Illustrations

Completed the illustrations for Deb's new book today. A few works needed reworking a little, and two redrawing. They vary in size and style, from small objects which can be used several times, to full-page drawings. There are about 20 of the latter, there are a lot here.

The lower one is a complex portrait of Sartre and (and somewhat unflattering fragment of) Simone, with bees and honey too...

At the end, the very last act, I managed to spill my entire new and full bottle of Quink ink! These are flat heavy bottles, I still don't know how I did it, but I was at least lucky to have no drawings nearby. This was a blow though. The paper and the ink bought for this project nearly come to £40. I've ordered new ink, a different make this time, to see if it will be better than Quink.

The afternoon was spent scanning, preparing and cataloguing the work. I began at 1pm and it took until 5pm to complete this, almost as long as all of the drawing itself (and I numbered and documented them yesterday). The scans need storing twice, once in normal neutral format, and once cropped, sized and balanced for inclusion in the book. I also need to resize and convert everything for my website, but that can be for a future day.

A final act of the day was to install and test MuseScore4, which it probably better than version 3. There is very little difference, and 4 is certainly worse for a non-widescreen monitor, but it's generally good practice to use the latest version of any software.

Monthly backups tomorrow. I feel tired and need a new project to attack.

Go Sprout Illustrations

A slower day yesterday. I researched art postage costs (nearly £700 to post a crated painting to the USA), attended to finances and practiced piano for 30 short minutes (and researched and mentally practiced sight reading for longer); plus preparations for the illustrations for Deb's new book, including (at last) a comprehensive comparison of the different scanner settings.

Today I charged into those illustrations, and have completed 28 ink drawings, plus 5 or 6 failed attempts that were discarded as I went. Some are better than others, as ever, and I always try to have a mix of styles, scales, subjects. The work of cataloguing and scanning them will take at least a day, maybe longer as there are so many. I'll do that tomorrow, before Deb sees them, as it will save time to do so. All were drawn, as ever, with a Leonardt Hiro No. 41 nib and Quink Ink. I used an SY-85 brush at times for bigger areas of black. I bought this very SY-85 from Alexander Paper Supplies many year ago (well over a decade) only because it had the same name as my Yamaha synthesizer(!) but it's been a brilliant brush, and still as good now as when new. I've bought lots of other sizes of SY-85 since.

Also yesterday and today, launches of two Steam products; a new Sound Pack for SFXEngine, and a new Expansion Pack for Radioactive.

Book Cover, Card, Beethoven's 1st

I slept badly with worries about geopolitics and my sore mouth, which erupted with a (sadly common) huge blood-blister last evening. In the waking hours, in my dark bed I mentally practised some of the rhythms in the piano score. The triplets were interesting: X-X-xxx in a measure. There is a slight 'panic' to them, as though they are catching up. Chained together, that beat makes a 4-in-a-row and I suddenly thought that Beethoven's 5th Symphony was inspired not by four normal beats, but a triplet exactly like this; 4 beats played as 1-gap-3 because it has an unusual urgency like the churn of a bicycle pedal.

The day started with work on the cover for Deb's next book. First, I checked the sizes and standards. The drawings for her last book, Tolstoy, were scanned with a near-white background, rather than grey, so I tested the scanner with various colour settings and worked out the correct ones, making a note. The grey looked better. I still have all of those drawings so could re-scan them, but the old scans are the ones in the book (all drawings are on white for the books so none of this matters regarding the final results).

Anyway, I created a generic template for this and future covers, then took some source photographs in the garden. A first draft of the cover was complete by lunch. I watched the end of The Card, old old film starring Alex Guinness. It's set in The Potteries but everyone had Yorkshire or upper class English accents. I can't recall a Birmingham accent in any old film, and Stoke accents are almost completely absent in culture.

Then, time for drawings, but I realised that I had no white card myself. I messaged Deb and we went to Alexander's to get some, myself wearing a mask in the car with window-open, as I'm still at the tail-end of my cold. Card purchased, we took a short walk in the park, then I returned home.

I calculated the correct sizes, and noted the card sales etc. By this time, it was too late to start drawing.

I practised playing the first 13 bars of Concerto #1, playing it about 40 times. I can now play it at nearly full speed, though rarely perfectly, full of haphazard mistakes, and no expression, a mere clatter. The expressiveness is the last step, possible only when the basics of note and timing and technique are perfected. These 13 bars are wonderful practice. They have everything; a nice mix of left and right hand, some different dynamics, a grace note, some staccato and some legato, triplets and a fast scale. I love it for the technical aspect.

The next bars, for a page or two, are fast arpeggios, difficult for me at my level, but it will be fun to try one day. Tomorrow I'll attack those illustrations.

Prometheus v3.56, First Piano Plays

A slow day of tiredness, perhaps due to my cold, perhaps a necessary time to recharge after several busy days. I updated Prometheus a little, to v3.56. The few changes included adding a feature to automatically extend the maximum song size if loading a song that needed more room; and I switched off error messages during batch conversion.

