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.

Dusty Mirror Sheet Music, Except For The Hatred Analysis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christmas Is To Go Recording

A full day yesterday of recording Christmas Is To Go. When I wrote it, the mood was, in my head, something like Bowie's 'Always Crashing in the Same Car'. In the end it came out quite different.

I've spent quite a lot of time programming yesterday and today as a result of this song. Yesterday because the 90 B.P.M. MIDI import failed; I rounded it down so that an integer value of 666667 divided into 60,000,000 (which is the 'correct' value for 90 beats) rounded to 89. This threw out the timing.

I like the irregular timing of live instrumentation, and I use the piano and the main driver of rhythm and mood for the whole song. Rather than try to fix everything to a regular tempo (no metronomes here!), my tempi are often wildly irregular, and I tie everything to that feeling instead. To do this, I can use the MIDI notes as a guide track, so that the chord changes and time of the notes are not guesswork but exact. In this case, everything was failing, so a little upgrade made the timing round to the nearest beat rather than always down.

I spent today upgrading the EQ tracer. I programmed it a few weeks back, and it makes it easier to monitor the EQ. I had neglected to actually test it, however, and did so today on pure sine-wave 'standard candles'. These tests led to a change of how the relative balance from source to target are calculated.

Both changes are a result of Christmas Is To Go, an innocuous B-Side to a single that I didn't need to make; but this exactly indicates the value of it. These are long term corrections, improvements to my main music tool and way of working. It's been a busy two days working on the song, but worth it for this improvement.

Those benefits aside, it's rather good song in itself. The melody climbs in an odd way, and it's this which appealed to me as I wrote it (in my head the chorus also climbed A to B to C; that may have been just too atonal, but for whatever reason, when I played it, I automatically played the more conventional A-minor, C-Major, E-minor, A-minor).

I played all of the piano in one go, so part of the composition was spontaneous. I've no time to notate it all just yet.

Here, by the way, is the cover to the single:

My idea of using a nose-shaped Christmas tree worked better than expected.

Snow Business Cover Finalised Sky Robes Piano

More album work today. Finalised the cover and have received tracks from almost all of the artists. It's amazing how they vary in style and ways of working. I'm trying to balance the relative volumes to set them all about the same. Most are fine, but one is notably quieter and one notably louder than the others.

I've also recorded the piano parts for Sky Robes of Celeste, at last, after playing it for most of yesterday. I took the keyboard down and set it up on a separate stand, with piano stool, all at the best height. This helped a lot; my previous best takes were played while standing up, but the strain on my left leg was considerable (I need the right for the sustain pedal, so most of my weight while playing is on my left leg). I also listened to a rehearsal from the 2019 premiere of the track, to note the structure and pacing. There was a solo in the mid section so I've added one here too, improvised while recording, no time to compose one.

Overall this, take 12, was ideal; or at least sounds it, I can't really tell until Deb adds her words. 12 short takes yes, but spread over 12 hours or so... this time matters. If I make anything look or sound easy, it isn't. It's hard hard hard. I told myself this as I put back the keyboard and re-plugged everything in after setting everything in a new place just for this recording. There can be no short-cuts.

My custom-made music stand fell off during moving and broke into pieces! So much for Titebond. It seems that the glue barely penetrated the shiny MDF surface. I will screw it this time. When anything has problems, is imperfect, action must be taken to fix it, improve it. Again, no short-cuts.

At 3pm, the final cover was revealed:

The last change of green writing did make a difference. I've also started a design for the cover of the single release of Christmas Smells. I don't have much time for that.

This evening we're off to Macclesfield. October was a very busy month. November will be busy too, hopefully not as busy. I'll (probably) spend about 6 days in Macclesfield this month, mostly sitting in the Macc Art Lounge.

Cycles 2023 Continues

A full day yesterday remastering Cycles. Completed all of Shadows yesterday, a matter of re-recording the piano, changing the reverbs from old to new, and cutting the bass on various parts (particularly the vocals). Everything sounds much better and nicer, clearly better than the old versions. When listening without a side-by-side comparison with older versions, the changes are very slight, to the extent that almost nobody would notice any difference. Musically, these are note-for-note identical (apart from two near-silent off-key piano notes which have been removed). Most of the work on this remaster is/will be the admin, rather than the music work.

