Slowing/Speeding Up A Sample To Pitch

I just watched a documentary about Frank Zappa. One of his children said that there was no way to slow down or speed up playback of digital audio in the way analogue tape can. Of course, this is wrong. Although a audio workstation software tends to limit the sample rate to a fixed value, eg. 44100hz for 'CD quality' or 48000hz, 96k etc., you can often set the playback speed in sample editors, like SoundForge, to slowdown or speed up a sample. I thought I'd draw up a frequency table of playback speeds to retune a wave.

Sample playback speeds to retune a wave, with frequencies based on 44100hz. Ratio formula = pow(2, note/12).

Note	Ratio	Freq
-12	0.5	22050
-11	0.5297	23361
-10	0.5612	24750
-9	0.5946	26222
-8	0.6300	27781
-7	0.6674	29433
-6	0.7071	31183
-5	0.7491	33038
-4	0.7937	35002
-3	0.8409	37083
-2	0.8909	39289
-1	0.9439	41625
0	1	44100
+1	1.0595	46722
+2	1.1225	49501
+3	1.1892	52444
+4	1.2599	55563
+5	1.3348	58866
+6	1.4142	62367
+7	1.4983	66075
+8	1.5874	70004
+9	1.6818	74167
+10	1.7818	78577
+11	1.8877	83250
+12	2	88200

Full Day

A full and good day. Have recorded most of the lyrics to Back When It All Began, and the final full take for Always In The Morning, this is now complete.

Deb has written the words for the Tree of Light ceremony and I've sketched out two ideas for the piano music. There is also the possibility of another performance in Congleton Library at a similar time. I started work on another new music project (secret for now), too.

Next, the album artwork, but more things are in the pipeline, I can't afford to pause for breath. These past 4 or 5 weeks of solid music creation have been wonderful, a luxury, but I think that the tumult of work will soon start.

In other news, a new double density drive arrived and this too fails to read the disks. It is possible the media is at fault, but I increasingly think that the Windows driver, which is automatically installed and cannot be revoked, is the problem. One disk DID work for a time, but, after a few weeks, plugging in the drive made Windows auto-install a new driver and this might be inferior to the old one. I can't remove or replace this. How I hate the terrible design of Microsoft Windows.

I may need an ancient PC to solve this problem. It is possible that the 3 disks I have are corrupted, or have been damaged by my attempts to use them. I have a plan, and have ordered more disks.

My music and performance and production skills are better than ever, and I'm full of inspiration and artistic zest. I've had some exciting visual art news, and the Castle Park exhibition opens on Friday too. Onwards we charge.

Always In The Morning, Back When It All Began

Finalised the writing to Back When It All Began today. The vocals remain. The timing and generaly melody and mood is all over the place so it will need a bit of rehearsal and playing back to work out where the words fit.

Then I finalised the production to Always In The Morning. The vocals are epic, going from quiet a reflective to power-ballad. I wanted the effect of an 'ordinary person' sitting on his bed, the curtains closed but glowing with sun, and the words seem to have this effect. I may try another take, but these will do. The single takes of Out of Date and Be My Jesus always sound better than songs that have lots of takes - I think the very process of comparison of two nearly-identical things lends itself to a sort of craziness. I'm always aware that time spent perfecting, polishing, finalising anything steals time from other projects, and is often self-deceptive because the factor that gains our attention can sometimes stop us noticing glaring errors elsewhere.

The album is nearly done. Then, its artwork, recording the old SY-85 music (I will probably never release this publicly, but I would, at least, like a recording of it for the future rather than have it lost forever).

Music and the Neorenassiance exhibition will probably be my main focus until March when Neorenassiance ends. I must do my best, work my hardest and fastest to make to most of this precious time. Today, I feel that my artistic life from now on will be music and not at all painting.

Back When It All Began

A very full, exhausting but exhilarating day of work on Back When It All Began. Here are the words, which, is generally my start for a song now. Once, the music was the crucial thing and even songs without words were preferable, but now, the words are my absolute focus; all link directly to images which I try to paint with sound.