Then, a first walk outside in a few days, to meet Deborah in the park. It was nice to see the sun after what seems like an endless winter, but nicer to see my beloved.

When I got back I painstakingly slowly played the first 13 piano bars of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. This is my first ever play of Beethoven's actual sheet music. If something like this can be played slowly but correctly, then it's a simply matter of doing it again and again to play it quickly and correctly. The process took about 3 hours and I can still barely do it. I will keep practising, just these 13 bars, for fun, and to learn.

These bars are not that complex. If it were my own music, I could do it in a blink, but it is more complex than mine. I can match it, I can see what he's doing with every note, and why. Until this year I've never thought about composing like that before. This is what all of this scoring, and this sheet music, has given me. Matching it and playing live - that would be a challenge. Oh for the time, the money, the incentive to compose such a thing.

Then I updated all of the Prometheus sequences which used the Bounce Arpeggiator, 23 or so. Perhaps tomorrow I can work on something new. My throat and chest still feel rather raw and tickly, and I feel a tad tired; that's the extent of this annoying cold.

Prometheus Effect Upgrades

A feverish night, but my cold appear to be relatively mild. I'm sore inside and a little itchy rather than congested.

I decided to do some long-planned upgrades to the Prometheus effects. There are three old effects which date back to the earliest versions of the program: Basic Distortion, Maximized Clip, and Reflective Clip. Each is very simple. Basic Distortion boosts then clips the signal, Maximized Clip simply clips at a certain threshold then increases the volume to maximum, and Reflective Clip 'folds' the wave above a threshold, then 'maximizes' the result.

I've long thought that it would be better to merge all three effects into one, so I did this today. The result is faster and more elegant than before (well, it's not faster code than, say, Basic Distortion, but certainly faster than two effects in a row). I've added a few more features too. The sound can be boosted by an exponent, which has the effect of 'bending' it towards the top; a sine wave would become gradually more and more square here. This is most useful on simple waves like that. I've also added a general post-effect Amplitude parameter, as the pure clip of the Basic Distortion, by far the most used effect, is naturally quieter than it can be. I merged some of the code from the Maximizer, and allowed everything to be turned up or down at the end without affecting the distortion.

I also added a new 12-part Arpeggiator, which can now perform scales (yay!), replacing the 6-part first version, and upgraded the High Pass Filter with it's new Q.

The hard and crucial part is updating the many hundred extant sequences (about 500) that use one of these effects. This process can be automated, so I've done that too, thus saving lots of plugins AND adding more functionality. There is a 'Bounce Arpeggiator' which goes up and down. The new 12-part Arpeggiator could replace that too but I'd have to edit each sequence by hand.

Now it's late and I'm weary. My insides are still sore. I hope I can conquer this virus soon.

Scores Updated

The mammoth job of updating all of the published music scores is complete. Some took a lot longer than others. There are still a few inconsistencies. For example, I decided to name 'Saw Synthesizer' instruments 'Synth Saw', with 'Saw.' as the short name, but the short name is sometimes 'Ssw.'. Before now, there was little consistency, such that you'd really need to know the music to know what timbre to pick. The new versions are better in that way any many more.

After all of the changes, and new text descriptions formatted in HTML for itch pages, and new 'screenshots'; there was still a lot of admin to do. I had to ensure that all versions were the same, both filed with the album and in the master score archive. I have an xcopy command which runs via a spreadsheet which will auto-update the albums from that archive, but in this case I've been working on the album copies, because I list them album by album, not all in one lump. Well, all I can say is that it was a lot of work.

In most cases, prior to this update, not a single person downloaded any of the scores. I've made these $10 now. Perhaps if someone wanted a copy, they may pay $10, and it's certainly a little sum if an ensemble ever wanted to perform any, which I'm sure will happen one day, though perhaps in centuries, perhaps beyond my life and the life of itch.io. Well, either way, these are too important, and too much work, to be free.

I've now scored 21 of the 40 albums. I hope to write more new music though, scoring at least one old album for each new one, so it's perhaps not halfway yet.

My throat has been very sore all day, and now, as evening hits, it is less-so but I'm starting to feel weary and feverish; but this virus seems to be very mild. The worst aspect is that it stops me from seeing dear Deborah.

Score Refreshments, and a Cold

Exhausted last night. I felt so sleepy at 10pm that I had to aim for bed, then collapsed and slept solidly for 9 hours. I woke and charged into updating all of the music scores I've published online so far. Most of the time, a new change or standard evolves as I discover different issues or problems. For example, a 'Piano Version' of a song has a lead vocal or lead melody plus a one, or usually two, staves for an extra piano to accompany it; but a 'Piano Melody' has the lead music played by the piano. Many different standards and guidelines evolve for properly presenting scores.

