The Music is Finished, and the Artists' Life

A nice day yesterday mixing the vocals for the last four tracks. The Jabberwocky was the most complex, it varies a lot in dynamism and mood so the instruments can clash. Vocal mixing isn't difficult. The only real key with vocal is cut out the bass and add the right amount of reverb; rarely are vocals processed in more complex ways but one of my favourite effects remains a panned single-tap delay fed through a band-pass filter. It gives a distant memory quality.

The next track was Herr Kasperle which had more emphasis on vocals. Tracks vary on how much emphasis vocals get. Country music tends to put the vocals front and centre of the mix, twice the volume of everything else. Other music types can blend as much as desired. Def Leppard's Hysteria has vocals so quiet you can barely make them out - well I can't hear any of the songs all of the way through. I think that's an example of what not to do, I surmised the singer lacked confidence and wanted to bury his vocals, but sometimes the sounds of the words can matter more than the meanings; I love a few French and German pop songs without understanding them.

Then Dead Hand, our answer to Wuthering Heights which is so dark and brooding it makes Kate Bush's song sound like bubblegum pop. This is an amazing track. I wrote it as a solo piano work about two years ago, for my 99 Men Falling project, an album of lonely piano music in the mould of Erik Satie. The idea for that album is that all of the tracks were improvised in one take to capture the mood I was exactly feeling at the time, so the piano was recorded live in one take; an ebb and flow of 'real-time' mood, which is the essence of all good music.

I wanted to include it on the album but it seemed too long and dreary, but I thought it might work with some words, so I asked Deb if she would like to read a poem to it. The bleak mood of Dead Hand seemed perfect. I added some genuine Northern English wind to it, recorded two days ago, and the backing track was complete. Deb listened to the backing through headphones and read her words. The words fitted so perfectly with the ebb and flow of the music that it's amazing that they two parts were written completely independently. Her poem itself was written years before I met her. And yet, the result has become one of the unexpected most powerful tracks of the whole album.

The last one to mix was Siamese Twin Domestic, which, as I've written before was tortuously long to write, but has worked brilliantly and is nothing like anything anyone has made before. I don't think anyone would have produced the five minutes or so of music I've written for it given the ten short lines. In one last twist I reversed the vocals and overlaid them onto the forward vocals - sort of conjoining them, in the same way that sole melody is reversed at the end.

So this music is done, pending final listens and tweaks, which need a few days pause. What a luxury it would be to only work on the music of an album, and/or the live performance. But I have the artwork to make, any and all music videos, plan single releases and far more... yet I ideally want to keep working on my music... my important work. So many times have I wanted to go back to Beethoven and prod him to keep working on hit 10th symphony, irrespective of his mood and health and finances, to prod van Gogh to paint more, than his work will, one day, be appreciated. Ever since I became an artist I feel spirits from the future telling me this.

The artwork and videos are mainly important to me as art; to make them the best I can. I also hope that others will find and like the music, that something will be a breakthrough hit and lead to great wealth and fame, or at least noticed. I know or, well, believe that the music I'm making is good and pushing new boundaries of all sorts, but I'm aware than my work is ignored. I read that Nick Drake sold less than 5000 copies of his albums. I've sold less than 3 for almost all of them; The Flatspace Soundtrack has sold about 10, which is the biggest seller, and of course not at all representative of my music now. Of course thanks to streaming, most tracks have had one listen at least, and sometimes several thousand.

This of course does not discourage me because I'm aware of similar problems with many artists of the past. Being the best artist and best person I can is the important thing. I am aware that sometimes feedback from fans or critics is unhelpful, perhaps it is always unhelpful, and most artists try to ignore it anyway. An artist can't make art to please others, only himself, and the temptation for 'hits' or other prizes generally creates bad work. It also, at least, creates generic work that blurs and blends in with the times rather than being truly new and different. Perhaps, like Steve Hackett said when he left the band, Genesis should have stopped becoming mainstream and continued to embrace creativity. Of course, the flip side is that sometimes making pop songs or catchy music can be new and different... in the Genesis context, they had made lots of experimental and fantastical work and wanted to make new and different material. Even my most pop-like music was made not for commercial attraction, but to be different and to explore different areas of music. I do and will occasionally aim for the mainstream of music for this reason and for cultural relevance, which is important. The potential commercial or popular impact isn't because it's a fickle and stupid target. I am digressing.

