Where Is Love Pianos, ArtSwarm Plans

More music work today and yesterday, slow and steady days. Much of yesterday was spent adding more music layers to 'Where is Love?'; an electric piano solo at the end, and some organ sounds which are 'infinitely looped' with a Prometheus trick. It sounds rather nice, rich, warm, like the organs in 'Whiter Shade of Pale'. I also completed the end parts for the light fittings.

The lights are nearly complete. I need to make the legs, and wire 3 light fittings, but that can wait.

I need to finish more artwork, this interminable album. New albums! I am making slow progress. I need vocals for Fake Plastic Lies and Aspartame. With those tracks I'll have 45 minutes of album, a standard length. It's broadly stuck to plan, though it feels rather normal and staid... a mix of tracks, a dozen or so. I'm trying to unify them musically and reinforce the story and scenes. The initial idea of a three tone unifying thema has barely materialised, except upon analysis of tracks like 'Where is Love?' when compared with the Robot Guard song and P-L-Astic.

Aspartame is proving difficult. It's nigh on impossible to sing because the melody was generated by computer dice rolls. There are octave jumps and a melody which is too random to easily follow. Perhaps I'll need to sight-read it.

Another job done today was framing the two portraits for Bickerton. Perhaps I should paint more, but I feel a little artistically lost, uncertain. There are too many possibilities. I am musing on new directions.

This week I'll work on an SFXEngine update, and my piece for ArtSwarm: Tea. Unless I get 15 attendees, it will be the last ArtSwarm. These events are more work than pleasure and always were. Elton John, in one of my recently watched documentaries, said that artists should play live, 'even if only to 20 people'. Of my 100 or so performances, very few have reached the dizzy heights of 20. I know that I could host an ArtSwarm every month for my entire life and still not attract more people. The main benefits are the creation of new work, and the experience of playing live, but aside from the physical work and promotion, each costs me more money than I can afford.

A.I. and Celebrity Vocals, Hydroxy-Chloroquinine-Aspartame, Light Progress

A good day today, woke early and recorded a few lines for 'A.I. and Celebrity', then an attempt at Hydroxy-Chloroquinine-Aspartame, which is nigh on impossible to sing, thus joyous to try.

Then more work on the lights, drawing out the sides and cutting these from 3mm board, gluing these up, then cutting bolt-holes for the legs. I'm near the end of this mammoth project, then I can charge into art (though next week will involve SFXEngine, and preparation for ArtSwarm: Tea).

Finally, some vocoder recording for possible extra layers on A.I. and Hydroxy. I've had an idea for a new vocoder algorithm which uses higher order low and high pass filters, with possible separate input/output frequency ranges. As it's used primarily (exclusively?) with voices, it makes sense to focus the frequencies on the voice area. This would be 4 times slower than my current algorithm, which is already slow, already needs 16 or 32 band-pass filters. I suspect than even this fancy computer couldn't manage it it real-time, yet the sound might be good (and certainly unique). I love vocoders as much as I despise 'vocal pitch-correction'. The Microkorg sounds so good compared to even the fancy 2022 edition MODX.

Lights, Where Is Love?

A tired day, and struck by anxiety at a nearly serious powertool accident. I really need better tools, and must remain on my guard.

Drilled the holes for the light fittings today, and recorded vocals and did a little work on a very gentle, plaintive, gospel-chapel song called Where is Love?

Where is Love?

Friends,
of the future,
from the void of the past, I ask you,
where are you going?
and who will care when you get there?

Where is love?
When there's nobody like you.

Where is love?
When you haven't a voice.
Where is love?
When your actions mean nothing to the world.
Are you feeling ignored?

Who is there?
In the patterns in the wallpaper?
Who is there?
In the dew-soaked hedgerows?
Who is there?
In the dark, dense woods? The moonlit maze?

Who is that statue, these statues? They are weeping... For me?

A.I. and Celebrity Vocals, Light Tests

Well, a rather sleepless night resulted in waking from deep dreams at past 10am.