The new changes to instrument order, and more knowledge about the division of instruments has led to a big upgrade in these standards, and I'm at about 50% of the way though my multi-year plan of scoring all of my published (ie. recorded and released) music, so it seems like a good time to go back and update every score so far (nearly all 420 of them) with the latest standards. The oldest ones will need the most work.

Today I've charged into the existing albums on itch and made changes as I went. Scores will now include screenshots, and a list of the instruments that each score is for; so the admin burden of listing them (and updating them) has increased. It will increase again if and when I publish them in print, but I must remind myself that I must focus on making new music as much as updating my back catalogue.

It was early, before noon, that I noticed a raw soreness in the back of my nose, which crept into my throat. I'm certainly coming down with a cold. I think I picked it up on Wednesday.

It shouldn't affect my scoring work, except to add a romanticism to it, evoking Beethoven in his days of illness.

Good Vibrations and Scoring

A full day yesterday. We set off early for the fortnightly Good Vibrations event in Congleton Library. I brought my little theremin, which though not very musical (it has a small range and is never in tune) was a real showstopper in terms of attracting attention and awe. It was a lovely day, as ever, there.

Later in the day I worked on standardising my new scores. The Love Symphony, being my most symphonic of scores pushed me with a few more lessons in the art and craft of scoring, and many of these need applying to older scores. I learn something new when scoring each album. Recent lessons include the divisions of instruments, pitch ranges (rules like basses having C3 as middle C; this is C4 on a piano and most other instruments), and the strict instrument order.

The latter is something I've neglected. Now, when I sequence, I put basses at the bottom, leads at the top, and generally ordering high to low, with drums at the bottom. This order is a consequence of my scoring over the past few years. Older sequences have parts all over the place, generally the more interesting or busy parts near the top. Printed music scores have a strict order to the instruments, with woodwinds at the top and strings at the bottom (for example), and high to low in each group. I've put a 'lead' (normally the vocal) at the very top for songs. Vocals are (in orchestral scores) below percussion instruments and the piano, but most pop songs, many of which are vocal and piano, or vocal and guitar, need to highlight the vocals.

These standardisations are things that have changed and grown over the years I've been scoring my work. I will also need to distinguish between a plucked and bowed bass. Most bass instruments are plucked, even synth basses emphasise the attack, but some, like the bass in 'The Cabinet Of Dr Eckelmann', and 'Challenger', are constant, drone-type, basses. My scores typically say 'Bass' and leave it at that.

All of this will take a lot of work; updating each old score. I've no doubt that, when I complete all of the albums, I'll need to update everything again too. The task seems Sisyphean.

I've spent today applying these rules to The Love Symphony, The Dusty Mirror, and the new Square Spoon scores. For the first time, these will be on sale rather than free, so I also need to provide some images of what people actually get, and detail the instruments and each document. I have 20 albums of scores now. Updating these will be a lot of work, even for relatively small changes. Each album may take an hour, but 20 hours is half a working week. This is an expected part of the long term job of publishing things as best I can, for no money, but because I think it's artistically important and artistically useful to do so.

I also need to start work on Deb's new book illustrations.

Scores Complete

A full day out yesterday, and today completed The Love Symphony scores. Tomorrow, Deb and I will go to Congleton Library's 'Good Vibrations' session. I'm considering taking a guitar rather than keyboard, for reasons of practice.

There Is No Love Score

More long, long tedious work on the scores today. In the afternoon, after completing the last 'Encounter With the Believers', 'Stroking The Harp' and the Awakening Sonata, I thought I'd completed all 9 tracks in draft, but realised that the first one, 'There Is No Love...', was a first, unused version. I wrote that piece first, but later made a second edit and dramatically changed the structure, and ultimately used that version. If only I'd checked that first!

All of this music is difficult and complex to score. It feels like a student exercise and I feel a little overwhelmed with it, spotting errors and things to fix - this is good, it shows progress, but it does mean that things are taking far longer than I'd hoped. Still, my only major task for the month is this, as planned. The program changes to Prometheus are brilliant.

Mr Tarplee commented that I could perhaps use AI for these. It would be a long time before AI was sophisticated enough to do this. Take the arpeggios for example. These are best played as a root note on a synthesiser with the arpeggio programmed. No way would an AI think of that, it would perhaps score each note, but in this case that's not as useful. For this reason, my main score to 'Loneliness And Divine Love' has just the root note, and a separate score with the arpeggios to program. I have, however, also made a full score with each note.

I hope I don't waste too much time on this, but for me it is partly a matter of growth into a new skill too. One day, these scores might be all that remains of the music. On that day, this work becomes priceless.

Valentines and Arpeggio Scoring

A very busy Valentines Day yesterday, starting with a trip to Wrexham to collect my painting from Ty Pawb, plus a walk around the town. It's a larger than Crewe, though about as desolate; somewhat similar in many ways. The Primark shop was the most deserted of any I've been in, a nice thing for a shopper. The mass and tangle of the Chester store is an unpleasant contrast.