Cycles III, however, was my primary motivation for the remaster. It's a nice piano tune I've played live often that was somewhat drowned by orchestration in the original version. Today I've reworked the whole thing with a new piano part, and toned down much of the backing, removing or attenuating many strings to allow the basic melody to rise. Cycles I and VI sound like piano concerto movements, with quite a lot of orchestration, but III had perhaps too much competing with the backing, and that balance is restored in the new version.

The final step is mastering for volume, a secondary objective.

Cycles is one of my few albums on CD. I've sold a few over the years, so the question is what to do with those. The most efficient option is to keep the old artwork, and have new plain CDs made to replace the old ones, as I did with Burn Of God. It will mean that any liner notes regarding dates will be incorrect, but I can add on-disc printing to mark the distinction. A cheaper alternative would be to print none, but then I'd have to destroy the existing CDs, which is silly. I wonder how many I have..?

Tea Sonata, A.I.

Spent all of yesterday working on the 'Tea Sonata'. I rewrote all of the 'first movement' - a rather grandiose title for something so short and so simple, but the new version is much more tuneful and more fun to play. It does, in an odd way, evoke tea, a 19th century browny image seems to appear on the bouncy parts at the start, though it starts a dark like the Moonlight Sonata, then becomes tea-like, then drifty and dreamy. If it has a connection to tea, it is thirst, dreams of a drink, hope, but very much in a distant dream.

The second movement is a furious dash of arpeggios which I can't play and don't know how two; a descent of triplets that then move up one. Of course I can move my whole, hand, but this isn't efficient. Is there a way to slide into the new place? Perhaps not.

I need to do more, more creatively. I spent time yesterday thinking about artificial intelligence. A new A.I. revolution is dawning and this will exacerbate the schism between the 'online world' be that social media, YouTube, steamed music, e-books, and the 'real world'. In short, everything online will be worth less and less; monetarily, artistically, informationally, emotionally; and everything in the real world worth more. Perhaps, after the initial impact (10 to 20 years), the two worlds will integrate more.

Tea Sonata Practice, ArtSwarm, Christ Painting

A slow day, or one that's felt slow, but things were done. I finished a draft of the first movement of the Tea Sonata, a rather silly melody, short, and rather morose and tuneless and not very nice in any way(!) yet it's the first time I've scored something complex, then learned to play that score exactly, so it's primary function is a training exercise. A second movement darts up scales a little, it's more tuneful and much nicer in every way, but perhaps partly because of the contrast between it and the first one. I promoted ArtSwarm Tea a little too, but have had no response. I expect this will be the last ArtSwarm Live event, though I think this before and after each one, only to shrug and arrange another. There are no artists here, no social life, no humans to meet or discuss art or anything else with. This one meeting every two or three months is my only contact with peers or possible peers, and without ArtSwarm there would be even less, though even on ArtSwarm nights I have no time to talk anyway, as I'm busy organising, hosting, arranging. After about 10 of these, I can't afford to keep hiring the hall and staging them. Perhaps its end would be for my best, if not art's.

I've scanned the Love is Dead painting, and worked out some details about the SFXEngine sale. Sue came round for some computer assitance, file sorting, fixing etc. the third person I've helped in this way. I could be a computer consultant of this sort, 'software repair', 'Windows fixer', but I have no marketing abilities. I have many skills, but human contact has always been beyond my abilities, and alas, that is the only skill that matters in this human world. I rate inanimate objects, imaginary friends, and animals and plants above any human friends.

In the evening, some initial working out of an idea for the painting I dreamed of a few nights back, a floating chicken or turkey or man's chest floating in the sky, yet made of white circles, with pierced circles in the sky for invisible 'arms'. In the dream it was called 'The Wounds of Christ' and when I woke I realised that the white circles (one of which appears in Meals of Warm Spring) represent hosts, the Body of Christ.

Most of the tedious day was spent practising this one minute piano tune which sounds slow and simple, like a Satie, yet is amazingly complex and difficult to play; the worst of all worlds! But practice it certainly is.

Tea Sonata, Fireplace

A glimpse of yesterday's tracing.