I started with a new porridge formula. The newer 900W microwave has started to overspill, and get my (also new, but vintage from the 1990s) Johnson Bros. plate too hot, so I've been experimenting with alternative timings. The new formula is 60g porridge, 240g water; and 1:30 at 900W, then 2:30 at 600W. This seems to work. Deb thought it excessive that I'd consider the season, the room and water temperature in my cookery calculations.

The house was empty so I dashed to vocals and recorded them for 'A.I. and Celebrity'. They sounded fine, but there are a lot of fast words in there so a second take to account for overlaps may help. I watched parts of the Sparks concert. Their music doesn't seem to suit a live audience well, with mouthfuls of usually unintelligible words; their artisan, absolutely surrealistic, music works best recorded. For live work I think they'd benefit from a creating a simpler album for just Ron and Russell, less heavy production, perhaps yes, more Elton-John-like.

After the vocals, I assembled a test backing for my lights. They are so very flimsy. I wanted them lightweight, but perhaps they are too weak! It was good enough for a bulb and diffuser test however. This images barely indicate reality:

There is a visible fade for the bulb and the light is not very bright (this is less of a problem, I can simply use a longer exposure time). I'll certainly need 3 bulbs; the more the better! This took a few hours, then preparation for a piano lesson for Deborah, for this evening. Next step for the lights is to get those bulbs, then make the end panels which will hold the cone in its frustum shape. Then, making the legs, which will be foldable and each made from a single 2.4M length of wood.

The A.I. and Celebrity words have evolved quite a lot since initial writing. Here they are as sung today:

A.I. and Celebrity

I made a new friend today.
She's addictive.
Got her chromium claws in my brain,
like an alien insect dominatrix.
She's no fool.
Seems to know all about me.
Has the scent of a silicon toy,
and the taste of American dollar bills.

The thrill of apocalypse
on a Sunday.

She's A.I. and celebrity.
She's A.I. and celebrity.
Offers dreams beyond reality,
beyond the darkness,
the dirt
of the organic.

She took my desires
twisted my hopes to knot.
Promised me comfort then made me a slave,
the worry of freedom is long forgot.
And my flickering thoughts
are on her market
She's got my bed in her mind and her sights
her grass is metallic and so green

Inside her whirlpool!
I can't escape it's much too late!
Her blue-light pulls me, Icarus
to heaven's golden gate

She's A.I. and celebrity
She's A.I. and celebrity
Offers dreams beyond reality
beyond the darkness
beyond the dirt
beyond the dreary
senseless life
organic.

There's no food.
There's no sex.
There's no spite.
There's no worry.
There's no chaos.
There's no mud.
There's no delight
In her blood.

She's A.I. and celebrity
She's A.I. and celebrity

Light Construction, The Album

I cut a couple more of the 'petals' for my lights last night before bed, then slept for 11 hours, exhausted. I woke and painted these with 4 coats of white primer, then marked them for drilling and drilled the hinge holes, sorted the hinges; at least a third were too stiff to open at all and needed to be thrown away! So much for 'bargains'.

Then it was a matter of cutting the diffuser film and attaching the pegs to the outside. As everything is bolted, these have potential to be dismantled.

After that, the hinges were fitted.

It's been a tiring few days working on this, my latest exhausting obsession for little reward, but such is art and such is life. Progress on the 'Robots' album is going well, though hampered by my inability to record the vocals here. When will I have the space to do this? This prevention of making my art saddens me immensely. I know my 'parents' (as I've said elsewhere, I feel no connection with those people, and never believed they were my actual parents - whatever that word may mean) hate my art and everything I do, as they express this often and hurtfully. I dislike showing my art, any aspect of my work or self, to anyone due to their training to conceal it or face retribution. So much of my art-life has been about trying to overcome this. At times I feel doomed. Yet, I know that victories come only from battles.