After that, a brief attempt at scoring 'Loneliness And Divine Love'. It has many automatic arpeggios which are a pain to transcribe. The simple arpeggio in 'The Dream' was bad enough. The primary saw-wave lead, audible from the start, has two arpeggios: 0-3-7, and 0-12-0-7 and half that speed. So I calculated the note offsets:

So, it's a sequence of 24 notes. The root note changes per chord, so calculating the actual note from a certian root would be nightmarish and tedious. This shows the power of electronic composition to some extent. Nobody (Schoenberg?) would score this complex sequence of semitone offsets, yet it's simple in its core. Complex though this is, it is simpler than the sequence for the bass, which also shifts in timing. It is 0-0-12 in semitone pattern (3/4) but the timing shifts between half-beats and whole beats every two beats. When running it does strange things that I can't exactly score, perhaps due to electronic nuance and the way the timing is calculated. I'll try.

All of this is near impossible to manually score note-by-note, so I started to program a feature into Prometheus which would generate the correct note from a sequence of arpeggio offsets. So, I can feed it 0-3-7 plus a timing of half-a-beat, and it would run through a track, and finding a C would generate C-E-G-C-E-G and so on, until it hits the next note. This works, and will allow me to transcribe these complex arpeggios. I've no idea how anyone else does this, or if anyone else does this. I'm doing it because nobody else does, or can.

I started programming yesterday, but had to dash out to the launch of the Crewe Art Trail, a town event for the next few months of which my mural is a part. It was at the new Crewe Create Hub, and was a nice social event, although we couldn't stay for more than 45 minutes or so.

Then, a nice meal and evening with Deb, and completion of the programming today. I can choose to cycle the arpeggio sequence (note and timing) or choose either at random, so this can be used for interesting and unexpected types of music generation.

Now to score that most difficult of tunes.

The Love Symphony Score Day 2

An unusually lovely sleep. I dreamt of writing a book about sleep, and composed several chapters, only to annoyingly wake up and realised I'd merely dreamt it! One of the chapters was a rhyme about counting sheep. I must write this book!

Today has been a long and hard, but satisfying, day scoring The Love Symphony music. I've now completed four tracks in draft: 'There Is No Love', 'Sunset', 'The Dream', and the last, 'The Eventual Attainment Of Love'. There's a lot to do, and sometimes compromise. There are always parts that can't be scored, or are complex to score.

Most of today was spent working on 'The Dream'. One part is an arpeggio melody with a tinkly timbre. This plays notes at fixed semitone intervals: 0, 0, 7, 0, -12, 12, 7, -12, 0, 12, -5, 0; always in cycle, changing once per 500ms irrespective of the song tempo, but the root note (and reset to the timing) changes regularly. Rather than scoring that, I've scored a simpler arpeggio in glockenspiel of 0, 0, 7 ,0. For timbre, I'm unsure if this compromise is necessary or a good idea, but it does sound closer to the original - my question: should I be matching that, or writing something new and ideal for this new format? I'll make note about the 'actual' recorded notes. There is also a mock-choral part, synthesized 'Aah' choirs. I've notated the notes of these 3 and 4-note chords painstakingly, listing this as a synth part. Again, these are not exactly necessary for playing the well orchestrally; it sounds fine without them. Should I be making something to play, or as an exact record of what the recording's notes are? I'm trying to do both, placing notes in different instruments if needed, so that they are there in some form.

The day started by finishing the last track 'The Eventual Attainment Of Love'. A synth part which plays 7ths (ahem, 5ths that is, to you proper musicians) was redirected into horns (low note) and strings (upper note). The cello had little to do and I felt sorry for it, so I made much of the main melody alternate between cello and viola; the pair pass the music back and forth throughout the tune, a melodic friendship which was a joy to put together. This is beyond what's in the recording, but matches its spirit. Is that my ideal?

The next track is the 'sonata'; though technically it's more like a concerto for piano and harp. This too is a complex piece. Every one takes hours and hours, though joyful ones. I'm reminded why I've decided to notate my albums over the next decade. I could easily take a full-time year to notate them all; if I did nothing else.

Love Symphony Scoring

Charged into scoring The Love Symphony today. It's a tedious and time consuming process, but absorbing. The fact it's evenly sequenced in Prometheus means I can export a MIDI file and work from that. The first and last tracks are the largest; around 10 minutes each, and big enough for full orchestra.

My 'strings' sounds range from low to high, so I must split them between instruments to fit. For 'There Is No Love, and the More I Search the Less I Find' this means 3 violin parts, 1 viola, 1 violoncello, and a bass. The 'brass' is split between a horn and trumpet, which is close though not quite ideal. The brass in the recording is a little like a mix of the two, it's more horn, not so squeaky as a trumpet, but the pitch is rather high. The high notes for the horn and for the flute are right at the limit.

