor. Perhpas I can comment on this in the words, but I have no idea at all what to write. So far, my songs have been attempts to emulate the style of the artist I'm paying tribute to, but here I may have try something different. I have a self-imposed 24-hour deadline for this.

Masochistic Gaia Plans

The start of work on a new painting entitled 'Masochistic Gaia Toying With Humanity'. The hottest day here of this heatwave, 27 degrees inside. I've barely the energy to work, and have watched some of the gripping tennis final, unable to face more drawing.

The composition needed more, so I added a fish from 'Bye Bye Little Fishes, And Thank You' (with the same meaning; the fish also appeared in Annunciation). The idea features a distorted figure, but with a strange face, which is in the air and upside down relative to the body. I decided to make this more 'realistic' in shading and look, but now I'm less sure. A mock-face as in 'Bunting Game' may work better.

She Just Looks Empty Plans

The hottest day of the third heatwave of 2024, 30 degrees out and 26 indoors. I've started work on painting, continuing work on 'She Just Looks Empty' from last year. Here's the original idea sketch:

I want to stick, as ever, to the original feeling and idea, but there are many influences and enhancements to the core mood of isolation, alienation. The little figures, initially simply gazing upon the broken 'building' figure, are now a couple, perhaps married life, or strife, a breaking point, but always a contrast, separate from the main figure like a memory or idea. Here is the underdrawing:

The top right has an orange (in my mind's eye) glow, here a toy rabbit; a symbol of non-human companionship, or a symbol of (social) fear.

I've prepared the canvas, and a copy for a colour study, and I made a lighting model from cardboard too.

It makes more sense to paint a few colour studies in one session rather than just one painting, so I may plan more works before proceeding. As far as goals go, there is no target (no competition or exhibition) for this painting.

Stratford, Another Violet Night Complete

A trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon yesterday. My first visit to this delightful town, more timber framed old buildings than even Nantwich. It was however very hot, around 30 degrees, and the 3-hour each way coach trip was a particular test of physical endurance; there was no air conditioning, it had apparently broken, though the coach was decades old and I suspect the company of stinginess regarding the use of this expensive device. The cramped heat and disruption to my eating routines led to a night of stomach agony (despite a light meal of only weak porridge at 7pm). Such trips take days off my life and today I am recovering.

I think that Another Violet Night is complete, and have listened a few times without wanting changes. I now dislike all of it, a sign that I'm ready to move on. I must try to promote it a little despite my prejudice. One notable aspect is that it's as dark as my paintings, as much about pain, loneliness, and longing as any romantic work. A Drive Through The Town was, by comparison, one of my most joyous and exuberant energy-filled works. The new album was made because I wanted a contrast and more raw humanity.

I have the tracks to divide, a listing on my website. There is a lot of other admin work regarding the music, once I'm completely certain the album is finished. Here are the tracks and times:

Album Complete, Machine Life Dominance, First AI Album

A slower day of music work. Made two tiny changes to the album, and I think it is now complete. I expect every new album to take less time, and each seem to take more time. I'm pleased with it, but already want to move on to something new and different. How impatient I am!

Most of today involved working on the filing admin. I store lists of all of the samples used for each track, and store any unique and unused samples that might be useful in future. Each album has a lyrics book, the iTunes Digital Booklet, full CD artwork (at least 8 pages), sheet music, mp3 tags, lyrics in plain text format, sequences, possibly any rough notes or concepts. Most of the source waves are deleted (those are in the Prometheus sequences anyway, and can be saved out).

I also found a little bug in Prometheus. It failed to calculate the sample sizes correctly in a song information export, so I fixed that. Another small update.

I need to wait a little and re-listen to be sure the album is complete.

I feel a little lost, that life is hopeless and pointless. Of course, it may be, we design our own 'point'. Reading about technology advances, I feel sure that electronic (robotic, non-organic) life will dominate biological life one day. Will machines need us? We seem to need all life here, from bacteria, to bees, but many species are superfluous and dying out through lack of utility to our needs. My brother is pessimistic about humanity due to climate change, but I suspect that the entire climate debate will be moot, as electric life may not care if it's too hot. Technology has a habit of leapfrogging our concerns in exponential timeframes. Machines can survive in far more harsh environments than humans, and the world is warming to suit them (and of course, the planet is in a 'mini-ice-age'; a warm planet would perhaps only be restoring it's historical balance). Machines are destined to dominate not through any superiority other than resilience. This is the only measure of Darwinian 'fitness'; resilience to crises. Of course, machines now need humans to make them, need electricity from our power plants, need factories maintained by people. It's hard to imagine a type of life that can exist without any biological help. We humans often underestimate our reliance on 'lower' animals and plants; would machines be equally reliant on insects, and us?

Machines are more informationally resilient, which is why I expect them to dominate. I would also expect this to be the case on other planets. If we detect advanced life elsewhere in the universe, it is likely to be electronic and perhaps then capable of living in space. Machine life could travel the stars by sheer weight of endurance. Centuries or millennia are easily traversed by machines which can lay dormant as they fly between stars.

The bigger our vision, the smaller we seem.

In other news, I tried to find the date of the first published commercial album written by AI. My Art by Machine was published in 2014. A news report stated that one 'first' AI album was published in 2017, and yet another project claims to be the first, despite being published in 2018. Of course, people have been making algorithmic music since the 1950s, but still, Art by Machine might be the first published album written by AI; primarily because I designed the AI myself.

