Videos Part 2, First BBC Radio Play, Snowflake Premiere

Another full day of video conversion, recompiling all of my Violet Night and Dusty Mirror videos and removing the subtitle layer. The Violet Night ones were completed by the afternoon; Dusty is half complete. This requires a lot of tedious and exacting text work, and lots of waiting around for the computer to convert.

In between I've listened to Freddie Mercury's My Bad Guy, a great album, at least half of it is brilliant, and half not so. I love that he dedicated it to his cat, something I've done with some of my music!

I forgot to mention that I've had a royalty for my first ever play on BBC Radio. BBC Radio 6 played 'Pandora' from Bites Of Greatness at some point last year, but I've only just noticed. I've no idea in what context. Of course now, I consider my vocal music my best, even if my voice is still growing month by month. Everything recorded so far sounds inferior to anything I could do today. I've come a long way, but I have a long way yet to go in this regard. My many remasters are important for this reason. The 2026 Modern Game remaster is twice as good as the last version, and that was merely 2022.

Tonight is the premiere of the new video to 'Will You Be My Snowflake?'. I'll online on my YouTube Music Channel for it at 7pm.

Making Snowy

Spent much of today creating this fellow for the forthcoming video for 'Will You Be My Snowflake?'. I had a plan for a much simpler digital video, but the idea of a snowman came to be a seemed to be ideal.

My original idea was to photograph the different parts; body, head, hat, and background, and animate each separately in Argus. This worked, but looked rather digital and artificial, slightly less cute, not helped by the dark outer edges.

It has the advantage, however, of gliding and dancing exactly to the music, but only with this viewpoint, I'd have to rephotograph each part for different parts of the song. I'm thinking that a series of full scene photos may work better, like the old 'Jarre's Party' video. While musing on this I finalised the music for a new Flatspace Music Pack, for Another Violet Night

In the evening I sang to Queen songs, and managed the notes of songs like 'Breakthrough' and 'The Show Must Go On'. I can imagine doing this often and growing stronger, but growing stronger seems to be much harder, to take longer and be much harder to maintain, after 50. Yet, this is possible.

Library Preparation

Spent much of yesterday preparing for today's performance in the library. Mike Drew mentioned he'd like to perform 'Father Christmas' by the Kinks, a great song but full of really quick chord changes. Those are much easier to play as a riff, but the timing is complicated if we are to duplicate The Kinks' version because there are odd pauses of a beat or two here and there (or here but not there). Some parts are in 6/8 and the song has a very punk feeling that make it sound on the edge of collapse at any moment.

Secondly, Mike's playing it in A rather than C, with a capo, so I had to transpose his chord sheet for my keyboard. This is not too bad, my 'Snowflake' is in A too. I so rarely play in A, so it's something I need to do more of, but there are a few errors/anomalies in his printed version vs the Kinks version too... (like a missing chorus) this, plus a complex song and 24-hours solitary practice is going to make it all a bit musically dangerous. I've plunged in, and created a new sound for it which has a double-glockenspiel low down and a rock organ with a bit of distortion for the main part. This sounds great... I just fear chaos, that our chords as a small ensemble won't match each other.

I have had the rare opportunity to sing, to warm up this morning, and... disaster! My voice is so rusty and tight and weak, after only a week or two without singing. I've been singing warm ups for an hour and can barely scrape along. It's fortunate that 'Snoflake' is my only song today. I feel I need days or weeks to get back to where I was. In piano playing or painting, I can usually pause for a few weeks or months, and when I come back I seem to be magically better than before (this phenomenon is stalling in piano playing; time is cruel). This is not at all the case with singing. I need to sing often, every day or two days, yet my exercise and practice space is limited. I must try to find a solution.

John Miller has offered use of his mixer, and I prefer this. He's a great mixing engineer (as is Mike Aitchison) and it's a job I dislike. My personality is one of doing everything, but I'm learning to delegate.

A new outfit is ready, I will at least look the part. I need more headgear, perhaps the Santa Hat will work. This minor detail aside, all is now ready for the show.