I watched Elton John's 1977 Wembley concert, laughing at his declatation that it would be his last. I've only ever seen (on television) three Elton John concerts and at each one he's delcared it to be his last! After that, a more recent Sparks concert, which wasn't as good, though Russel's vocals (at over 70 years of age) had a higher reach than Elton's in 1977, and one can't help but love those brothers. For me, these concerts are learning rather than entertainment opportunities.

Yesterday I scanned (on my flatbed scanner) the two Bickerton portraits but the colours were massively incorrect. Perhaps this obsession is idiotic. Perhaps I should be painting more, making more art, not so worried about its preservation and presentation, yet, for me, the filing aspect, the catalogue and photography is part of the art. Nobody cares about or will do this for me. I have to do everything myself. I am able, so I must.

Prometheus Resampling, Lighting Construction

A sleepless night of stomach pain and inflammatory twitches. This led to a late awakening and a slow start. Started with some more programming refinements to Prometheus. Ah programming! This always settles me but can lead to odd obsessions for perfection which drag on time.

The tiny fix I made yesterday was almost too small for an update, so I added a new option to maximise (normalise) a sample, plus (more usefully and importantly) the ability to resample a sample between any two frequencies. The algorithm was/is based on the anti-aliased sample playback, but with even higher precision. It seems to work but I don't know how to objectively test how brilliant it sounds. This may be useful for SFXEngine updates, or any updates. Now, and always for years, all of my samples have needed to be 44100hz, but now I could theoretically import at any frequency and convert (though it would tend to be lower quality; starting and staying with 44100hz would be best). I could, theoretically, export in any frequency too, with the same caveat. I could change the export options and use the algorithms with a new sample-table. Even now I can turn down Prometheus an octave, thus effectively exporting an 88200hz file. It's trivial to extend that to any value. 48000hz has, in recent years, become the de-facto basic standard, with 96000hz for 'pro' quality audio; so my motivation for this resampling code was preparation to potentially support for these values. Internally, SFXEngine and Prometheus samples are 4x oversampled, so they're effectively 176400hz and downsampled during playback.

Well, the programming took all morning. Then I started work on the lighting. By chance, Wilkinson has some 810 lumen bulbs on sale at £6 for two, so I bought four. These used to be about £8 each. I think they're cheaper now as they're being supplanted by dimmable ones, which I don't need or want. I then cut the 6mm MDF into strips and painted my 3mm HDF too, but now I realise I'll need four more of these! These lights will cost me at least £100, probably £150 in materials.

All of this has taken all day. No work done on music, art or anything else. Next step is to cut 4 more of the thin baffle/reflector flange things for the other light, then cut the polyester diffusers, then drill holes for the hinges, then everything will be ready to test with mock-lights so see how even it all looks...

This will hopefully help solve my problem with getting the best images of my paintings. Last year's were not great. Lighting inaccuracy is the next biggest imperfection in my never-ending quest for the best art reproductions.

A.I and Celebrity, Studio Lights, Prometheus v3.12

A busy and tiring day, but one of dramas and artistic highs.

The day started with work on my studio light design, floor-standing horizontal lights for photographing my paintings. I couldn't decide whether to make several smaller lights which could be added to as needed, or aim for strips 1 metre wide, and if the latter, how many bulbs to use? I'll start with 2 I think but perhaps drill space for 3 as an experiment to see what works best... the backing will be 6mm MDF, with 3mm boards for the top/bottom reflectors (I cut these today), and polyester drafting film as the main diffuser. I'll need to make two lights in total, a matching pair. A key problem is storage as I'll probably use them only once or twice per year, so they can't be too big, yet they need to be as big as my biggest painting to provide an even light, and need to be as big as my biggest paintings, almost half of the room in length! The legs (the light must be 1M off the floor) will need to be collapsible for storage. I'll use 6mm bolts to fit them and they'll fold like my studio easel.

I drilled some 5mm holes, and did some experiments with bolts and hinges, I'll need M4 bolts/machine screws. Normal screws are not an option for fixing hinges to 3mm wood, and it also makes everything dismantlable and reusable.