Back When It All Began

Black rain, struggling dandelions
Yellow neon lights blink
like our bedroom
used to

back when it all began,
when plastic was wood,
back when the news was good.

We held hands and we ran
in the trees
your red skirt my blue van
of young rust

How young and pretty we are
I got a lithium powered car
I stole some money from the jar
Let's go and blow it!

Today's coffee
tastes of teflon dust
but your smile is still soft
like it was

back when it all began.

Now, some words evoke the music while I'm writing them, so the last verse was a deliberate link to the first.

The music is very complex because the words vary as much as an contemporary poem; this is my aim. I started with two chords stroked on the electric guitar; an A-Major, then I shifted up a fret for a cheap Bb-Major. These made an unusual pair, so I stuck with those and made these alternate in a slow trawl. It kept feeling like the start of a Bowie song from the Ziggy Stardust era; dark, urban. Then the chords shift up for the bedroom line, everything turns from this sad exterior to a warm memory; warm and pink. A stroked C-Major welcomes us to this warmth, and we are joined by the smooth hum of an organ. This shifts to D-Major for the 'back when it all began' chorus, so we already have an unusual, but pleasing progression. At this point I decided to try and make the whole song from major chords only.

For that chorus, I speeded things up; the start was a slow trawl. I then speeded things up more for the 'We held hands part' and a shift into G-Major, a happy run through the fields in summer. In fact the tempo constantly grows into a sort of joy. For the 'young and pretty' line I wanted to evoke the 1950s, so toyed with the idea of a C-Maj, A-min, F-Maj, G-Maj progression, the classic 'Crocodile Rock' sound, but this was too cheesy, and for one loop it would not really fit, so I switched to D-Maj and A-Maj, then ending in E-Maj - again, sticking to my rule about only major chords. For the drums, I added a double snare hit, like The Munster's theme; which gives it an early 1960s sound, sufficiently retro for my imagery.

I picked E so it could leap into a surprise A-minor for a solo part. The A-minor is there to dramatically switch from this image of recollection to A-Major and jump right back to the start of the song, back to the dark, rain-soaked streets, back to the present reality.

Melodically, the vocal line generally hovers around the chords, and this lack of melody, complete with shifting tempo and strange chords makes the song uneasy listening. Chords repeat, so it's not totally like a progressive song, but I thought it needed more structure, so I've used the words of 'Back When It All Began' as a rhythmic hook, and the rhythm of these words (x........xxx.x.x.x) is ever-present somewhere.

The inital instrumentation was simply stroked guitars and a sort of synth-string hum, but this can't continue, so I experimented with lots of other instruments. I tried my electro-acoustic guitar for some chords but the thing (Yamaha APX700) sounded rubbish. In fact, this guitar has always sounded rubbish in every situation I can recall. I played around with some Reface chords, and used a great organ sound from there. Generally, the electric guitar dominated and I decided to use a rarely used high-gain option and this created a sound rather like the famous wailing guitar lead in Bowie's Heroes. I used this sound (with the 'back') rhythm for a sub-melody, and some choppy chords for the 'young and pretty' part and the subsequent solo. I know it should, but this Brian May guitar really does sound like early Queen.

This work always takes a while because there's a lot of experimentation and a certain percentage of the recordings will never be used. I think I'm about halfway through this song now. The epic solo and ending remains.

In other news, the London exhibition is now over, so I updated the website with links etc. I've bought a new drive to possibly, hopefully, record the SY-85 music. I'll need to start work on the new Fall in Green piano piece for Crewe's Tree of Light event, too. I really need Deb's words for this. I hope to compose something melodic.

Out Of Date Words, The End of Ticka-Oh

A full day of music work today. Recorded the vocals for Out Of Date which were great fun. As a song it's an epic ballad in the style of Perfect Day by Lou Reed, or Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien by Edith Piaf, a full fireworks orchestral piece which grows. I love these sorts of songs, full or drama and a sheer joy to sing because the emotion is so easily conveyed.