I can't function as a person in other context except as lone artist. Even the easy 6-months of part time work at Red Shift Radio made me suicidal in that time; the sheer soullessness of that life. A normal job is one where if you quit, someone else would take over and do exactly the same thing, making your life pointless. Most people create a family to support, and their meaning is therefore to support them, the job is only means to that end. Artists, will never have or need such a thing, though van Gogh and Beethoven foolishly strove for this. For me, my work and my art is my life and my purpose, joyously so.

What a long post! Now, to a new day of creation. A first day of rest after weeks of work on this music. I will permit myself an hour or two; not much more. I have a duty to humanity to fulfil. Onward!

Vocal Recording, Lone Wolves

Final day of music work on Apocalypse of Clowns, and while taking proper precaustions, Deb came here for some essential vocal recording of four tracks. The last three tracks I've written: The Jabberwocky, Herr Kasperle, and Siamese Twin Domestic are my favourite and clearly show a different direction and level of complexity and length over the others, although each took a week or more. I'm reminded that half of these tracks were written before War is Over was recorded, never mind the other albums of the year.

In the end, I made six different experimental tunes for the Siamese Twins, and at least four others are complete enough to be useful elsewhere.

My stomach continues to be very bad, all, I assume, the result of physical isolation. From the age of 18 to 34 I had almost no social contact and rarely spoke, but even then, from the mid-1990s I occasionally, perhaps 3 or 4 times a year, met with either my gaming friend Hayden or game design collaborator Andrew Cashmore. I wrote to Andrew Williams perhaps every week or two from about 1994 or so. Of course, even then my stomach suffered from many painful problems. I wonder if this is some sort of self-preservation apparatus; calorific restriction is one of the few ways proven to increase longevity. It is interesting to note the portliness of the contented family man - a slow and deathly end. The contented do nothing and amount to nothing, yet feel happy in that, like Odysseus on his timeless island. The artist must prefer passion and agony to happiness or contentment. Marcus Aurelius knew that positive emotions were the most dangerous.

Perhaps the lone wolf in the prehistoric wilderness, without a society to help him, needs this pain to eat less, to become more hardy or remain thin and somehow ready and fit for a future rejoining of a clan. Must isolation always be like ostracisation, a negative rejection? It often feels this way - but perhaps feelings pre-date reason and are intended only for the procreation of the animal.

Siamese Music

A really bad day, well night, of stomach pain two days ago which meant not eating yesterday. This is probably a sign of the stress and isolation of the Covid situation. I read the day before that a vaccine will only be availabue in Britain to those over 50 which worried and annoyed me, but, on reflection, I doubt this will be the case as this virus is simply too destructive to the economy for limited measures.

In work, the music is moving slowlym too sloy, forwards. I've created about four different trackjs for the Siamese Twins track, all are rather strange an atonal. The poem is about anger and is strange in itself, yet does this mean the music must be strange too? If a subject is ugly, must the music be un-beautiful? Perhaps I'm overthinking it all and not making progress as a result. It amazes me that my early albums took a week, and this one takes a week per track. Other music which took a long time (like The End and The Beginning, which took two years) took the odd day in that time, whereas this is taking me, it feels, full time to move so very slowly.

I had a positive dream last night. My mother signed me up as a teacher to teach a 7 year old boy, an act which annoyed me. When he arrived however, I think with a red beret like Roger Red Hat, he seemed to know about my work, my paintings, and he too was an oil painter of surrealist paintings and he said he wanted to be the greatest surrealist painter in the world. I told him to manage his ambitions, yet I was impressed by and somewhat envious of his talent. He chose my early painting Coma as his favourite, which was in my dream, yet in sepia. Perhaps my creative, painting side is growing, which is good.

I had a second positive dream too which I can't recall at the moment.