Spent the morning here on a piece of piano music for ArtSwarm: Tea, a first movement of a 'Tea Sonata' which uses the note BEA, searching for TEA (obviously fruitlessly) then finding G (Tea Bag). All so amusing, but the music is rather morose and strange. Almost all of it was improvised then notated, but there were lots of crucial changes afterwards.

Much of the day also spent renovating and repairing Deb's new fire surround.

Steam Keys, Frames, Piano Lessons End

A day largely of recovery few a few busy days. I started by disabling some game keys for review copies of games where a review did not appear. This is a scourge of Steam. At least 95% of all review requests result in no review. Some simply due to a lack of bothering to play, an understandable lack of time and incentive by journalists, but most key requests are fraudulently obtained with an intent to play for free and/or sell the keys. After a certain time I now disable those, so a lot of today was spent looking for reviews and disabling keys if none are found. I've sent about 500 keys out for my games (Flatspace and Radioactive the majority) and I've noticed only one review of Flatspace, one of Future Snooker, and one of Future Pool by the same writer.

Then, some unpacking and preparation of some new frames for Bickerton paintings, and preparation of the panels. I hope to paint these quickly next month.

Some sad news yesterday in that my piano student Peter has concluded his lessons. I taught what I could. With piano (or any instrument), most students have little incentive to play and will often not practice and only really play and exercise during their lesson. Without a deadline and an incentive, learning falters. I've learned a lot about teaching, and a little about playing the piano too, and each lesson but the first was fully sound recorded, giving some sort of historical record of the time.

I felt inspired though, that it was time I recorded some of my simple piano sonatas, the ones I wrote for the ArtsFest and the special projection event at the Sandbach Red Door Gallery. Perhaps it's time I wrote a piano concerto. But, sigh, I need time, money, peace, security for such things, as with all art. For now, I must paint for the open competitions and exhibitions I intend to enter.

I listened to some of my old music today too and created a first Spotify playlist. How much better the later music is than the earlier, and the 'early' music is only about 6 years old! I can do much better now. Oh to remake and polish some older works, and oh for more time and resources to do so!

Sappho II Underpainting

Spent the morning tediously adding 32 album artwork images to Society6. One plus with Society6 vs. RedBubble (apart from the fast that the latter may delete you without warning or explanation and have no way of contacting them for support or comment, unlike Society6 who are easy to contact and respond promptly) is the wall art made from huge wooden squares which work particularly well with large format square album art.

In the afternoon I started painting the new Sappho painting. It's unusual for me to start painting in an afternoon, but in this case it's much better to split the work between two days rather than rush it in one as before, and better to start with a half day for the sky.

Many aspects of this are already much better, although the placement of the gulls was better in the first I think.

I listened to three Beethoven piano sonatas as I painted, and practised piano a little too, and wrote a little phrase myself. In many of his latter half sonatas, it's clear that he aims to impress in the last movement, and the other movements play on the themes in the last, building towards it, with some probably back and forth during composing. He was a master of structure, form, and variations perhaps because he was (usually) weak on melody. Like adding narrative to a painting, adding a melody may not add or enhance emotion; melody adds something else.

Cycles Scores

A full day of scoring the Cycles music. It's amazing how different some of the original live piano pieces were from the recorded versions, and I'm sure there were elements of improvisation making each performance unique and different from any score anyway. At least two of the six pieces are different tunes live vs. recorded, but the complexity varies wildly for the others. Now, I'm unsure which I prefer. Scoring Cycles VI took a lot of work, often staring at the MIDI notes and working note-by-note. This took about 6 hours to transcribe the 6 minutes of music. I knew this would be one of the most difficult.

There's a wild bit near the end I'll not bother notating; consider it a cadenza, but here it is for posterity:

So now I have scores for the six Cycles tracks, the recorded versions, and my original piano versions. Should I make those public too? I've nothing to lose, but a public publication needs to look good, be up to a certain standard, use the correct terms etc., in contrast to the scores I use and read, which can be any old thing just for me.

An odd thing happened to the computer. When sleeping and waking, it forgot to reactivate the USB sound card, which happens sometimes, but, unusually, I didn't restart the PC, but just slept it again. Later, on the second wake, it reactivated.