Tomorrow, a trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Music Admin, Unknown Sounds Theme Finalised, Prometheus v3.75

Yesterday, transferred 4 more albums to a new distributor; 20 to go. I may remaster some, I'm unsure... it wouldn't take long for each album and I'd like to do this for most of the older albums to some degree. Only the most recent albums are volume and bass balanced (ah, the problems of a decades old catalogue!) - yet this work can take up valuable time. It may be more efficient to remaster them in batches of 3 or 4 each year. The middle of the day involved a small family birthday meal for my brother, who is visiting until Wednesday.

In the evening, I heard back that my Unknown Sounds music is acceptable, such joy and relief. I spent the evening working on edits and alternative versions. I used the swing option to create a relaxed version with a calypso-like feeling which was so pretty that it could be a hit song in itself.

One offshoot of these changes was an idea for Prometheus, to show the length of training silence. Most songs, most renders, should end in silence, but sometimes we have reverbs or echoes or other tails that stop the silent end. Until now, it was a matter of noticing this and simply rendering for a bit longer, but as of this morning the length of silence is monitored and returned. If the track isn't silent at the end it shows the number of tracks still sounding. Another little upgrade. Prometheus is now on version 3.75.

Late last night I re-listened to Another Violet Night. It's great, but there are still a few little changes needed, mostly to 'Breakfast of Delight'. Paul's visit is disrupting the week a bit, so it's a good time to work on these.

Onwards we roll.

Zeitraum II

A sleepless night. I feel tired and achy, perhaps my daily exercises are too much for me, slight though they are.

When working on the Unknown Sounds tune I found the need a few times for a start-offset parameter for the Zeitraum engines. These play a sample with independent pitch and speed, but they are more like a sample version of 'oscillator synchronisation'. They have a robotic and tinny sound which works well for some applications.

So today, I added that Start parameter, and a Wait parameter too, to delay playback. These now match the parameters of normal sample playback, which is useful because Zeitraum is often layered with normal samples. I corrected one little error, which reset the playback to be a few samples late; so now it lines up exactly, and optimised several aspects of the code too. None of this was urgent, but it is one of those time consuming jobs that can be done 'when I have the time', and today I did.

My brother and his partner are visiting for a birthday celebration, so this little disruption to routine stops me from some jobs, so this was a useful one. Tomorrow I'll re-list a few more albums. I aspire today to prepare some papers for underdrawings.

Music Bits

Much as I planned to paint today, I found myself working on the Unknown Sounds theme for the morning, recording vocals, and new vocoder part using the MODX. The Microkorg Vocoder sounds great, the MODX not so good, but I'm unsure if it's merely a lack of presets or an inherent lack of quality. There are always so many parameters.

A great tiredness hit me for the second half of the day, and swollen gums, perhaps I'm a little run-down, induced by a sleepless night. In the late afternoon I sang a the last few vocals for the new album, some 'aah' sounds in the sky for 'Breakfast Of Delight'. I'm thinking of releasing All Controlled By Someone as a single, and if so I'd like to add a B-Side (even though Emubands awkwardly consider a 2-track release an album). I've got a few older songs that are just about finished, so I dug up 'I Can Heal' from the ancient times of my first experiment with vocals with The Harlequin Kings.

Gosh how low the vocals are. I can sing it instantly better now than I could then, even in this low register, but my voice doesn't sound good there, it's like a guitar with loose strings, hard to get a good tone or volume, and few overtones. I sang it all though, but I think it would be better to rewrite the melody (I can actually sing the entire song an octave higher than originally, but this is a bit too high), so I've improvised it up a fifth or seventh here and there. The tune fits the chords but it doesn't seem to sound natural... perhaps I'm used to the old melody so much.

I'll keep trying, but perhaps I should forget this for now and move wholeheartedly towards painting.

Unknown Sounds Theme One

I'm working on a potential theme tune/song for the Unknow Sounds podcast, so today was a charge into this. The criteria were perfect, strict enough to inspire by limits, free beyond those.

I've written a few jingles and themes before, many for the ArtsLab show, and a theme for a possible animated DVD Review programme (an ambitious concept!) proposed by Stuart Ashen. This was somewhat similar to all of those, lots of saw-based synths, a bit like the music I've written for IndieSFX over the years.

I began with a bass made from two detuned saw waves an octave apart, and a chord of C-Major, then added some saw stabs, and an orchestra hit for emphasis. I wanted an electro-pop feeling, so created a beat of broadly synthetic sounding drums, something like 'Maniac'. Many iterations later, I decided to slow the tune down and break into something like a rock rhythm, as the music show has a lot of indie rock, then it moved into some strings (yet more tracks! There are more sounds, tracks and things happening in this 30-second theme than any song on Another Violet Night) and a French horn. Initially the main theme was C-F-G, and the rock part A-min, F-Maj, E-Maj, G-Maj, but I changed the rock art to A-min, F-Maj, E-min, E-Maj, then used a plain G for the strings part to lead back into the initial melody.

There are some necessary lyrics, but I didn't worry about the melody for these, simply fitted a tune to the chords without much thought. I always imagined the main words in a vocoder, like Kenny Everett's many jingles. By 4pm, I was ready to record those, and recorded a short guitar part, and some chord strokes too. The guitar lead config, for my future reference was 0AA, Modern-Lead, B-string.

Main vocals remain. All day has been spent here, though an early hour until 10am was spent with Deb looking for possible furniture. I spotted a nice frame, so bought that for a future painting. I have lots of frames now, and lots of surfaces, and lots of paints. Now I need lots of plans, and lots of ideas.

Cathedral Of The Polar Bear Painting

Started the day by cutting three 6mm MDF panels for paintings, and one canvas board. Two of the panels are for a planned duet of portraits of Claire Luce. The painting I perhaps love most is my old Claire Luce painting, mainly because I see it every day, opposite my bed as I sleep. I've often thought about painting another, and I like painting these old film stars as training. I like plain painted portraits as much as I dislike landscapes. Any idiot can paint a landscape, and most landscape painters seem to be talentless and artless, like landscape photographers.