But it fits, it works, it sounds good in preview. I'm scoring with sadness that this is unlikely to ever be performed, and even less so in my lifetime, but a first step is to do this. As with everything I score, it's given me a new appreciation of the music. The end track 'The Eventual Attainment of Love' is much more efficient in composition, so compact by comparison, and loaded with joy. I remember it flying from my virtual pen, writing it's big, chunky sections in no time at all.

Argus v1.52, 20x20, New Paths

Today, updated Argus to v1.52, adding some simple logic to resize the screen with a dynamic quantity of tracks, and markers for sections.

Then entered the 20x20 exhibition at Castle Park Arts Centre. I wanted to take part, so looked for surfaces and registered. When registering I found that I had to enter the titles of the works, so used 'Wikiquote' and the Random feature to find 4 random titles: 'The Magic Of Drama', 'So Many Profound Ways', 'Repercussions Of The Decline', and 'The Days Of Kronos'. This was useful and unexpected. After that, I toned and cut a 40x50cm canvas into four 20x20cm squares, ready for painting. I felt like painting there and then, but was was too dark and too late to start.

I completed the writing about black holes, and considered future goals. I've completed about half of my 2025 goals already. I need more ambition. One key element in art is the love of it. If I create an artwork that gives me comfort and relief from the troubling world; it will do the same for the viewer. Similarly with joy, wonder, or any other feeling; so what we do in life must be done with joy. For me, my joy often follows my actions, I don't follow it; I'm a master of becoming enthusiastic, and I can find anything and everything interesting.

Passion must be stoked to grow.

A Shell Universe: Black Holes And The Big Bang

I had an insight about the universe and its expansion, even an idea about its origins, what happened before the Big Bang.

Black Holes

This stemmed from my belief, stated here before, that black holes are not what is normally considered to be a black hole. That is, not a dense core of mass, like a heavy planet or star, so dense that light cannot escape it’s gravity. My problem with this idea is that if light cannot escape, then nothing can, and if nothing can escape then nothing can fall in either, as that would create a one-way sink; a pit of permanent removal from the universe.

I also don’t accept that a gravitational singularity, or any infinity or point of infinity can exist in the universe; for if one infinite thing should exist, infinity would take hold and everything would become infinite; time space, light, energy, to the extent that nothing could exist except infinity. Atoms via quantum mechanics avoid this very problem elegantly by flickering between existence and non-existence at the correct rate. Any expectation of actual infinity is a flaw in any theory which should predict it, eg. General Relativity.

Stephen Hawking predicted a solution to my black hole anxieties here, at least, where Hawking Radiation emits from the black hole. We will set this aside for now.

For me, if space beyond the event horizon is not accessible, then it does not exist, it is simply a convex boundary to our space. Upon formation, all of the mass of a black hole is pushed outwards to just beyond its event horizon, and it remains there like a shell. The centre of gravity would remain central. From the perspective of this shell, it is a point that happens to be quite large; it has nothing ‘behind it’. The hole of the black hole is literally nothing, and an object falling towards it would be absorbed, crushed, deflected into the shell and never further.

I thought about the growth and shrinkage of this shell. I wondered how this might relate to the universe itself. What if the universe itself was a shell like this, expanding from a collapsed black hole?

Another dimension would be required, the universe would be shell shaped, objects on the surface of a sphere. Objects would move apart as the sphere expanded. One difference between this model and the conventional view is that looking far enough away, we would see our backs, akin to travelling around the surface of the Earth.

The relation of this to the origin of the Big Bang is that a collapsing black hole as big as the entire universe may cause this expansion. Being a collapsed real object, a former universe, perhaps in the style Roger Penrose conceived, would have pseudo-random elements, not be perfectly symmetrical. Different forces would be at play at different sizes, as they are for the boiling matter of stellar objects.

In terms of expansion, objects would move apart at the same relative rates, that is, if the universe doubled in expansion by either method, objects would be twice as far apart. What differences might we detect in a shell-universe?

First, the ultimate origin of the expansion force, and the force of gravitational attraction which applies to the whole universe to counteract the expansion would have a different origin, not in the universe itself but at the heart of the ‘null sphere’. This would mean that distant parts of the universe would be able to communicate gravitationally faster than they would normally appear to be able to, across the sphere rather than only around the sphere’s circumference. Thus the speed of light may appear to be faster; specifically and at most the difference between the diameter and half a circumference, that is pi/2-1, or 57.0796% faster, at most 470,912,891 m/s.

Second, there may be a thickness to the shell-universe. It can’t be infinitely thin, there can be no-more zero than infinity. It may be as thin as thin can be, the thickness of a Planck-length, or it may be thicker, cosmological. If thick, then how may this manifest itself? Some parts of the universe would appear to be expanding faster than others because the ‘outer’ objects would expand faster than the ‘inner’ ones. The speed differences can be predicted based on the ‘thickness’ of this shell. The objects on the outer edge would be moving faster than those on the inner, so the thickness would increase over time; this would be necessary because there would be more surface area on the outer edge to make up. We would see objects in one plane (sideways, along the circumference) distorted compared to looking at the slightly older objects in the lower, smaller edge.