Another thing I did today was connect the MODX to re-record one of the new The Golden Age tracks, called Nature Mort, this is actually a live MIDI recording made during the Remembrance Service sessions. When I connected the USB I suddenly had new sound devices to record from and play to, too. One of the things that now 'works' on this new PC (the old one didn't).

There are a lot more tracks on Cycles & Shadows, so I'll start notating those. Shadows will be tricky to some extent, but these tunes are broadly unstructured and improvisatory, so I hope and will assume that automatic conversion will suffice.

I can't afford to waste months of my life notating my music, but it feels good to have some firm copies, and I will, when I legitimise my media empire, publish it all correctly. This process makes me appreciate it more, even the music seems old, simplistic, and too easy, to me now.

Dylan Rehearsal, Times Are Staying The Same

A full day or rehearsing the songs for the Dylan night, and wow did I need this! I wrote the words to Times Are Staying The Same some time ago; Jun 2020, but only had a rough idea of the melody, more of the rhythm, a sort of 3-time tango or pasodoble (x.xxx.x.x.x.), inspired by the roll of energy in Dylan's song. After a week or two of nailing down the chords I finally worked out the melody today, sequencing this to give me an idea of it.

Playing it on piano while singing and while reading the words proved to be a huge challenge, and not something I'm use to. Playing the bass/chords and main melody, plus singing and staring at the words or mic... it was a lesson in humility, and wonderful practice, but with only 2 days until the performance, a little panicked. Playing Song For Zimmerman on guitar wasn't much better... but a second run through really improved things. Most errors come from uncertainty, or areas which could do one-thing or another, up or down an octave, for example.

I decided to forget trying to play the melody and sing it, this inevitably leads to one instrument chasing the other. It's easiest to play chords on the higher part of the piano and use a bass arpeggio for the rhythm. I have added more chords, for variety, a couple of D-minor and A-minor sections. I'm struck by the fact that Dylan generally never has or did, and doesn't seem to care about the music, and just fits the words to a simple looping chord arrangement throughout. It would make my life and playing easier, but I at least want to add something good to the music... to push a limit, as I always try. I've jumped up a key for the last two verses to G and D rather than F and C as with most of the song. This will have no bass.

Similarly for Zimmerman. I experimented with a solo part and programmed a groovy bass loop there. I've also got a pretty pad sound for a possible synth part, but I only have two arms, so will play it all on guitar. I've been blessed to discover a nice enough B-minor chord on the guitar.

All the way, the words have changed, ever so slightly. Here are the final lyrics... so far:

Times Are Staying The Same

The sky is blue the leaves are green
tomorrow looks like rain
A wise man said that times are changing
but times are staying the same

There's a sense of unease in this year's breeze
it's looking for someone to blame
everyone thinks the world is unfair
that times are staying the same

The old man sees what young won't hear
and the sense of grievance is crystal-ball clear
nobody wants to be right here
something better was promised;

but everyone hopes, even politicians
for a better world, with no prohibitions
for since god died, we've all lost our mission and every soul's heading for flame
so the cry is us (meaning you) against 'them'
because times keep staying the same

Hunters throw stones
with their weapons of bones
the old earth has seen it before
while the poor burn their homes in protest
in a plea to attract the law

and the stupid ones with the loud voices
seem to float to the top of the game
while the ones who talk sense aren't exciting enough
for times that are staying the same

So you'd better get used to injustice
and you'd better get used to greed
and get used to your insignificance
because you're the last person the universe needs

Get used to hearing and ignoring advice
Get used to kings without brains
because it's been like that for ten thousand years
and times are still the same

You're going to make a difference
but not in the way you expect
The best we can do is look after ourselves
and protect the weak ones from the rain

we can pity the fools with an ego
who can't see that we're on the same train
as we watch the young people battle to change
a world that will always be the same

Salome Notation, Simon

Finalised the Salome notation yesterday. Gosh, it took far longer than I expected, especially considering that all of the music was notated to start with, but inaccurately. Like the final proof-reading of a book, the last stages of making every note right takes so much work. It's take about 3 full days overall to notate the 12 tracks, just for solo piano. Adding the strings and other instruments should be a little easier. I notated The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke too, so this album, 1 of 64, is all done.