After that, and my daily muscle building I felt utterly exhausted! But I brushed this aside and decided to paint. I've had two days of painting this year, but both were rush-jobs for urgent exhibitions, with little or no planning. Fun works, nothing major. My last planned painting of 2024 was called Cathedral Of The Polar Bear. It features a bear gazing majestically upwards into a blue sky, with a lozenge shape beneath in dark red, gold, a symbol of god or heaven perhaps, something both deathly and heavenly. Of course my aim was a feeling, so I'm trying to express that in this description; these descriptions are not the plan. I decided it needed more, and added some prostitutes from 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon'. These add a black humanity to it all, making the (endangered if not doomed) polar bear appear yet more majestic and beautiful, more like Jesus. The painting is completely romantic.

By 17:30 the painting was complete, though I need to glaze the lozenge shape with a richer red and more gold.

Little Jobs

The day still disrupted by workmen, but managed relative productivity. Started by updating my album filing such that older 16-bit mastered albums now store the final files in CDMaster folders, and some clearer separation for the albums (all future ones I suspect) that have separate CD and Stream versions.

I then updated two tracks on Cycles & Shadows, to burn a new CD master for future replication. Gosh! The remaster is only 2 years old yet is sounds outdated and poor compared to my modern standards; but I'm being harsh. It is a huge amount better than the first version, and most of it is as good as ever. Since 2023 I've added a few crucially useful things to Prometheus; the Cathedral Limiter which perfectly (mathematically perfectly that is, the best it can be) limits audio, allowing them to get much louder with ease. Secondly, the Spectrum EQ features, which though present for this remaster were relatively new. I wasn't used to using them. I've also since added a (hardly ever used) 10-band graphic equaliser, and now the new per-track Spectrum, which is perhaps more useful in spotting where the mix is sticking out. For this album EQ was post applied, informed by the Spectrum. I don't do this now, but balance before the final output.

Now I tend to set CD volume at about -10 or -11 LUFS (when I started, I did this too, but gradually changed philosophy, only since about 2020 and my pop-ra have I reversed this). This isn't important on this album as it is more like classical music which is not limited like pop music.

My main critique of this remaster are vocals, which are rather quiet and a little muffly, these were pretty much unchanged since the first version. Today I've adjusted these for two tracks, so the forthcoming CD version will be a little different than the stream version. For me, that's always good. I still listen primarily on CD, and want the CD version (which is, after all more expensive) to be the best version. Mastering of any sort is a long term thing, it's good that I do so only after many years. In 5 years I'm sure to be that much better at everything than today.

In the afternoon, I scanned, framed, and photographed in frame the new small painting for Bickerton, Land Of Destiny:

After that, two more albums moved, 24 yet to go. I may finish before the end of the year. I have one small vocal part I'd like to do to complete the new album, then I can move into painting until winter. Next on my re-recording/remastering target is The Myth Of Sisyphus.

July Backups

A long and tiresome day. Quarterly backup day, this took a few hours. I had a short time, the all to brief time alone to sing. How perfect In Dreams is as a warm-up, then Runaway. I then recorded a new take of 'Smashing My House of Cards'. I may need some new 'aah' vocals for 'Breakfast Of Delight'.

The gas man arrived at 14:30 or so, and the noise and disruption hampered any progress elsewhere. I need to finalise this album, but it's very nearly done. Then, I feel I must paint something, so must find motivation to do this. Today's life has been somewhat lustless; lack lustre.

In June I started daily exercise and now do 52 sit-ups every other day, and am moving to the same number of other exercises. As one gets older, muscle mass tends to fade away, and stiffness beckons. It's important to stem this tide now.

Onwards we roll our heavy rock. Heave at it we must. Creak forwards on the dry desert floor it must. The gods will thank us for our efforts.

Violet Transcription Complete

Completed the sheet music transcription for Another Violet Night today, so another step of the admin work on a new album complete. Each of the 13 songs has a 'full', or close to full version with many parts, plus simpler versions. The Piano Version has a backing piano, plus lead vocal stave, and a Piano Melody version has the melody on piano (typically at an octave higher than sung) with other elements. From these complex scores it's easy to maker simpler ones. All have the chords marked for possible live playing.

I fondly remember my childhood playing of Beatles songs on my little Yamaha PSS-790 keyboard, the simple sheet music from my How To Play books. I had memories of this as I worked on my scores today.

Also today, two more albums moved to the new distributor, about half have been moved so far. A good day overall. Temperatures across Britain and Europe are high, but we're spared here with a mere 25 degrees or so.

Backup day tomorrow, and perhaps new and better vocals for two tracks.

Another Violet Night Transcription

A full day of work, 9am to 9pm, transcribing the scores for the songs from Another Violet Night. Most of the scores, when free on my itch channel, have had zero downloads, and the work is physically and mentally hard, punishingly meticulous, yet for me, one of the jobs or life is accurate storage and preservation of information. Weeks, months, perhaps a full time year or more of my life has been (or will be) spent meticulously transcribing my music, for no reward or thanks from any soul, yet this is part of the job of music publishing. I can't call myself a self-publisher (song writer, recording artist, piano player, guitar player, singer, music producer, engineer, audio software developer, graphic designer) without this.

People neglect this job today. More music than ever is being made, but how much of it is transcribed or published as sheet music?

This takes me a few days per album, as does the artwork, yet this is part of the job of art. Perhaps my labour is as unrewarded as the work on the engraving plates made by William Blake in his day, perhaps as the work by a now forgotten print maker; but for the work to be remembered at all, it must exist.