Fame at Last

Begun with singing some quick vocal for 'The Trees'. I had only about 20 minutes spare, so made the most of the time.

Then, a full day of admin on Christmas Tails and the new single, Will You Be My Snowflake? Time was when I'd finish an album and move on, now the finishing stage is full of work, which at times seems never ending. I filed Christmas Tails and sent out an email to all of the artists with a vital update. I noticed that today's Crewe & Nantwich Chronicle has a huge story about the album, so I thought this was the best time to list the album.

So, I did this, and added all tracks with lyrics, credits, ISRC and ISWC codes, and other details. This will be invisible to purchasers for now, apart from the first overture track, but it's still vital. Then, sending a preview to all artists.

Then, work on the Will You Be My Snowflake? single. Transcribed the sheet music for the two other tracks, this took a few hours. 'Heaven's Day' had to be entered manually. After that, registration of the music in various places. Musicbrainz should now (or should eventually...) list all of the tracks and artists for both albums. This meant creating the first official listings for many of the contributors, such as The Forrest Dick Band (Mick Dick and Mortimer C. Forrest, both of which are aliases).

I also had time to test the new router bits. They seemed to fit but I didn't give them a spin. I now have an urgent need for new shelves. The old ones are sagging millimetre by millimetre each day. Last night another DVD fell over due to shelf droop. We live and learn. I've removed all of the contents now. I've decided to get 5th wall bracket to ne fitted below and in the centre to reinforce everything. There is something inherently unstable with holding a rack or cabinet by the sides rather than underneath. I'll do both for iteration 2.

This evening I see that the miniature that David Lawton has painted of me is currently on exhibition in The Royal Miniature Society exhibition at Bankside Gallery, London, not far from Tate Modern. I feel famous today. Photo by Tom Mulliner.

Modern Game 4 Recording

Things feel bleak at the moment. The economy seems to be depressed, even considering this is a traditional annual low. I feel hounded by requests and favours. I expect things come in waves, so can hope for some glimmers of success. Christmas Tails is getting some nice publicity courtesy of local journalist friends, so this is one positive. Andrew send me his tune for the album today. On the face of it it's a simple rendition of 'O Little Town of Bethlehem', yet, as in all of his music, he's managed make it full of fun and joy.

Another glimmer is my singing. The most recent, third, Modern Game re-recording was at the start of 2022. I recorded new vocals for 'Love in a Hopeless World' and 'House of Glass' today and am astonished at how much easier I found the process than before, and how much instantly better the results are than those of a mere 3 years ago. So, 3 years can be a long time.

I will keep some of the old vocals. The distorted rock vocals in 'Coming Back to Earth' are fine. The hard part now is the general mixing, which is down to the complex and non-standard arrangements with many of the songs. 'Two Kinds of Animals' has huge quiet bits, then an explosion of sound effects, vocoder megaphone speech, and other things which can't be 'mixed' in a true sense, so these sections can throw off checks of global balance. The pop songs like the two I recorded today are much easier; most were broadly fine but benefitted from less bass and a few more high pass filters.

In bleak times or times of plenty we must work just as hard, steadily heaving our rock.

Last night was the television joy of Celebrity Traitors, a rare example of a contemporary programme I've watched. In this case, Deb and I watched it all together over the weeks. It was a gripping series, and genuinely moving to see Alan Carr win.

Tonight is the preview of the Castle Park Open Art Exhibition and Colin from Galleria Balmain should be there, which will be nice. I must sell a painting here, and if so it will be 'Song of Experience'...

Now, I must attend to my outfit.

Candy Cane Vocals, Alcove Shelves Part 1

Vocal recording today, for 'You're My Candy Cane', and the two other Christmas songs, 'Will You Be My Snowflake', and 'Heaven's Day'. A key part is to have good backing tracks, and to know what layers or different vocal parts are needed. For Candy Cane, the chorus is layered, and there is a 3-part harmony on the 'Honey in the summer' part, so this meant preparations for that.