Most of today has been spent working on the production and composition of 'A.I. and Celebrity', a song which I didn't particularly like at first and needed a lot of work. Essentially, before now the music was a thudding bass line and some smooth chords. I decided to break up the rhythms into fast and slow, with occasionally breaks of the very-electronic sounding bass into slow bends of the sort which appeared in Commodore 64 tunes a lot; the Zamzara theme by Maniacs of Noise is one example, it broke between fast, and sustained bending bass, and my pulse-wave based bass very much echoes the C64 (as the song is about A.I. and computers, these allusions are intentional).

This sounded okay, but my initial sub-melody/counterpoint sounded morose. Sub-melodies are crucial to a song. It is these, rather than the vocal lead, that stick in peoples' minds and songs that lack them are second rate; but they can so alter the mood that their composition (rather than the method of playing or timbre) is the key driver of the emotion. I started with a strange oscillator synchronised lead, but it didn't work, so I switched it for a pulse wave (which has a stabbing start; a 50ms pitch jump, and a rapid pulse width modulation). It's melody romanced the lead melody. I then added layers gradually to build up energy in this race of a tune which gains energy during the verses. Another instrument, for the chorus, was a bleep that emulated the ancient beep that old IBM-PC speakers used to make upon start-up.

The chorus has an epic feeling, and breaks into a half-speed beat, like a rollercoaster that has hit the peak and has taken off into flight, so timing is used as much as anything to build; swell the mood and drama of the song. This first chorus ends in a slowed down solo, which I played along to live using the MODX, before charging into a second verse, a mid-section, and a second chorus which has a slightly different structure.

At one point I found a bug in Prometheus concerned with the expansion/contraction of notes, so it's been fixed and updated to v3.12. I've also been working more on SFXEngine promotion and update plans.

Onwards I charge!

Music Work, Fake Plastic Lies, Aspartame, Art Thoughts

A few most steady days of music work, punctuated with helping my father with his passport, and with SFXEngine work, promotion of the Steam Sales.

Work on the music has been slow, but steady. Often I'm unsure why I'm doing it, but I am learning, and getting better with each song and each release. This isn't always evident on a day to day basis but more clear over longer times, and so worth doing for that reason alone. Artistically, these songs are often pop-like and simple, but not always, and, of course, I aim to do my best, the best, of each song and each section.

Yesterday I reworked an Oldfield 1 composition I called 'Yellow Balloon Attack', but added words and wrote a new song called 'Hydroxy-Chloroquinine-Aspartame' around it. For all of Oldfields' 'intelligence' I've had to do a lot of work to make this into a better song. The structure had to consist of the first couple of pattern's repeated, as it was too loose and stochastic at first, and the balancing was all over the place.

Much of the past three days have been taken up with Fake Plastic Lies and its tedious and exacting guitar accompaniment, strums and strokes in acoustic and electric. These sound good, and I've learned more about playing, as my fingers will attest. The song itself is one of the most simple and pop-like I've recently written, light in every way, which clashes (as it should) with the words... the album itself is very much an ironic comment on computerisation.

This work is hard, slow and unrewarding, though its aim was (as with much of my recent music) to put out there some of my good but unheard songs from both recent times and the past. I should paint too, though again my incentive is minimal, for my own self-improvement. I've read some fragments of Dali. I must agree with a lecture where he condemned (the art of) local customs, and all buildings over 20 years old. Such condemnations are more important than ever; what was his machine age is now a digital one even more divorced from 'tradition', and now we have 'community art' to add to the pile of pointless customs and minority art or art for/by specific exclusive groups. If we are to dispose of these things, what is left? The universal? In the universe, would the art of the Earth be considered parochial?

For now, our culture remains in 'anything goes' mode, a philosophy when applied to academia is 'everyone gets an A'. Things must change, but I've been expecting this for years, and the primary changes have been technological, and even socio-political due to that technology. Creation methods aside, cultural content seems to have been remarkably static, generic, noisy, unfocused for the last 10 years.