That wonderful song was easy, but for most of the day, as with many weeks, I've been wrestling with the much more mediocre song Ticka-Oh Ticka-Eh, a light and fun song inspired by ObLaDi ObLaDa, but it just sounds weak, false, somehow silly and light. Not only the weakest song on the album from a mood perspective but also from a production perspective, and it doesn't really fit the general mood or feeling of the rest of the album, which is high-romance, longing, and other things.

So, I've decided to file Ticka-Oh Ticka-Eh for possible future use - perhaps with the old Style Guru Song, or something very different. Both of those are rather pop-like, rather electric-like and not really like the sort of music I'm moving towards or interested in. I could, at the very least, put these on YouTube or something like that.

So, to fill the gap I've resurrected a song that I'd started for this album but abandoned due to lack of room; this is called Back When It All Began, a strangely sad and dark trawl through an urban landscape.

Here are the full lyrics to Out Of Date:

Out Of Date

Strange
How things change
For me it's still the past
Still the old days - remember those?

Strange
How those days feel right
Nobody knows now, do they?
These young people with their young clothes.

Out of date
We're out of date - did you know that?
You and I
are out of date.

Strange
How right and wrong change - don't you think?
Remember when dark was light?
Remember when good was bad?
How today feels so sad.

Out of date
We're out of date - did you know that?
You and I
are out of date.

But we still have each other
and as we change
we will caress the past together
and our grave will trap the zeitgeist,
be eternal, like Mary Shelley's,
and we will last
forever.

The Mary Shelley reference recalls a memory that she, apparently, made love on her mother's grave.

Vocal Quagmires, Eyes Of Pity

One of the worst aspects of vocal recording is getting trapped in a quagmire. You make a take that's nearly right, just one or two lines not quite right, somehow, so you decide to retake just those bits, but they seem to jar, somehow, and then you retake another little bit to try and fix that, but, gradually, entropy takes over and the whole things feels and sounds like a mess. This can absolutely happen in oil painting too. Some painters like to fix this up or that up, a dab here, a dab there, but I've always hated the whole idea of these patchworks and, I tend to throw the whole painting away and start from scratch. For the Roman Legionaries painting, I painted three copies, which are almost identical to the eye of a casual observer, but I know that only the last version was right 'from the start'.

Yesterday I became trapped in a quagmire like this with the Eyes Of Pity vocals, partly because the song sounds so simple, when it's actually rather complex due to lines that don't scan and which can have long pauses between, or hardly any, and are filled with jumbles of words.

After a few days of practice and adding lots of little background effects to the song, I today recorded the whole song in one take; which is the ideal so that it maps the emotional flow of the performance exactly. I've added some backing harmonies, then erased a lot of the background parts that I added - it was all fine as it is. Most of the songs in this album are based on other songs and this one has 'I Only Have Eyes For You' by The Flamingos as inspiration.

In other news, I took some photos and started on the cover artwork yesterday. Here is the draft so far, but it is certain to change:

This morning Deb and I went to Frodsham to drop off artwork to Castle Park Arts Centre for the open too, the first local live art exhibition in over a year. The luthier there showed me a nice electro-acoustic guitar. If I didn't have one, I'd have thought about buying it, but I won't. It seems that every guitar player seems to own about 10 guitars. For me, one (caveat: of each sort...) is enough.

I've had a few low days and hours, but at the same time, I know with certainty that success is inevitable and that my work is better than ever, and still growing. On we march.

The Misery's Hard To Take

I feel like I've hardly done anything today, but I have worked on finishing the production to a song called The Misery's Hard To Take, which, musically and lyrically, came to me in one go one night. It was little more than one-and-a-bit verses and it had an odd folk sort of arrangement (in my head). Here are the words:

The Misery's Hard To Take

The misery's hard to take,
keeps creeping up on me.
Every good choice feels like a mistake
my head is like lead and my ribs are a rake
every little shiver feels like an earthquake
The misery's hard to take.

Whale! White whale!
Heart I stab at thee
You'll not get the better of god or me
Death to you and my misery!