Snowflake also had a few layering options, these were somewhat rushed though, I had to snatch an available quiet 90 minutes to record everything, so dashed around to assemble dub tracks on the fly. Later, some vocoder parts for Candy Cane were recorded from the beautiful Microkorg, and then the full assembly and production. The main vocals are all in one track, with a separate track for the Honey harmonies (these are layered as an instrument, so the three parts don't need three tracks). There are three more vocal tracks because the word 'call' at the end splits into growing 5ths... I think Bohemian Rhapsody does this ('Let me go-oh-oh-oh'), so that must be where I got the idea.

The song is just about complete.

At 4pm I had time to attack Step 1 of Stage 1 of the fireplace shelves, and my first use of a router. Essentially, for this project, I must make a square arch with slots inside for the shelves.

You can see the slots, and that they don't go all the way to the back, thus they will be invisible when the shelves are in place. Stage 1 is making this arch, but it must exactly match in size the existing inner frame of the fireplace. I think the way to do this is make it all a few millimetres too big, then power-sand it level. The top (I could say lintel, though this doesn't take any weight) should be just about the right size. I made a paper template, which is more accurate than a ruler because the space is recessed. The two verticals are about 20mm too long, ready to be cut down during final measurement.

Once the pieces are the right size I can fit them together, with dowels to avoid visible screws, though I plan on two being visible at the moment. Stage 2 will be cutting and fitting the shelves, that's easy, then making and fitting the doors, also not difficult once the rest is done. The shelf depth and door width will be cut by the circular saw of B & Q, so I trust will all be accurate!

More music work tomorrow.

I Can Feel Vocals, Donovan Before I Was Even Born

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

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

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

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

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

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

Music Bits

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

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

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

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

July Backups

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

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

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

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

Album Finalising, Vocals

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

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

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

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

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

Land Of Destiny

A perfect day! Sang first, a needed new take for the last two verses of 'Smashing My House Of Cards', then the complete words to 'All Controlled By Someone'.

Then dived into a painting Land (not hand!) of Destiny. Only a small panel, created for the annual Bickerton Village Hall exhibition and sized to fit a spare frame:

Hand aside, for which I used a photograph of my own hand, the other details were 'invented' from the store of images in my memory. I was pleased how quickly I painted the mountains here. I'm more pleased with them that some of the slow and painstakingly painted mountains in older paintings. I painted no colour study for this, so it was more improvisational that usual; this a consequence of the need to paint quickly and cheaply. I could glaze if needed though.

I'm a better singer than ever before and better painter than ever too, though my eyes are starting to fail. My head is now pounding with eye strain, and focusing while painting was difficult at times, and impossible to maintain at all times. Still, this is the second painting day of 2025, and it's nearly mid-summer. I must strive to paint more.

Prometheus v3.68, Smashing, Tainted Vocals

Two busy and steady days of work. Prepared two paintings yesterday, listed two new albums in my regular distribution move, and started some changes to Prometheus. I noted that there have been 103 updates since 2020, but only 60 between 2002 and 2020, so this software has changed a lot recently.

This change allows a special track-level spectrum analysis render. Sometimes a song peaks in certain frequencies. It's fairly easy to work out which elements cause the bass to be high, but it's less obvious with other instruments, so I wanted an overview of every track's relative spectrum so that I could see which tracks were doing what in the mix. It's much better to EQ a track by mixing, lowering the volume of some element, or tweaking the timbre of that element, than doing anything to the whole song. Here's an example output, from 'Tainted Pain':

It shows, for example, that 113hz is the peak for the bass drums, and that the flutes are strong in 450-900hz. If the song had too much there, I could lower volume the flutes rather than messing with equalisers. I pretty much never use EQ.

Today, I completed this code and recorded some vocals, for 'Smashing My House Of Cards' and 'Tainted Pain' (which was called 'The Tainted Pain'). These are both fine I think, though the ending of Smashing may need improving, it sort of tails into a joyous flight up that stretches towards a Icarus-like forlorn hope. Both of these tracks need electric guitar work. I've not sung for some time, though I sang one song in Congleton last Wednesday. My voice was surprisingly good today, perhaps a result of other fitness work. I wonder if a heavy and dense vest, like a bullet proof vest, would improve a singing voice? More torso muscle and perhaps general size, I surmise, would grant greater vocal resonance. The evidence is in the build of opera singers.

