Regarding The Ideal Home Music Library, Vol. 2, part 5
I've been waking up late every day this past week. I really have to break this pattern. I get up at noon or 1 with only an hour or so to work on music before I have to get on my bike and head to work. Lily is angry with me. She's feeling a bit neglected, what with me getting home late and waking up late. When I sit at the piano, she lays across the keys, or attacks my fingers and arms. I constantly have to remove her mewing, thrashing body from the keys in order to get anything done. Sometimes I pause to dangle a toy at her to play with. This appeases her only for a short time, however, and she's back to striding across the keys or attacking me. Today we had a rough time. She threw a tantrum and kept leaping from the floor straight onto my arm, sinking her teeth in with every jump. In the end, I had to put her in the bathroom until I was finished. She'll be okay when I get home, hopefully. I'll bring her some treats and play with her. Anyway, despite these distractions, things are really cooking.
The lyric for the verse to Up On The Orange Moon is almost finished. Also, the introduction officially weighs in at 16 bars. At first I was just going to make it a quick 4 bar introduction, but I liked the melody I came up with, so I expanded it. I came up with the expanded version while I was riding my bike across the Burnside bridge yesterday. It contains material from the rest of the song. Bits of the vocal melody from the song are woven into the A section, and the harmony for the bridge of the song is included in the B section. It functions not just as an introduction, but as a kind of overture to the song. The trouble I'm having is what to do with the texture in the B section. Should it be different: Block chords, or just the same texture over the new harmony? I'll play with it more tonight when I get home. I wish there was a way I could describe this introduction in words, without being too technical. But it's impossible, so I'll just leave it there.
The best ideas seem to come when I'm doing something unrelated to music. This is most often true when I'm in transit. On my bike, with nothing else to think about and no one to hear me singing to myself, I usually come up with something. This blog is really helping, because it seems like every time my brain has a few moments to think about nothing, it settles on this music. On road trips I always take a handheld tape recorder with me so I can sing ideas into it while I'm driving. My cell phone even has a handy little voice recorder for memos, so I use that too. This is handy for bus stops and street crossings (while on foot, of course!).
I'm sad because we start filming again this weekend and I have to work Saturday and Sunday, so I won't have much time to do more work. I'm hoping Monday and Tuesday next week will be productive days. Anyway, more later.
The lyric for the verse to Up On The Orange Moon is almost finished. Also, the introduction officially weighs in at 16 bars. At first I was just going to make it a quick 4 bar introduction, but I liked the melody I came up with, so I expanded it. I came up with the expanded version while I was riding my bike across the Burnside bridge yesterday. It contains material from the rest of the song. Bits of the vocal melody from the song are woven into the A section, and the harmony for the bridge of the song is included in the B section. It functions not just as an introduction, but as a kind of overture to the song. The trouble I'm having is what to do with the texture in the B section. Should it be different: Block chords, or just the same texture over the new harmony? I'll play with it more tonight when I get home. I wish there was a way I could describe this introduction in words, without being too technical. But it's impossible, so I'll just leave it there.
The best ideas seem to come when I'm doing something unrelated to music. This is most often true when I'm in transit. On my bike, with nothing else to think about and no one to hear me singing to myself, I usually come up with something. This blog is really helping, because it seems like every time my brain has a few moments to think about nothing, it settles on this music. On road trips I always take a handheld tape recorder with me so I can sing ideas into it while I'm driving. My cell phone even has a handy little voice recorder for memos, so I use that too. This is handy for bus stops and street crossings (while on foot, of course!).
I'm sad because we start filming again this weekend and I have to work Saturday and Sunday, so I won't have much time to do more work. I'm hoping Monday and Tuesday next week will be productive days. Anyway, more later.