A month is nearly at an end, and the album nearly complete. I must push that much harder to paint in July, August, September.

More transcription work tomorrow.

Beatles Dream, Prometheus v3.74, Pianos

Last night I dreamed of meeting The Beatles. I went back in time, and the c. 1970s group, were playing themselves in a documentary film about their entire future lives. Someone played the start of 'Imagine' on a piano and John Lennon like it, saying he could almost imagine how the song continues. I brashly, perhaps even braggingly, said that that happens to me too. I suddenly felt slightly ashamed at the boast, not least because I made John lost his train of thought with Imagine. I feared that I'd porlocked him, changing the future and stopping the song from ever being written. Oops.

In a second dream, I dreamt that Andy Stubbs was offered a record contract to record a single by a Dutch record company owner, after playing live. One song was one of his, the B-Side due to be a cover, I thought 'Runaway' at first, but it was actually a Sam Cooke soul song (I can't quite remember which). I tried to warn Andy about retaining ownership of any songs that he wrote, but he wasn't interested in publishing or owning the right to his songs at all; his focus was on the record deal and getting it sounding right.

Dreams led to a long long day of programming, trying to crawl forwards a tiny step while working on 'Another Dead Morning'. The piano wasn't quite right, so I wanted to adjust the MIDI velocities. One easy way is to set these at random between two values. I really needed two actual floating point value settings for this. Argus has this exact option and uses three generic values (FX, FY, FZ) for use in many editing features, so I thought I'd add it to Prometheus today.

Another upside is that these utility numbers can be used elsewhere, such as when scaling all events to a specific timing, such as when moving from say, 120 BPM to 109. Until today, fractional scaling (like 120 to 108.5) was not possible.

So, this was added, plus a host of other minor features connected with MIDI velocities. At 16:00, work on the new piano for the song began. The old, sequenced, piano sounded like an ape-robot hammering the keys like a monster. It did have a somewhat nice, and very bright timbre. I read somewhere that when mixing, pianos should retain their bass (most mixing desks have a high-pass filter switch) - complete nonsense! Pianos in most records are bass-cut, sometimes to the extent of sounding very little like actual pianos. Today, even piano-centred artists like Elton John use synthesized pianos, and those are often bass-cut and treble enhanced. The reason for these EQ changes is that the piano and the human voice span about the same frequency range.

I tend to not do much at all with pianos, except cut the bass a bit, but here I've added a bit of a notch at 450hz as the song has a lot of mid-range sounds.

Notation Day 1

Listened to the first draft of the mastered album late last night and made a few notes. The piano in 'Another Dead Morning' needed redoing. I was sequenced, but the 'real' (digital!) piano in 'What You Could Have Won' was much better. There was a problem though, the tempo modulated gently, and with everything else set in the song (like the vocals), I'd have little hope of playing the piano exactly to time, I'd normally start with the piano, as it's the fundamental core of the song.

So, I used the sequenced piano, which naturally varies in time, then fed this to the keyboard. It sounded much better than the original piano. Then, a few other changes to the other tracks, little things.

Most of this increasingly hot day has been spent notating the music for the album, something I now routinely do. The music isn't finalised, but the composition and words are.

Good Vibrations, Another Violet Night Mastering, Pariah Teabags

Yesterday, the 4-weekly music playing in the library, a delight. Somewhat hellish at home with work in the house, and my brother filling a room, a brief visit before my aunt's lonely funeral today. Deb is just recovered from her short illness.

I've spent today mastering Another Violet Night, awaiting a proof, then basic working out the tracks and lengths, and the design of the lyrics book and the iTunes Digital Booklet. I'm tired of the music now, eager to move on. I wrote a poem about our pariah tea; herbal, gifted at Christmas, untouched.

Pariah Teabags

Exotic herbal teas
gifted and received each
Christmas, and forever
languishing in the cupboard's
vault, in hope and despair

If hell is to be unwanted
hell is there

Oh to steep
as we were promised
when green-tipped, plucked
dried with comrades
to await, and wait

If hell is to be unwanted
hell is our fate

Fennel, rose, mint julep
chamomile, hemp's must;
sage, lavender,
forgotten mugwort, burdock
bitter bitter green

Unwanted horrors
Untried, unseen

Steep for 3 minutes: no
Add sugar to taste: never
Swamp smells, no taste
Good for you: no
Sartre? No

Our life is Camus
Sans brew

Album Finalising, Vocals

More work finalising the album over the past two days, with a little diversion to fix that problem with the MIDI import in Prometheus. Rather that use a 'long long', I decided to upgrade the system to use floating point timing, which increases accuracy due to better rounding.

Then, my regular weekly transfer of more albums to a new distributor, and today my weekly singing practice, plus recording the vocals for 'What You Could Have Won'. The song is somewhat like a Pink Floyd track, almost Wish You Were Here by proxy. For this, the track uses a filtered echo on the lead vocals (one of my favourite effects, as much my signature as John Lennon's tape delay). I usurped the effect in the chorus by adding answering vocals in that register and location.

The first draft of the album is complete! There are lots of listens and little changes to go, plus actual mastering, then breaking up tracks, the technical registration, sheet music... well, a lot more to do. Today I completed the first draft of the album artwork too. Here are some pages:

By amazing luck, all of the album lyrics fit into three pages when written in compressed paragraph form like the page above.

I've practiced playing 'All Controlled by Someone' on guitar for the open mic tomorrow, but Deb will need to rest, so we must miss this beloved event. The song isn't that hard, A-minor, G, A-minor, E-minor for the first part, with A-minor, D, E, for the chorus (all on capo-3, so in actual C-minor). With luck, we can attend the library in the morning. I also practiced 'Annie's Song', which looks hideously complex on guitar, but I'm certain uses 'near-chords' that make it much easier (if not better), and actually great fun to play. In singing, I sang 'In Dreams' several times, now my favourite singing practice, if not favourite song of all time. I seemed to know the words without looking. Annie's Song, In Dreams, Runaway; these are now my mainstay warm-up songs, in that order.