Spotify Canvases

Friday was about singing vocals for 'Another Dead Morning', the release of The Arcangel Soundtrack, the Castle Park 20x20 Art Preview in the evening.

Saturday, the immense and overwhelming work of music admin continued. I've decided to re-list my work on Spotify. I've taken most of my work off there, but retained a few tracks to keep that relationship alive. There are many reasons not to use the platform. They don't pay for under 1000 streams, but do take money for those and give it to other successful artists (which is even less fair than them simply keeping it). This I dislike as a fundamental injustice, but I presume they do this because most people listen for free, so they also expect most artists to give their music for free. I would hope that, should they make money, they will reward the artists at the bottom, even if past behaviour indicates otherwise.

Another reason I dislike the platform is false accusations of 'fake streaming' without grounds for appeal or evidence, and with instant and irrevocable harsh punishments. Most artists, it appears, accused of 'fake streaming' are innocent victims who've had their track picked up by a bot or a 'fake playlist'. It's easy, for example, for a big label (or anyone with a grudge) to 'fake stream' a rival track and have it removed and the artist reprimanded or even permanently banned. I suspect that this form of attack is big business, and that this is not discouraged, or even sought out or documented, by Spotify. This is a larger injustice than the first point; but both are related. If any track by a small artists generates royalties, Spotify refuse to pay, keep the money, and ban the track or artist!

But these injustices aside there are reasons to list on Spotify, and the primary one is that it is and remains a, if not the most, popular platform for music streaming. They do some things well. Their 'Spotify for Artists' feature was among the first (before Apple for Artists, before Tidal for Artists, before Deezer for Creators etc.). The single track link for music across countries beats Apple. They have a social aspect. Ultimately, a few small features that other streamers still lack, and ultimately all artists are in the same boat, so we must simply put up with unfair behaviour by those in power as better than nothing. People tend to pick a favourite platform and listen there. If their favourite artist isn't there they probably won't seek him elsewhere, and listeners or fans care nothing about the policies of each platform.

All of this means I need to create more Spotify Canvases (a feature I like), including new ones for The Arcangel Soundtrack and The Dusty Mirror. The Arcangel videos each used variations of the full videos, simple loops for the most part.

The Dusty Mirror was a little more challenging, but often used variations of the videos.

For 'The Arm', I used a waving arm. The actual video there is just a lyric video.

A few of the other canvases I've made in the past were 240 frames at 30 frames-per-sec, that is exactly 8 seconds, which was the limit. Now the limit is under 8 seconds, which instantly invalidated half or more of all of my canvases by a tiny fraction of a second (annoying!). I could speed them up to 31 FPS, though I feel like hand crafting them to my new format of 24 FPS and 192 frames. That task alone would take a week or two.

Parents Vocals, Congleton Performances

More busy days. The 28th marked the launch of the Steam Wargames fest, and promotion of Radioactive. Much of the day was spent mastering new The End And The Beginning tracks to new volumes. The album sounds so much better than before. The remaster is largely complete.

The 29th was spent recording and adding the vocals to 'Parents', now called 'The Parents in the Walls', plus some scant guitar playing.

Yesterday was a full day of two performance events in Congleton, 35 minutes drive away. First in the morning to strum a little guitar for the Good Vibrations event. I had decided to avoid the keyboard, to force me to practice some guitar. It was easier than I expected for these simple chords, but I'm far from even a capable level yet. We played about 10 songs with simple chords. Deb read a poem from her new book Go Sprout The Grain!

In the evening we took part in John Lindley's 'Poets, Pints and Players' event. He'd stated that it wasn't well attended before, but this certainly wasn't the case yesterday, it was packed and the night ran from 19:30 to 22:30. Deb read three poems and sold 6 new books, the entire contingent we took, which had luckily arrived fresh from the printers a mere 4 hours earlier. We sold two copies of the Letters From A Square Spoon CD too, to kind friends and most welcome supporters.