Raft Dream, Progressive Music

Last night I dreamt of being afloat in a raft in, at first, a flooded field, in sight of a canal or river. A woman was with me, or I was the woman. Then we were on an ocean with rolling waves. Low clouds were blowing over the surface quickly, and I could see them come and go, blown by a string and exhilarating wind. I said that it feels good to be in the free ocean because we can see the clouds coming.

the scene changed and I became Lt. Torres in Star Trek. I reported for duty but felt unnwell, and informed my commander, who was, I think, the Voyager Doctor. I carred with my a small round cushion which I could use to lean on the consoles, like a short seat, like a misericord, to rest. The commander mocked me for feel weak and I said I felt fine, then I collapsed. I was then carried to sick bay, but I awoke from the dream before finding out the cause.

The first part of the dream is clearly about emotions, dealing with ups and downs or coping with this drama rather than the logic of emotionless creativity. Emotions are needed to create good work but are troublesome things when undirected, and my mood seems to be up and down each day. Perhaps the dream indicates that it's better to ride like this. Perhaps the second part refers to my persistent tickliness and strange throat, although it seems better today.

In the day, I decided to sort of the tracks for the Fall in Green album. I'm so pleased I worked on some later, as these newer ones, Herr Kasperle and The Jabberwocky are so different and more experimental than the earlier tracks. I must keep experimenting and working hard. One track, a sad piano track, seems almost too morose to include on its own, but should work better with words. I still have the Siamese Twin poem to do and have written aboout five test versions, all different.

One is like a string trio which plays through all 12 chords, then plays the same melody backwards, a palindrome, like a Siamese Twin. It is interesting, but also very short and the feeling is rather flat and undramatic like a Bach fugue in strings. I will keep working at this.

My mood has generally been very low and slow today, but at times I've enjoyed this when thinking about art, it seems to help. I've also ordered a new electro-acoustic guitar, inspired by and encouraged by Deb. My new music includes a few acoustic sections and if I am ever to play any live, will need a guitar with amplification.

My art is clearly moving and expanding in the area of music and I'm practising singing, guitar, and piano regularly. I don't feel this is a permanent move; painting, film, writing, will also always, I think, be part of my work, but I feel I'm making progress and pushing new ground here at the moment. My music is becoming more like 70s progressive music in spirit... I feel everything must be new and difficult. Of course, there are differences in my work; one is that I'm eclectic and want to explore many areas, and my synth-pop compositions are one example.

Harr Kasperle Again

Completing sound work on the Herr Kasperle music today, although a lot of the morning was taken up with various admin duties, and repairing a sofa which has a central 'foot' type leg attached only by about 6 staples (a big block of wood, about 25x80mm). I had to remove the staples with wire cutters, glue, drill and screw the block firmly in place. I think my repair is one of the most solid bits of the whole construction!

I worked on a few bits of electro-pop tunes in the afternoon, but eventually got round to Kasperle. The start is a drift, dreamy landscape of sound with little melody. What melody there is sounds oriental or like the soundtrack to a Bladerunner-style fantasy film. This leads into some throbbing strings, a bit like Koyaanisqatsi, a bit like Palladio by Karl Jenkins, a bit like the verses to Eleanor Rigby. These give way to a line about a woman descending a staircase so I literally descended the strings along a scale, which is now firmly in D-minor, although there's a strange ambiguity and romance with E and B, which adds an eerie feeling to the music.

The next part is about the life of the puppet, ghosts and memories, so I played acoustic guitar for that, using the same melody as the throbbing strings but now in gentle single notes which echo into darkness. This part was tricky to compose because the gentle oriental part is already very quiet, so I needed something different from that, but I also wanted a contrast from the powerful strings, so using that melody seemed to be one solution, to make it melodious.

I rehearsed a bit then played this in one take, which is an improvement on the Jabberwocky recording which took a few tries. One key part was moving the guitar in dialogue with the mic, so that it had feeling and expression. I avoided headphones. One of the worst bits about recording guitar is the issue with wires and physical restriction. Electric guitar is even worse; a long wire leads to the amp, which is mic'd up and being recorded, and another wire plugs the headphones into the computer to listen to the backing track or beat, but I need a free ear to hear what I'm playing so have to half-wear the headphones, AND I'm strapped into the guitar so moving anything becomes awkward. This time I cheated and simply played the backing track through speakers quietly, so it will be slightly audible on the recording, but the ease of use makes it all so much easier to play, and so the performance was better. I've heard Paul McCartney's vocal for Something which also has similar audible backing music there.