Solstice, Quantise To Group Mean, What You Could Have Won

A lovely morning yesterday at an outdoor gathering with poet friends at the Bridestones. The area is very small, little more than a few boulders in a very wooded area. There's little indication of its historical significance. The day was tainted by the sad absence of Deborah who remains ill.

I returned in the afternoon, but it was too hot work work. The album needs a new track I feel, between 'All Controlled' and 'More'. The latter ends in C-minor, more starts in A-minor. Both a a little too similar in audio mood (not in theme) to tie together, so a slower intermediate track is needed. I started with those chords and played something small on the piano. I then came up with some words that play on the themes of the album generally, and act as a prelude to the satire of 'More'.

What You Could Have Won

Here's what you could have won
Here's what you could have taken home
Here's what you'll never have

Here's what your life could have been like
If you'd done what you're supposed to do

I spent yesterday playing it on piano, the backing is simple.

Today has been a little frustrating. I started with adding (well, enhancing) a useful feature in Prometheus: quantise to group mean time. Most quantisation of notes do so to a fixed rhythm, the main tempo, well, ALL quantisation does this, except mine. The problem with this is that most of the time you don't want a fixed 'perfect' beat in any song ever. The strongest case is in electronic dance music, but perhaps even then the tempo could be slightly changed for dramatic effect.

Anyway, all rhythms since 1984 and the invention of the sequencer have been robotically fixed, compared to all prior music. My feature quantises notes not to the nearest beat but to the average of a bunch of notes. It has the effect of unifying nearby-notes (like chords, like the bass with the drum etc.) but not changing the (human) pace of the music. Here's an extreme example of averaging in action:

The lines are notes. The upper track is unquantised, the bottom one the averaged notes. You can set the width of the effect window. This is an extreme example, but even here it can be useful to simplify a MIDI track for example.

After this I discovered a bug in the MIDI import. At tick 129000 or so, the MIDI import stopped. It was because that multiplied with the wave frequency of 44100 caused an overflow. I needed to multiply it because it's not a normal import, it imports to the exact speed of the sequencer, so backwards calculates the final rendered song in samples, then works out where to place the note! The problem was fixed by using a long long, my first use of a 64-bit variable.

These things have taken all day. I must makde more progress.

How I miss my darling Deborah. One of my happier jobs of the day was going shopping for her on this much cooler day.

Brigid The Corn Dolly

A punishingly hoy day here, 30 degrees and the hottest of the year so far. I started by updating the music pages on my website with some new code, then making small changes to the Violet Night music, small things based on a first full listen yesterday. I may need to add another track, or at least work on the transition. By 12pm it was too hot to work on the computer.

At 1:30pm I started to pack for the solstice event tomorrow. Deb and I, and a few friends will perform a few things outdoors. We'll have no power, so no keyboards, but I'll bring a guitar, a battery powered amplifier, and a backing track for 'Sunchild'. After 2pm, in the blazing sun, I worked on the lawn on the Brigid the Corn Dolly, sponging it with yellow and orange-browns.

The paint dried in seconds. The card had curled due to the paint, so I wetted the back to curl it back, then added some grass, which has already started to dry out.

It's too hot to work much on the computer, still 26 in here. I'd like to work more on the album art, but am forced to pause.

Another Violet Night Cover

An appropriately sleepless and restless night leads to a day working on the cover art for Another Violet Night. I started with some photos, and chose one I liked...

Then started to work on designs based on this... working, changing, adding, subtracting... experimenting with text and placement...

Then I took some summer garden photos for the other booklet pages and the rear. I wanted to clash night and day, so lots of day images to be warped into the nocturnal. One result is a change to the top left when I added some inverted ivy there...

I've got lots of colour and texture combinations to play with already, the greys and oranges, the white/red/blue. This will make it easier to work on the booklet (and digital booklet!) pages. The ivy theme was applied to the CD rear too. I chose orange to contrast with the violet of the album's title, though there isn't much violet in the imagery itself, the purples emerge from the inverted greens.

I've made full CD artwork for all of my albums, often rather beautiful (if I say so myself), but only a tiny minority actually get made, primarily due of lack of sales and money, but also lack of my pushing them. My most popular CD, for example, is probably We Robot because I worked on selling and handing out copies at every opportunity. But I've got through lots of The Spiral Staircase and Cycles & Shadows too.

Another reason for not making many CDs is that since the explosion in my music began in 2020, my albums were temporary experiments. I knew it would be a learning process and that my vocals and production abilities would improve. The albums weren't good enough or ready enough to promote wildly. We Robot was the first I thought was good enough, hence the recent explosion in remasters as I revisit and fix-up my art-pop canon.

I'm not actually sure if the tracks (never mind durations) are finalised yet, but that can all be changed with ease. Onwards I charge.

Another Violet Night, and Remixing Radiation

A strange day. I'm making good progress on the album, very keen to get it complete, not worry about details or quality too much. The key thing is to stick to the original vision, there are no right or wrong songs; no writing is right or wrong, so that must be raced though BUT there can be a right and wrong mix and master, those are skills not arts. Overthinking can sometimes produce good results, but is often less efficient than moving on quickly and simply making something new in future, should a new idea or option present itself.

I must remember to push onwards and avoid being tied by the tar-trap of perfectionism. It something will do, it will do, but there are always exceptions and complexities to this rule! It seems that as I become more skilled, I want better and better results, but 'quality' is so subjective. I find at times that I can get better results by not trying to get better results.