Also yesterday a trip to see Simon, my oldest friend, on occasion of his 50th birthday. He has so much knowledge of TV, film, every actor and director in everything for decades, it seems, and a great knowledge of history. At the rare and occasional pub-quiz events we used to take part in, Simon knew 90% of the answers. Science is probably my specialist subject.

Today, updated my Steam games with new (required) graphics. These products involve constant plate-spinning to keep them alive. A welcome sale of the Flatspace music and The Spiral Staircase cheered the morning, and the money is instantly useful for archive materials.

Next jobs are to archive my album collection, and notate more. The Anatomy of Emotions and Cycles & Shadows, and the Fall in Green albums are perhaps the most complex to notate, but again, those have been notated already to some degree. It would be good for me to notate some other albums like Pi, or a song album, to test my MIDI export. I could add lyrics to the sheet music too. It's all extra work, a lot of it. One day, I will publish all of these correctly, and will notate all future albums from now on as I make them. This is far more important than, for example, the Spotify Canvases for that transient platform on the transient internet.

May God and St. Luke grant me the years and decades to do this, and to make 64 more albums! On we charge.

Pain and Philosophy

Too stomach pained to work today, but today's piano lesson was good and I managed to complete an hour or so of work on Empathy With Daisies. I think my stomach pain is due to getting too cold yesterday, sitting outside for over an hour, perhaps a change of blood pressure, this slow digestion; or countless other things. I'm still in horrible pain but have eaten relatively normally.

I've read about a few things; An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Jorge Luis Borges' "The Secret Miracle", and other (always wonderful) Borges stories. I watched a few episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

We have a physalis plant. It's fruiting now, having grown from the discarded seed of one fruit I was given by Deb. I wondered whether the plant was 'weaker' than its parent, grown from a discarded supermarket fruit. I marvelled at the anti-entropic properties of life. Some tiny aspect of life can overcome entropy; the aspects which succumb die and fade, but some aspects defy this universal force and, after 4.5 billion years, from parent cell to child cell, continue to survive. In life we hope for something better, for a 'breakthrough', success, a windfall, some hope of thing, but life in reality is a succession of being battered, smashed, attacked, by others, by fate, by elements of decay, and our survival despite this. We don't thrive, but elements can survive - these are our victories. Our hopes are not in growth, but in a lack of death, in survival. The best life can do is survive, fleeing with panic'd eyes a torrent of hell-hounds called death; a storm of information collapse always at our heels, the acid of entropic rot.

Art Photography, Rehearsal

A super hot day today, 25 degrees in my room. The morning was spent photographing some completed painting so that I can enter them into competitions. I wish I'd completed more, I can paint a lot in one day now, but no! Salomé has stopped this.

I've 'scanned' (photographed in sections) Hand Of Destiny, Self Portrait As Tripod, and The Wheel Of Attraction And Repulsion. This takes hours, much of which is taking things out and putting them back. Here's a glimpse at the setup:

The camera points down on those rails. The results were as good as ever. Exposure time is about 3-4 seconds, with ISO 100, and an F-stop of 22. One change I made today was colouring the ends to make it easier to see exactly which end of which tube goes in which hole. My aim is that the same tube always fits in the same hole and that everything is kitted out identically each time. The camera shuttle glides relatively smoothly, but not perfectly, its steel rubs at times against the soft aluminium tubes, so if I use the same arrangement each time then, over time, things will hopefully 'sand' down to a smooth action. If the tubes were different each time, they would never evolve into a smooth action.

I'm careful to write down the exact procedure for operations like this, and analyse them, work out how things could have been done better. This is the way, over the long term, to improve. Everything I do, each painting, album, performance, action, is noted and considered in this way. I don't rely on memory or instinct, but rigour.

Self Portrait As Tripod has been 'finished' a few times. I glazed this with 3 layers, which is unusual, normally one is enough, but the violets were very transparent and I wasn't happy with the finish until later. Oil paintings generally do look better with more layers, but not always. You can't at all see the finish here, the degree of smoothness to the paint, but the last one is a lot smoother, plate-like, than the first. These photos of each complete glaze do show an evolution of the colours with each layer:

The middle layer in particular was a little flat and had a strange glowing artifact near the figure.