I handed some music to Mike Drew, and without knowing the songs (or at least without knowing one of them at all), he played brilliantly enough that I could sing 'The Girl With The Pearl Earring', and the new 'More' with only his accompaniment. It was a lovely evening, even a cat became part of the audience. We arrived home close to midnight.

Today began with monthly backups, then scanning the new 20cm paintings for Castle Park. This afternoon, I've stripped a mirror bought in Sandbach on the 26th. I'm aching all over from yesterday's exertion, and must recharge before attacking art.

Breakfast of Delight Vocals, Parents Production

I'm overwhelmed with artistic possibilities and jobs to do. As SFXEngine sells I will continue to upgrade and update it, so I will do this at some point soon.

Music, recorded music as an artform, is so overcrowded at the moment but I can't escape its draw and I'm more capable than ever; though knowing that this is the case for countless thousands of music artists. I have a few ideas for paintings but feel I mut strike at this music album in progress while it's pertinent and feels good for me.

It follows a structure like many of my albums since Synaesthesia, a story of images and places. My albums follow this pattern for me, Burn Of God, and The Myth Of Sisyphus for example. So far I have an opening 'Violet Night', then 'Breakfast of Delight', which I recorded the vocals for today; production is complete.

Next is a song penned in July 2020 called 'Parents'. It was inspired by memories and false impressions of the meaning of David Bowie's song 'Sunday'. Today I got working on the production after writing the core melody late last night. That core is piano based and it always pains me to abandon (if indeed I do) the expressive played performance for a sequence, yet the latter is needed to add structure. Drums and a regular rhythm often feel like ropes thrown around a melody of love and expressive freedom. The new 'Light Bulb' song uses live parts only, big recordings that vary in pace. This can work, but here the music is more regimented, and I don't want a song that will be too massive in size with one huge piano part for the whole song; the piano is backing here.

So, the core of the track will be sequenced, with some guides for live playing later. The music is slow and sad, in C-minor and then Bb-minor, but lowers to F#/G# for the warmer chorus parts. Much has been done. Here are the words so far, updated to fit the melody:

Parents

You will find us
Behind the wallpaper
At the end of the country lanes
Of your soul of myrrh

We were always there
Waiting for you
We were always there
In your days and darkness

We wept unseen
As you stared at the screen
As your neck bent
Into its hook of solitude

Yet we were always there
Waiting for you
And still we wait

In the dull flesh
Of the automaton
Tied to the chairs of a distant day
Like a trampled sigh

Waiting for you
To say
Goodbye

Vocals For More

I'd considered moving into painting today, but I found I had space to sing, so recorded the vocals for 'More'. I'd planned for many layers initially, but these were gradually paired down, and in the end only a sole lead vocal was used. The rest of the day was spent adding those vocals and making a million tiny changes to the song, including adding the organ solo which was played live then quantised in MIDI, for the sake of two notes which were annoyingly out of place.

Then some more stabby organs in the main song (these are all sequenced, they're crude Korg samples), and finally a telephone effect and other little things. I'm thinking that it might be nice to have a phone conversation in here.

I've re-listened to a few older songs today. Not too old, from Remembrance Service and The Golden Age; two, three years. Mike Drew said that The Golden Age was my best album, or at least his favourite of the ones he's heard, which are only the two since it. The Golden Age songs are the more rocky than the albums after that, and I can agree with him while appreciating the good songs on the other albums too. I remember how I was happy with Remembrance Service at the time, that it sounded good and produced well, but now it sounds in need of better mixing; too heavy in bass and the vocals too quiet. We Robot was the first album which to use the oh-so-useful spectrum analysis feature in Prometheus.

I can do better now. All of the albums since 2020 were experiments, intended to be re-mastered later. Only The Dusty Mirror has been redone so far. I can't wait to do the others, but making new work is more important than polishing old work.