Today I did a little more work on 'Daytime Teevee', paring back the complexity, and deciding to largely stick with what was there with the first version. Then, a similar change to the last track, 'Walls (And How To Hit Them)'; which now includes parentheses! I always imagined a megaphone-like voice speaking here, so today added that and discarded the other harmonies that were there. The album so far, with it's 12 tracks and 38 minutes, is complete, though I may add more if there needs to be more structural unity. This takes listening back - ah! This process, this proofing, is that very tar-trap!

The title will be 'Another Violet Night', which was my original title idea, no need to think more on it. I need to finish and move on quickly.

I also started work on a new EP, though I plan on moving to painting as soon as I can. This was inspired by the recent wars. Step 1 is a new version of the Radioactive theme, 'Radiation'. It sounds like a new mix, but actually it's a total re-creation, moving instrument by instrument, effect by effect to duplicate the Noise Station 1 sequence in Prometheus. It's amazing how the algorithms are theoretically the same, saw waves, filters and other code that is so similar, yet, the result is really different. There's no way I can duplicate the Noise Station original, though, of course, it sounds close. One of the hardest things to match was the high-pitched darting notes that zip up and down the frequency range. It's saw-saw-pulse combination fed though a flange, then peaking filter modulated by a sine wave, but even though the filter should be the same, the way it processes the parameters is very slightly different, so it sounded different.

The biggest problem with the Noise Station version is the overpowering bass, but it's not at all bad, it's one of my best sounding sequences from that era. I've turned the bass down by 25% and will include this version on the album too. The new version isn't intended to be identical, I've limited the bass, and changed that peaking sound a little, used more of a hollow-phaser type effect (with negative feedback on the flange), and added more stereo to the instruments. Overall, it sounds similar but cleaner, particularly with the fizzy high-frequencies which are a bit ear-jangling in their distortion.

I'll also include 'Written On Rice' here. This song is a bit sleepy and boring in pace, so I need to work on it. I can't and won't spend long. Onwards!

New Album Work

A day of work on the new album. It seems that the final tracks and order are complete, the titles now are as follows:

Violet Night
Another Dead Morning
Breakfast Of Delight
The Parents In The Walls
Daytime Teevee
How Lonely
The Tainted Pain
Smashing My House Of Cards
Fear Is Everywhere
All Controlled By Someone
More
Walls And How To Hit Them

Structurally, my plan was that the first 9 tracks form a group, and three groups of three, but this is much less apparent now, and today I added an extra minute-long intro to 'All Controlled By Someone' which plays on the imagery of that song, and some of the primary thema of the album; the music in 'Fear Is Everywhere'. 'More' can thematically link too, as it's about commercialism, and there are lots of classic television clips in here, so the structure spans the entire album, with 'Walls' as a scherzo-like epilogue.

Most of the day was spent balancing tracks (bless my 'relative, tuned spectrum analyser'! This Prometheus feature has transformed my music more than almost any other), adjusting, musing. A lot of work had gone into 'Daytime Teevee', which it proving troublesome to mix and get quite right. The darker and more complex tracks are my favourites, though all are rather short and disparate. At the moment, it's very much an art-pop album, almost in the style of Sparks, but with a unified theme and limited fun or joy; the mood is darker. More work and more musing is required.

All Controlled By Someone Solo

Sigh, another day flies past, tiny fragments of progress made in the art of muisc. Tiny fragments.

First, work on 'All Controlled By Someone', and some backing vocals. I tried up-tuning them to sound 'female' but the results were not very good, so recorded some simpler ones, which were then band-limited in a nice way. Then, some general balancing to the track.

In the afternoon, another regular batch of work on album distribution transfer, then work on the All Controlled solo. I decided to use the MODX, and recorded 3 or 4 solos in MIDI with different organs, all were adequate, but none quite right. Then, I recorded three solos with a flute-glockenspiel instrument, again fine, then some solos with upright piano, this time simple live recordings rather than MIDI. These were more relaxed and jazzy, they seemed to fit better; but none of the 12 or so solos seemed right. I then created a new instrument from a raw 'strings' sample, with instant fade in and out, and high pass filter to create a stark and synthetic sound. This sounded good, so I recorded a MIDI solo with this, then exported it.

The solo was recorded at 120 BPM but at the speed of the song is 140. Some programs complain about importing, I needed to simply change the tempo, not the actual speed of the music. Fortunately, Prometheus can import and ignore the actual recording tempo. I did this, then quantized the result, then recorded it as it played back though the MODX. At this stage it sounded fine, but I thought it might be better to bypass the synth entirely, so I loaded the MIDI notes into the song and recreated the MODX instrument in Prometheus, thus came full circle, and created a sequenced solo which is based on a live play; notably the timing was 'repaired' in the process.

This made me think of the Beethoven, as performer and composer, and the difference between the two. He would improvise lots of possible starts and directions, and notate those improvisations. I could have used my live recording and not cared about the notes, or the 'perfect' timing, but I notated the result like a composer rather than stuck with the recording like a performer. There was, here, limited advantage in expressive quality, as the instrument had no sensitivity to the keys. Still, I feel more a composer than performer at heart; at least in this case. Perhaps, at times, I feel more performer than composer. Today's experiences illustrates the border between the two.

Corn Dolly, Prometheus v3.70, Art

An artistic get together at Linda's; inspiring and delightful in every way. Like the old art group meetings, I felt pressure to bring some artwork to actually do. It's ironic that I didn't particularly feel like doing art, feeling pressure only because it was described as a drawing/painting day, yet in the end I was the only one who prepared or made any art.