After scanning, I checked the projections and ran through the Salomé music for tomorrow. I can now play it all from memory. I also transcribed the music for one of my favourite game themes, Xenex from Amiga, which I play often on piano.

Pedal Woodwork, New Band Dream

Woke late, exhausted, chest aching after a few physically busy days. I started by making a new cradle for the Yamaha FC5 pedal. This is fixed to a horizontal piece of wood which then locks to the keyboard stand, making a rock-solid place for the pedal. The downside is its size and shape for transport. I considered making pegs so that the bit that holds the pedal so that it can be removed easily, but this seemed like a lot of speculative work, and the 15mm depth of the wood meant any grip would always be shallow. I screwed it in. I can always remove these and re-screw if needed. Here it is:

The hardest part was cutting out a large 3mm recess in the wood to slide the holder part beneath, which I did by sanding.

The new Yamaha FC3A pedal arrived later, you can see that in the picture too. I can instantly tell its far better than the M-Audio one, it is already less likely to move despite being physically lighter. It is bigger and oddly shaped though, so I have to take apart and rebuild part of my piano table to fit it. The arch part to cradle and block the back is now drying and will be glued tomorrow. The FC3A is great, but it's much easier to play the keyboard with the FC5 and my new wooden cradle.

I've played a few Salome tracks but it was difficult and frustrating. I feel too tired, sapped.

I dreamt of going for a walk to see Simon, but got waylaid by some young people and went to see them in an art studio of sorts. There were about eight people there. One looked like Andy Warhol, the head or spokesman. He said that he's setting up a band and we're all in it. One member said that he'd take over recording, one the album art. I felt frustrated that I was overlooked for my recording and production skills, my vocal skills, writing skills and more, and was seen only as a keyboard player. I stayed silent, feeling unable to tell them about my vast musical experience, I just couldn't find the moment. I felt old and side-lined compared to the other young members.

I want Salomé to be over, and the recording and production finished. However good the merits of this show are, and I've learned a lot, I'm desperate to move on to new and more exciting ventures.

Final Rehearsal, Pedal Disaster

A frustrating end to a frustrating and stressful week. I decided to take the keyboard out and put it in the proper playing position on its stand, now that I know that I'll be playing seated. This was good because it reminded me that it was wobbly. I started the day, then, by making a custom 'foot' from Polymorph heat-mouldable plastic. This didn't work, it was too soft when hot, so that the foot merely sunk, and remained wobbly. Not only that, this solution, though it would fit the circular foot perfectly with a neat click, it would only work when the stand was in that height and position, so I removed it and, far more simply, cut a square of 3mm rubber sheet and put it under the foot. Sometimes the simplest soloution is best.

Then I decided to make a holder for the foot M-audio piano pedal, a custom cradle which I can attach to the stand and stop the annoying thing moving. It went to plan...

(ignore the damage there)

Then, when playing, some notes seemed to sustain all the time, and some, never. After a few bangs and experiments, it was clear that the pedal had died/failed, which is a common problem. The pedal is solid metal, really good, yet the crucial switch itself is rubbish and unreliable, as many Amazon reviews confirm. This meant, amazingly, that on the very day I make a custom cradle for a specific pedal, the pedal breaks. So I have to bin both things (hnece the damage in the image, I tried to recycle the wood, but the pieces are firmly stuck.

This meant an emergency order for a replacement, a £65 Yamaha pedal with money I don't have to spare. So many things these days have 100 cheap versions and few or no good ones. These are a good example, all electric piano pedals costs £10 to £20 and all are unreliable. The Yamaha pedal seems to be the only good option, as fellow musicians say, and it's over three times the price. The same feature applies to mic stands, keyboard stands, camera tripods and all sorts of other things on Amazon; 99% of products are really cheap and rubbish and the 1% that is good is expensive and has no competion - or in a worst case there is no expensive option, just many variations of cheap rubbish.

At 2pm Deb arrived for a rehearsal and this went well. I used the cheap Yamaha FC5 pedal which is so flimsy it's more like a calculator than a foot pedal - but it worked rather well when I put a wooden bar in front of the keyboard for my feet, so I plan on using this for live play (I still need a realistic piano pedal for practice though). I will need to make a new 'cradle'.