Music Pack Filing, Curtain Cutting

When it comes to any form of success, no amount of brilliance can offset the downsides of social isolation, just as no amount of idiocy or incompetence can harm the popular.

A steady day of work. Before 12:30 I completed the Flatspace Music Pack, set up the store, compiled the tracks and tested them in game, uploaded the artwork and descriptions. After that, I cut the velvet cloth for the keyboard stand drape. It is, I predict, 50mm or so too long because I forgot to account for the gap between the keyboard stand's top and the location of the curtain rod. My mother is adamant that there's no need to re-cut, though it's not difficult. I'm resigned to fate regarding correcting it. My life experience is having no control over anything. Perhaps this is why fate and determinism is my obsession.

The curtain might never be used anyway, and is only a small part of our performances which number one or two per year, usually unpaid and to minuscule audiences; brilliant though we think our performances are. Who would be there to comment on the beauty and perfection of the violet velvet curtain? We must try our best, stoic and careful, each a tiny bit better than before. What more can we do but our best?

A life of performing is hardly satisfying; a life gone in the poof that is human memory. Even so few as one per month would soon drive me mad. Some aritsts like the applause of an audience of strangers but it means nothing to me at all, my only goal is self-improvement.

The day has flown, and on the 10th I've nearly completed all of my monthly goals. I must manifest new ones. Every day my feelings weep and I battle to soothe and reassure them. Making any sort of progress as a human is about the conquest of feelings. We are social in ourselves because we are a collective of cells. When we are alone, we are not alone.

Grosvenor Opening, Keyboard Drapery

A trip to Chester yesterday for the launch event for the 15th Grosvenor Open. The exhibition is unusually starting in February, it was historically April or May. It was different from former Grosvenor Opens in many ways, still reeling from the departure of dear Peter Boughton; the exhibition was his child. It was the first in four years. The artists were crowded like cattle into the Roman Gallery, where the self-gratifying speeches by the council (these sort of speeches are always about politicians patting themselves on the back, if they actually cared about art, perhaps they could increase the prize from £1,000 to £10,000 or £100,000, or perhaps show some art that might disturb the status-quo; of course no government of our times would do either). The awards were read out like the minutes to a meeting with no handing out awards or glimpses of winners, no applause or speeches; and all in the cramped and cold gallery, where the artists in their winter coats huddled.

The exhibition was an usual mix of good and bad. About 25% of the 425(?) submitted works were hung. The walls were painted in midnight blue, not as good as the crimson or green of a traditional art museum. The space felt cramped, but the hanging and catalogue design good . I wore my white 'Arazmax Kane' wig for the day.

We spoke to no-one. I recognised a few names but saw no friends. Prices were unchanged since pre-Covid; which for me shows a lack of touch with the contemporary art world.

I ate on the way home. For me, a highlight of the day was popping in to Abakhan and buying some lovely violet velvet to drape over the keyboard stand for Fall in Green performances. I wanted to make a fixing that I could put over the stand ends that would hold the curtain on a rail; thus allowing me to change the curtain. I also wanted the hole placement to be changeable so that I could make or fit different ones for different stands, because each stand is a different size.

I have three X-Frame keyboard stands: A light Duronic, a heavy Adam Hall stand, and a heavy Rock-Jam stand. The latter two are similar in spec and design, although the Adam Hall allows a top tier. All have similar settings and angles, but not exactly the same. Each has a different diameter of tubing. So, my first job was to measure each one in my normal 'sitting' and 'standing' configurations, and work out the spacing of the corners, and height for the drapery. I did this first.

Then a simple design; a board with holes. I also needed a curtan rod (I had a spare 10mm metal tube), and to make little holders for the rod. I made the latter by drilling into a wooden cube and sawing the hole half way, to make two semi-circular recesses.

Here's the board so far:

I'll need to paint it black, then cut the material for the curtain. My mother has volunteered to sew it, how nice.

Radioactive Release, Tunnicliffe Tune, Music Pack 4 and Superhighway

A day of running in a year of running. Running is my normal speed. Charging ahead. I must remember that what is new is the most important thing.

The day started with a check on Radioactive. The new DLC store was activated, but the servers seemed very slow when I considered activating the main game. I tested the game briefly in Steam, and thought of a small improvement to make. I thought, perhaps, I should slow down the 'victory' screen, as it tends to shoot by, when this is very important. It would probably be a good idea to show results, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, as this sort of thing adds a lot when playing with many players.

I found a small bug, that the USA and Soviet Union messages were swapped around for the victory message, so I fixed that. The Steam servers remained too slow for me to test the game, so I put everything on hold. I then made some changed to Prometheus, refining the look of the new Events List. This has been neatened, with a new colour to highlight notes, making them easier to read at a glance. Here's a screenshot of the v3.53, and the new, neater, event list:

Then, more work on the 'Tunnicliffe' tune, adding some synth instruments, and testing the timing for the vocals. I think it will work. Then I went out, desperately trying to get warm, and to buy food for tomorrow.