Deb and I will be performing something in a casual way on the solstice, so Deb had the idea of making a 'life sized' corn dolly. In the end it was about 1M or 1.5M tall, and made from a cardboard core, with lots of cardboard strips glued to it to emulate hay. Today I painted it crudely, with cheap paint. I was reminded that a lot of art in medieval times was made for special one-off events, religious celebrations or parades, and so the art was primarily cheap rather than high quality. This is certainly the case here, though of course I did my best given the few hours of time and budget of zero. The dolly (christened Brigid) is intended for one day of use.

I aim to film the Solstice event, so the world can see Brigid then.

I managed a few little jobs. The filing of the remastered Finnegans Judgement EP is complete, and today I updated Prometheus again to fix a bug in the Noise Station 1 importer. I had an idea of releasing the Radioactive theme as part of a war-themed EP. I'd much prefer to remake the music in Prometheus than use Noise Station 1. Technically, the results should sound identical, but there have been years of updates and changes in Prometheus, and it has a less harsh, less tinny sound than Noise Station. I don't mind this, but the limiter and spectrum tools are hugely useful for mastering, and those don't exist in Noise Station.

When updating to v3.70, I added the option to view and change sample loops in either seconds or samples. Until now, all units were in samples, and the boxes were primarily for informational reasons, not really for hand editing.

The days are slow. Being around other artists for a rare time was nice, but reminded me that I'm as unknown and obscure in the art world as perhaps I ever have been, that compared to other full-time artists I barely ever sell paintings and can't seem to find anyone who will exhibit my art in any capacity. I must be doubly grateful for my friends and those who encourage me. I've been far less proactive in visual arts since 2020 when music became more of a passion. I am, I feel, better at painting than ever before, and better at music and every other creative discipline. I must remind myself of these things.

Onwards we roll our heavy rock.

Finnegans Judgement Finalised, All Controlled Electro-Jazz-Blues

Most of today was completing the Finnegans Judgement remaster, mostly the many filing and archiving processes. I have found tome to work on 'All Controlled by Someone'. The rhythm is somewhat like a bossa-nova, but I'd like to bend it more towards jazz and blues, and a song like the Zombies' 'Time of the Season'. That was jazz, with its organ and bass-led beat. My song started that way but I experimentally tried an analogue synth bass and organ, and it sounded better, perhaps because it was deliberately alien and unusual.

Finnegans Knots Score

long and eye-strainingly hard afternoon to evening notating 'Finnegans Knots', the 10-minute piano piece which acoompanies the speech on the Finnegans EP. I can't imagine anyone actually playing it, but the first stage of this being possible is a score being made, in at least some basic form.

The music was orignally improvised, played live and recorded via MIDI. It is from that I can piece together the notes, though it's painstaking to neaten and order them all. The 11 pages are just about done, though there is no expression; no tempo, dynamics, but the score so far is at least 50% of the work, and will suffice for now.

Music Catalogue Filing

More album refiling today, as I modify my system a little. Two days ago, an album had a new code unless it had the same tracks with same duration, yesterday I decided tat the duration didn't matter so mcuh, but last night thought that an album should have the same code evne if the tracks change; it's the album itself that matters, whether it is the same title, same artist, and same album.

Plenty of albums are reissued, some with bonus tracks, and these, I reasoned should have the same code as the original with a modifier, a letter in my case. I also thought of fighter aircraft, how the F18 Hornet is updated with letters, rather than given a new F-number.

For me, this change in logic only applies to a few albums, The Spiral Staircase (old version R4A, 2008 version R11A), Synaesthesia (many versions, old R1A, 2002 version R57A, 2015 version R26A, the latest 2020 version R52A), and the new Flatspace Soundtrack. So I updated all of these today.

This is a lot of work, but can be done perfectly. The source records are moved. The websites udpated (the images and database all use album codes). The Cornutopia Music Catalogue updated correctly. Then the main folders renamed. The files for sequences and sheet music needed updating to point to the new folders, and finally the labels for the CD archive copies needed updating. I don't have CD archive copies for all albums, but do for most. I burned three new ones today; one for R1B, R1C, the mid-versions of Synaesthesia, and one for the Fall in Green single 'Who is Afraid/She Floats'. I don't generally burn a duplicate CD for a single unless it has a unique B-side, and this one does.

I re-rendered the source sequence for that. It's quite different due to the high-pass filter in the reverbs which was not present in the original. I can turn it right down, as good as off, but the default is on (a 12dB high pass at about 220hz).

Here's my complete catalouge: AL = Album, SI = Single, GC = Game Content, BK = Audiobook, * = Commercially Replicated CD available, + = hand-printed CD available.