The tricky and fingersome tracks of Truth Seeker and Give Me Your Pain are hard to play and sound muddy or overly boomy, so I've simplified the arrangements, removing a key. This keyboard, unlike a real piano, will sound a key at the very slightest brush. A real piano won't sound unless you press it firmly, so I've adjusted the preset to not sound on very light presses (velocity shift to 60 vs 64). This instantly made playing more reliable. The MODX piano sound still sounds rubbish compared to my P105 or SY-85, however.

Both rehearsals went well. I feel tired and overworked, squeezed by self-imposed and unpaid jobs, but I know that all art is this. I also feel frustrated at not being able to perform 'properly', my songs. Well, life must be taken one step at a time; my mind is only giant leaps.

Masks, Lessons, Videos

A busy day yesterday.

I started by sanding the Salomé masks, the Freud and, in particular, the Nietzsche mask. Sculptamold remains a great material. It sets rock hard, such that even the roughest of normal sand paper isn't enough, so power tools or really sharp chisels are needed. I used my drill and the drum sander which is an amazingly useful and powerful sanding tool. An even better tool would be an orb of sponge covered in changeable sandpaper, or indeed a cone. Yet, none of those exists, and even this drum sander is no longer available as a tool.

Still it really took a lot off the Nietzsche hand, and it looks much better, the fingers, after that were much more smooth and 'realistic' than the other mask. I use realistic loosely, as these hands are abstract and aim to convey a feeling rather than be too realistic... for a start a real hand would not be able to hold an orb comfortably at that pose, but also, there is an element of 'collage' that can ruin an artwork, when one part looks too realistic compared to a more abstracted other part.

This work took all morning, and all for masks for a performance that will probably be poorly attended and certainly non-paying, not only this, the masks have no use in our show. I designed them, and liked the idea, and have made them as an incidental spectacle. if the show is a huge success, tours the world, is performed one day in great halls, then these masks (and more) will be worn by the chorus, but, for now, they are artworks inspired by our own artwork. It is for the reason that they are made, a permanent feature of the transient performance work.

In the night, I had the idea of a Rilke mask with a hooked nose from which to hand his heart, so I made that from Sculptamold in the morning too.

At 2pm, I gave a piano lesson to Peter, he tried to persuade me to join Crewe Chess Club, which I would if I had time. When I'm old and have nothing better to do, chess would seem like a nice pastime.

After that I applied gesso to the masks, my own recipe of chalk, and a mix of GAC200 acrylic medium and water 1:1. This seems to be a great way to make sculptors gesso, which is far closer to plaster than paint, a thick filler. It dries quickly and is very soft and sandable. It's aim is to fill in the many gaps and pits in these very pitted and lumpy sculptures. I applied about three coats each to each mask. They touch-dry in minutes, but take a few days to dry completely ready for sanding.

Today I continued work on the video projections for Salomé, twelve are needed. I wanted to avoid having any, all of this extra work for this transient performance, but I can't resist making everything the best it can be and including everything possible. This project is and has been so much work. Here is a scan of some wool for the Freud's Lecture piece:

The video places lots of random strands of wool on the screen in rapid succession, sort of a cross between the Len Lye dancing line and the old 'Pipes' screensaver that Windows 95 used to use:

It's relatively easy to do in Argus, a matter of making 12 individual strands and making one appear with random orientation and at a random place every few frames, and having them fade out and fall away. For 'Cosmic Solitude' I made a falling, spiralling tunnel of hearts, using the 3D heart model we've made (which Deb will be performing with):

In other news, I've submitted an old unpublished story (The Hare and the Fox, a circular allegory similar to The Incomprehension of Beauty) to a new magazine project by John Hopper called 100subtexts. John is a supportive friend and one of the few inspirational and arty connections I have on social media. Also in other news I'm contracted to make some new sound effects and am looking forward to that next week.

Tomorrow is the opening of the Stockport Open so I'll be going to the Art Gallery, and it's the opening of the annual Bickerton exhibition too.

I feel tired and pushed to a limit with this consuming Salomé performance. I miss painting, I ache to create more. Salomé has taken so many weeks of work, but every part of it is my art as much as in any other media. Each day I swear to avoid summer performances, to save such things and music for winter when I can't paint. I must make twelve videos today, there is no time to pause.