Upon return, I worked on the future Flatspace Music Pack 4. I decided to look at some of the old Noise Station sequences, and found a few from my second album, The Incredible Journey; as yet unreleased digitally, though REV Records had a hand-made CD or two back in the early 2000s. I loaded a tune called 'Superhighway', and adjusted the mix. For the first time, I found the lack of compressors to be a problem, so I found myself adding distortion to compensate, and making other balancing changes. Overall, the result is much better than the original. It's amazing how different Noise Station and Prometheus sound, even though the DSP code is very similar. Noise Station sounds more tinny and somehow 'zingy'. It sounds unique. I'll add the the full track to the music pack.

Many of The Incredible Journey tracks have seeped out over the years anyway, 'Downloading' (orignally known as 'Mariner') was used on the Flatspace II Soundtrack, as was 'Catacombs'. 'Challenger' was re-recorded and became part of The End And The Beginning, and 'Autumn' was used on The Twelve Seasons. I think 'Circle' may have been used somewhere too.

I also re-worked and extended a tune called 'Snake Club', made for Hayden's game I think, because that was the name of it.

In the evening, more testing and changes to Radioactive. The new version is now live.

World Disgruntlement, Eye To Hand, Prometheus v3.53

The world is in a strange situation where every country in the world is having the same sort of problems, and despite the many different types of government, the people are blaming their government. Of course, the problems are not the governments fault. Things in the 20th century were anachronistically easy for the common man, due to the efficient exploitation of natural resources. This has now proven unsustainable, so things will become tougher than a few generations have experiences, combined with problematical climate change as a result of the exploitation of natural resources. The ultimate reason for a disgruntled world is a global ignorance about the world and the way government works.

A slow day here. I started work on recording the 'Tunnicliffe' tune, 'From Eye To Hand To Paper'. I recorded the tune with a nice electric piano (the live version was used a flute sound, I wasn't sure which was best; the original concept was electric piano). I recorded separately some backing strings, hoping to fix the timing to match. This was a forlorn hope.

I made some changes to Prometheus. First, a switch to view Note/Tone events only in the Event List. This is because MIDI tracks can be full of Kill and Set Parameter events, which makes it hard to see a melody. This was a big and complex change, and probably not that useful. After making it, I didn't use the feature. I also added a much better one, where Sections are shown on the main time slider:

This is something I could add to Argus too. Sections are zones like 'Verse' 'Chorus' etc. or whatever; places in a song you can define to help with navigation.

I decided to sample the strings and sequence them note by note to the MIDI piano. As of 20:00, these two layers are mostly finished. I use very few music tracks compared to most recording artists, it seems.

Radioactive v116

A full day of Radioactive updates and testing. The morning involved testing and small changes, particularly to the demo. The afternoon was about creating the artwork, setting up the store, more testing of the final configurations. Most of the artwork for the game consists of a simple dark background, with white text. This simple look is the second incarnation of artwork for the game.

For the second pack, I used 'Commodore 64 themed' colours, and pixelated artwork.

The game is now as good as it's ever been. I listed many possible ways to improve the game; changing menus, adding more units, but none would decisively improve it. It's important not to add so many new things that it becomes over-complicated without being better. Ideally complexity wouldn't be apparent, extras should feel natural.

I could, for example, add 3D deforming territory, or units that move. This wouldn't be at all 'realistic' for the scenario, as we're playing on a global scale. It may look interesting, but in gameplay terms we wouldn't want units to cluster into craters, or have land units pushed into the sea or vice versa. Units that move wouldn't really improve the game technically but would make it more complicated to play.

One option which may improve the game mechanics is the ability to place units, adding to the strategy. The downside to this is the time this would take. The game, even now, seems to take a long time to set up, and each unit appears in under one second... it would be hugely slow to wait for other players to place their pieces. It may help with fairness, removing a random element in the gameplay, as the placement of the units can affect the game. I thought of an inversion system, where two games are played, with a second game mirroring the first, for fairness. The aiming system may allow players to learn angles and ranges from the first game. Again, more complexity but not certainly a better game.

Perhaps all good games have an element of chance. Even games of pure chance (like Snakes and Ladders) can be fun. The key thing is that it's fair to all players equally, and that is the case here.

Radioactive Work

A good and productive day despite an uncomfortable night. I've completed my proposed upgrades to Radioactive, with many small changes. The menu now includes '<' and '>' arrows where options can be cycled, for example. Most interestingly I've created 6 new levels and 6 new colour schemes "1970S PLOTTER", "GREENSCREEN", and "AMBER" for the 1970s themed set, and "COMMODORE 64", "DRAGON 32", and "BBC MICRO" for the 1980s themed set.