  AL R1A Mark Sheeky, Synaesthesia (2001)
  AL R1B Mark Sheeky, Synaesthesia (2002)
  AL R1C Mark Sheeky, Synaesthesia (2015)
  AL R1D Mark Sheeky, Synaesthesia (2020)
  AL R2A Mark Sheeky, The Arcangel Soundtrack (2001)
  AL R2B Mark Sheeky, The Arcangel Soundtrack (2025)
  AL R3A Mark Sheeky, The Incredible Journey (2002)
  AL R4A Mark Sheeky, The Spiral Staircase (2002)
* AL R4B Mark Sheeky, The Spiral Staircase (2008)
  AL R5A Mark Sheeky, Flatspace (The Official Soundtrack) (2003)
  AL R5B Mark Sheeky, Flatspace (The Official Soundtrack) (2025)
  AL R6A Mark Sheeky, Animalia (2004)
  AL R6B Mark Sheeky, Animalia (2020)
  AL R7A Mark Sheeky, The Four Seasons Of Dance [EP] (2005)
  AL R8A Mark Sheeky & Tor James Faulkner, The End And The Beginning (2009)
  AL R8B Mark Sheeky & Tor James Faulkner, The End And The Beginning (2025)
  AL R9A Mark Sheeky & Tor James Faulkner, Gunstorm [EP] (2007)
  SI R10A Mark Sheeky & Tor James Faulkner, Gunstorm (2007)
  GC R11A Flatspace Music Pack 4 (2025)
  AL R12A Mark Sheeky, Stupid Computer Music (2008)
  AL R13A Mark Sheeky, The Twelve Seasons (2008)
  GC R14A Flatspace Music Pack 2 (2008)
  AL R15A Mark Sheeky, The Infinite Forest (2010)
  AL R15B Mark Sheeky, The Infinite Forest (2021)
  AL R16A Mark Sheeky, Pi (2010)
  AL R17A Mark Sheeky, Once Upon A Time (2010)
  AL R18A The Harlequin Kings, Fear Of The Thing Itself (2015)
+ EP R19A Mark Sheeky, The Sky Disc [EP] (2011)
  AL R20A Mark Sheeky, Flatspace II (The Official Soundtrack) (2011)
* AL R21A Mark Sheeky, The Love Symphony (2012)
  GC R22A Flatspace Music Pack 3 (2013)
  AL R23A Mark Sheeky, Bites Of Greatness (2013)
  AL R24A Oldfield 1, Art By Machine (2014)
  GC R25A Flatspace Music Pack 1 (2005)
    R26A Unused (formerly Synaesthesia 2015)
* AL R27A Mark Sheeky, The Anatomy Of Emotions (2016)
  AL R28A Mark Sheeky, Cycles & Shadows (2017)
  AL R28B Mark Sheeky, Cycles & Shadows (2024)
  AL R29A Mark Sheeky, Finnegans Judgement [EP] (2017)
  AL R30A Mark Sheeky, Genesis (c.1996) (2017) [2017 Remaster]
  AL R31A The ArtsLab Collective, I, Leviathan (2017)
  AL R32A Mark Sheeky, The Modern Game (2018)
* AL R33A Fall in Green, Testing The Delicates (2018)
  AL R34A Mark Sheeky, A Walk In The Countryside [EP] (2018)
  AL R34B Mark Sheeky, A Walk In The Countryside [EP] (2020)
  AL R34C Mark Sheeky, A Walk In The Countryside [EP] (2024)
  SI R35A Mark Sheeky, House Of Glass (2018)
  SI R36A Fall in Green, Who Is Afraid/She Floats (2018)
  SI R37A Mark Sheeky, Masculinity Two (2018)
  SI R38A Fall in Green, Time Falling (2018)
  AL R39A Mark Sheeky, Tree Of Keys (2019)
  AL R39B Mark Sheeky, Tree Of Keys (2021)
  GC R40A Flatspace IIk Music Pack 1 (2019)
  GC R41A Flatspace IIk Music Pack 2 (2019)
  GC R42A Flatspace IIk Music Pack 3 (2020)
* AL R43A Mark Sheeky, Music Of Poetic Objects (2019)
  AL R44A Marius Fate, The Modern Game (2019) [BOOK]
  AL R44B Marius Fate, The Modern Game (2022) [BOOK]
  SI R45A Marius Fate, Masculinity Two (2019)
  SI R45B Marius Fate, Masculinity Two (2022)
  GC R46A Future Snooker (2019)
  GC R47A Future Pool (2019)
  AL R48A Mark Sheeky, Burn Of God (2020)
* AL R48B Mark Sheeky, Burn Of God (2022)
* AL R49A Fall in Green, War Is Over [EP] (2020)
* AL R50A Fall in Green, Apocalypse Of Clowns (2021)
    R51A Unused (formerly Animalia 2020)
    R52A Unused (formerly Synaesthesia 2020)
  AL R53A Mark Sheeky, The Dusty Mirror (2020)
  AL R53B Mark Sheeky, The Dusty Mirror (2025)
  SI R54A Fall in Green, Jabberwocky (2021)
  AL R55A Mark Sheeky, The Myth Of Sisyphus (2021)
    R56A Unused (formerly The Infinite Forest 2021)
    R57A Unused (formerly Synaesthesia 2002)
  AL R58A Mark Sheeky, Nightfood (2021)
  AL R59A Fall in Green, Wonderland (2021)
  AL R60A Mark Sheeky, Secret Electric Sorcery (2022)
* AL R62A Fall in Green, Lou Salome Empathy With Daisies
  AL R63A Mark Sheeky, Heart Of Snow [EP] (2022)
  AL R64A Mark Sheeky, Remembrance Service (2022)
  AL R65A Mark Sheeky, The Golden Age (2023)
  GC R66A Flatspace IIk Golden Age Music Pack (2023)
* AL R67A Mark Sheeky, We Robot (2023)
  SI R68A Mark Sheeky, AI And Celebrity (2023)
  GC R69A Flatspace IIk We Robot Music Pack (2023)
  BK R70A The Intangible Man & Other Strange Tales (2023)
  AL R71A The Electric Sprout Foundation, Snow Business (2023)
  SI R73A Mark Sheeky, Cycles III: Perpetual Change (2024)
  AL R74A Mark Sheeky, A Drive Through The Town (2024)
  SI R75A Cat Covid! (2024)
  SI R76A Excessive Consumption has Laxative Effects (2024)
  AL R77A John Lindley & Friends, Crossfire (2024) [MASTERING]
  GC R78A Flatspace IIk Music Pack 4 (2024)
* AL R79A Fall in Green, Letters From A Square Spoon (2025)
  SI R80A Fear Of The Thing Itself (2025)