I put together the song a few weeks ago using acoustic guitar strums and a regular thumping beat, adding some odd, arpeggiated saw waves, but it wasn't complete. Today I re-did the guitar chords with my APX700II guitar, but they didn't sound nearly as good as Ernie, my name for my old and inexpensive F-310 guitar. This is superlative for sound quality, although as with any acoustic guitar there is a bit of awkwardness in recording due to using a mic and needing headphones.

So, then I went back to the original chords and added a few more tweaks to those. The sound is pretty much the raw guitar, but I've cut the bass and added some sparkle to the top. Then I recorded a couple of melodic solos on it for the intro, and ending. These are a bit bluesy because the notes are sad and slightly wrong. I also bent them so make them weep a little.

Then came the vocals. I decided to picture myself as some toothless old cowboy or something for these. Then I added some extra vocals for the held notes on 'earthquaaake' and 'god or meee'. I used my Choroleight effect which multiplies one voice up to sound like eight for these to make them sound wide. Listening back I thought that I needed more and found myself improvising some ranty cockney-like vocals over the top, so added those.

The ending though sounded gentle, not remotely ranty or angry like the words, so I added a mad electric guitar solo over the top, playing any old note in a rough response to the smooth sound of the bluesy acoustic, something like the ranty response of the vocals.

So, it's done.

Music Charges On, Tracks List Finalised

A frustrating day yesterday, unable to sing and practice due to the vice-like atmosphere, simply lack of my own space, yet, there is a lot I can do in relative silence. I made a list of the remaining things to record and refine, and worked on new tracks, trying to refine and complete the album structure. In the evening, I managed to record new vocals for a reflective song with tinge of sadness called 'Joey Deacon: The Best Spastic in the World', originally written in November 2013. I thought of putting this on YouTube or something, but for now it can simply be a spare song.

I also worked on the production to a new track called Back Where It All Began, a slow 1950s-style, lazy, late-night dancehall song, which would have tied together the New Wave 'Hitler in High Heels' and Teenage Dream.

Today began with monthly backups, then I totted up the time of the album so far and was amazed to find that the 12 tracks amount to 40 minutes, so, after all of the effort of building extra structure and preparing new tracks, I don't need them. The track list is finalised. I had written a nice song last night called In Love By Message, a song for the electronic-inspired mid section which would have linked to the literary song Incomplete Version Of The Writer, but I won't need either song, or Back Where It All Began, or any more tracks.

So the tracks are:

1. Hitler In High Heels
2. Teenage Dream
3. Eyes Of Pity
4. Be My Jesus
5. Passive Aggressive

6. Boring Ceefax Lift Music

7. The Misery's Hard To Take
8. Confidence In Kindness
9. Out Of Date
10. Ticka-Oh Ticka-E
h 11. Always In The Morning
12. The Ones We Love

I've divided them up there because the first five have a sort of linked narrative, and the last six do too. There is an element of reminiscence and changing times to the whole album. The Boring Ceefax song is, for me, is a tribute to Jean-Michel Jarre because it keeps reminding me of Magnetic Fields Pt. 5 - though, to be clear, it's not a critique of it. Indeed Magnetic Fields is perhaps Jarre's best album. I'm sure that his track itself is an ironic self-parody, a mirror, like my track. Another Jarre link is my use of a coffee percolator at the start. I don't know why that should be a link, perhaps the Frenchness, but for some reason the sound of this machine in a piece of music really made me think of Jarre's music. I can't say more than that; in all good art there must be an element of the enigma.

Today I recorded the piano solo for Out Of Date, deliberately all over the place, and the 'epic' guitar solo (how I love this Yamaha Amp, and my BMG guitar!), plus a gentle acoustic guitar solo for Eyes Of Pity.

I also recorded the vocals for Teenage Dream, which are simple enough.

I wondered about making a soundproof booth. The trick with soundproofing is not absorption - that would merely collect and re-send the waves, but reflection or deflection. I wonder if two steel or ceramic plates facing each other would eternally reflect and dissipate sound?