The new maps are interesting in that most are based on real locations, something that was more difficult when I first made the game. Here's the EUROZONE level in the DRAGON 32 colours:

The 'actual' DRAGON 32 used stark, fully saturated colours, but I remember them being more subtle. Of course, these computers were all displayed on home televisions, with manual colour and brightness controls (in my case, black and white for years), so the actual results could vary per household. I've taken liberties with the accuracy of this setting, and with that of the BBC Micro. The real Dragon had 8 colours, but could only use 4 at a time (green, red, yellow, blue was the most common option). I've included some of the orange and magenta hues. Similarly with the BBC. The BBC Micro, Dragon, and ZX Spectrum all used somewhat boring, and very stark fully-saturated hues (pure red, pure green, pure cyan etc.), so that they all looked the same. The Vic-20 and Commodore 64 were different. They had advanced palettes that spanned a range of tones and hues, so with a similarly limited palette could render much higher quality graphics.

Here's an image of the GREENSCREEN colours, with the "HOT FALKLANDS" map:

Even without these new maps, the program itself has a few important and useful changes (like Steam Achievement and Cloud support). I'll keep testing tomorrow and will start work on the DLC store etc. The two items of DLC will be low-cost enhancements, probably $3.99.

Fall in Green Performance, and Radioactive Updates

A good performance yesterday at Christ Church. Everyone present said the word 'cold' at least once, and cold it was. I was shivering as I played. There was a small crowd, perhaps 30 or 40, and almost everyone there had never seen us or knew what to expect, which is a good thing, and I think we went down well. It was a small show, 15 or 20 mins, but still our largest in 2 years.

The subsequent talk by David Tolliday about Charles Tunnicliffe was very engaging, largely due to his enthusiasm for the subject, and enthusiasm generally. He is an excellent presenter.

We were glad to be home though, the cold was too much to bear after a few hours. I've developed a few ways we could do better, in terms of presentation, next time. Oh for the funds to do so.

I've felt somewhat despondent today. I started my repotting my fern, Ferny, but he appears to be dying, a few fragments of dry leaves. The one fresh spur is now broken by my carelessness or panic. I can but wait and hope. The time of 'fungus gnats' is over, but perhaps they were already a sign of doom.

Society6 has cancelled my account and closed it. I had, at one point, my entire digital oeuvre for sale either there or on RedBubble. RedBubble deleted my account for being 'low quality AI-generated artwork'(!) in around 2022, despite the fact that I 'hand created' those images in 2002. Too far ahead for the times, perhaps. Society6 recently reduced the maximum number of images to 10, a pathetic amount. The only hope of selling is really to have lots of designs, all of them, hundreds. I sold one or two a month on RedBubble. Zero on Society6, mainly because the choices were too small, leaving me torn between album covers and digital art, and no room at all for painting. It amused me that, on RedBubble, the simplest designs - plain black and white checks or stripes, were the best sellers, and they were the designs eyed for deletion. Fools. Well, when 10 designs became the limit on S6, it was the death-knell. Where would YouTube be if they only allowed an hour per person due to penny-pinching? Society6 are small thinkers to impose such limits when data is cheap. They are no Alphabet.

I feel that everything is dying. Have I absorbed the spirit of Philip Roth? I must fight back, crawl up though the gravesoil to a dawn sun.

This afternoon I began work on an update to Radioactive. I can't easily switch screen modes 'live' in the program, alas. I had hoped to offer 640x480, and 720p and 1080p, as instant options on the menu. With my new game engine this is easy, but this is a DirectX7-era program, and re-loading everything is a complex task. I wonder if I should set a default resolution which is lower?

I'll make a few changes. First, the separation of user-settable 'Options', and 'Bank' options which are set and saved by the program. This is the way I do things now. I'll also make the 'cheats' Steam Achievements, and prepare for new screen colour options, and possible new maps by way of bonus/enhanced content.

Backups and Updates

Another full day, starting with monthly backups. I also reordered the album images a bit, as many were not in the png format I now use. Then, prepared the listing for the sheet music for Letters From A Square Spoon, and published the sheet music for The Dusty Mirror on my itch channel. I also created the lyric booklet for Spoon.

I also updated my 3D engine code with a size option for objects, as used in Argus. I'd not used size in games before, but it might be useful in future. I've started to put together a new music pack for Flatspace.

Generally most of the day has been spent on admin of existing works. One difference between being young and old is that now I have a (large) back catalogue which needs constant attention. I must remember that the essence of art is to create new things; new. Well, the main music projects of Mirror and Spoon, started late last year, are nearly at an end, so I can start to look to the future.

Again my mind wonders towards games. I need plans for new games, which must be good, but not so expansive that they never get completed; so I must set limits. This month I will, at least, update Argus again with small changes, and Radioactive with small changes and a look to slightly bigger changes later in the year. Everything must be moving forwards, forwards, running, cutting though the vegetation of the future. Onwards to the El Dorado of the future.