My singing is certainly better today than ever before. How much better some of those old songs could be (though there's no way I'd mess with the expressive vocals on tracks like Be My Jesus). I must add more feeling to songs. Quality of production must not compromise emotion, but this tightrope is easily fallen off, especially today. Good art is an equal balance of order and chaos, no more, no less.

What next for art? Who can say. I must learn to slow down a little. I must roll my rock rather than push with all of my intense might and speed.

Vocals, Guitars, Dentistry

A slow day. Recorded the main vocals for 'How Lonely', then for 'The Light Bulb 1', then a trip to the dentist. It's hard to find one in Britain, nigh impossible to become an NHS patient, so I'm a private patient which is expensive, but I am lucky to have found this after 6 years or so without any access to a dentist. I remind myself that this was normal life for Beethoven and most people of the 18th and 19th century. The NHS is effectively non-existent for dentistry, with a declining number of legacy services distributed by luck and nothing more rational.

A little more work on the music when I returned, and guitar parts for 'Written on Rice' and 'How Lonely'. I recorded lots for both, but after hours of editing and trying this and that, the latter hardly used any, and I'm unsure if even the fragments that remain are needed. These tracks are just about complete I think.

My plan is to paint tomorrow, the 20cm paintings. I must summon strength and crawl forwards.

How Lonely Vocals, Prometheus v3.59, New Book Begins

A slower day yesterday, started by re-recording the main vocals for 'How Lonely' as they were too gentle before, but now seem a little harsh. I've stepped back somewhat from the music to reflect. After that, a trip to a friend to help with computer maintenance. I also updated Prometheus again after finding some minor bugs. This allowed me to add a feature to batch load and save instruments.

I'm still considering options regarding ArtsLab. One option is to upload all of the episodes to YouTube but mask off the commercial song content. This would be a better solution than MixCloud, which would/will ultimately delete it all anyway.

Today, I've charged into a new book about oil painting and have written about 5000 words. This is something I've wanted to write for a while. One key element is that it is more of a reference guide than a how-to book, something foe beginners and masters alike, but something which can be referred to over a lifetime. The order and structure will be unusual, and something a little like Cennini's book.

More Song Produciton

Two full days of song production work. Lots of vocals created an added for 'How Lonely', and some for 'Written on Rice'. 'How Lonely' has lots of vocal layers in the manner of 'Video Killed the Radio Star'. Certain lines have 3 double layers (all vocals are recorded twice to make a stereo pair) to form chords. This adds up to make a lot of layers and hours of tedious trimming and arranging. There are a few vocode layers too. 'Written on Rice' has a few similar layers for the chorus.

This all adds up to many hours of arranging. I found time to start a new track, though it's a strange atmospheric piece, which features the sound of the planet Saturn, and an arrangement of 8-note choir chords, creating an effect like the somewhat frightening sounds in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I started to watch a film called After Blue last night which was amazingly inventive, and inspiring. It looked crude at times, and reminded my of an early 80s pop video, like the one for 'Forever Autumn' as played on the Kenny Everett show, and 'Ashes to Ashes' (both were probably directly related, as director David Mallet connect all of these).

Easily an hour or two of today was spent singing, my voice better than ever before.

SFXEngine v2.00 Launch

The launch day for SFXEngine v2.00. This was a lot more work than expected, as all of the new graphics needed to be created, at least 4 images for each product (the program, demo, 12 items of DLC, and 16 future items). The new graphics do look much better though:

I also had time to re-record some vocals for 'Except For The Hatred'. I don't like the idea of a copy-and-paste song, where vocal recordings are the same for two choruses for example, because the context is different for each repetition; and because it is easy. The best solution is the most difficult. Brilliance results from doing what is difficult, showing toughness, doing and showing hard work... but the old version of the song used the same line each time, and to change too much would change the original essence of the song. There are no fixed rules. Some songs may benefit from being copy-and-paste. A few of Sparks' Beethoven songs were copy-and-paste; and who can criticise their lifetime of mastery?

My general rule is that if two options are similar, so similar that you can't decide which to use, then the choice doesn't matter and either will suffice.