The tune then returns to that dreamy, discordant opening, then a brief burst of strings again for a final quatrain, before again drifting away into a sort of scene where the final words of the song reside. After this, a camera clicks and we are outside, actually using a sound clip I took from France, and the last words of the poem are spoken; they break the fourth wall as they narrate to the reader about the outcome of the day.

I still have Deb's vocals to add to this. The album now has two tracks to do: something for Siamese Twin Domestic, and some sort of opening and/or closing music to form a themeatic bracket. I always treat albums as wholes, symphonic artworks that hold together thematically.

Sleep

I've been inspired me to finish a poem tonight.

Sleep

The colours outside fade amber to black.
The music coughs silence, loses its track.
Dead bicycle wheels wheel to a stop.
Taps gargle and drip a last slow drop.
Party curls curl to the wax polished floor.
Levers push closed the thick fire doors,
and eyelids fall heavy to blink out the world,
to say a goodbye to the party curl's curl,
to cough a goodbye to the bicycle's wheel,
to slip into darkness, pricked by the curse
of the day's kiss,
of the night's hearse.

Herr Kasperle

A steady day of music work today, three tracks are in small stages of progress: Herr Kasperle for the Fall in Green album, and two new songs for the electronic 'Plastic' album, one of which is based on Yellow Balloon Attack, a tune which I love by Oldfield One. Gone are the days when one track takes a day, now every track or song seems to take a week, with little bits added each day as with a painting. The results are certainly better this way. There are lots of reasons for this, from the fact that I now like to make each note have the right feeling and use more live and custom recorded sections, but also things are more musically, temporally, timbrally complex.

Ultiumately I'm aware that any automation gets in the way of expression, so the less the better, which is my long-term philosophy for music and art. One only has to listen to the gulf of difference between the first Tubular Bells record and the 90s Tubular Bells II... the second is certainly cleaner, but vastly lacking in emotional gamut by comparison. Mike Oldfield said that the first recording was full of mistakes - but for me there are no mistakes, every piece of expression done by hand is correct, assuming the unconscious is working correctly then everything is as intended by the spirits of art, the muses, even if not the consciousness of the artist. Of course, if a cup falls off the shelf when the mic is on then that could be a mistake, but perhaps the artist's unconscious put the cup there especially to fall at the right moment? Again the muses assert themselves.

I've played a little more guitar today but my progress is slowing. I'm playing tunes on each string well, and slowly moving between strings, and playing the odd chord, and bending the odd note. Perhaps I need to try to techniques, new pickings, tapping etc. Also, repetition itself is still progress. Things like speed and accuracy increases generally occur without being noticed. The key is to assume this is happening, and to keep playing something, anything, regularly.

Fireplaces, National Poetry Day

I woke at 6am yesterday and performed my quarterly computer backups, which often take half of the day but were complete by 11am. Not much else was done, although I experimented a little with music. I also watched a few videos of poetry readings, and promoted mine on what was National Poetry Day, and in the evening wrote a melody in 7/8 time which had a relaxing feeling, something like an Einaudi, which itself is strange for a 7/8 tune.

It was a frustrating day due to a general lack of direction, but that was perhaps because I finished my planned tasks so early. Yesterday and today were also disrupted by building work.

There seems to be an element of Godotness creeping in, planning or waiting for a clean start to begin, rather than accepting the greater power of slow accretion. A bucket fills drip by drip, this should be my mantra. We don't need to do a lot each day, just one tiny, tiny step in the right direction. That is enough.

Today, some more audio experiments for the Siamese Twin poem for the Fall in Green album, but not much was done. I'm not used to music taking so many days, but that is how long it seems to take now. I wasted time watching YouTube videos, but some were intellectually interesting and perhaps useful in future. Deb and I went to see a friend on her birthday, and to deliver our books to Crewe and Nantwich libraries for them to lend out. I also updated all of my music videos, checking and unifying the links there. It's been a more relaxing day, with some of those tiny steps, but my annoying tickly cough remains.

A lot of the weekend will be taken with building work as I have to shore up a hole in my wall, the former fireplace. I've been lax in guitar practice. I must play tonight. It's been a good year, but I must keep aiming higher, and working towards a greater goal steadily. I'm as sure as ever that I'm producing my best work, and that better things are to come.