Rainy Day 2
Wednesday, July 12th, 2023 11:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio67F out there this morning, if you can believe it, and raining! That's what I'm talking about! Not raining hard... just a sprinkle... but it's nice and cloudy!
So, Yesterday started hot and sunny, then we got a good hour long soak around 3:30PM, then the sun came back out.
Not the rainiest rainy day, but it qualified.
And then last night it started coming down pretty hard after midnight.
Today is a properly rainy day, but sadly, the forecast has changed...
We're gonna have to endure sun tomorrow, before getting back to rain on Friday and Saturday.
--<>--
I didn't get anything accomplished yesterday, other than taking the bins out.
But when I was out there, it did seem like there were more lightning bugs than usual... so I wondered if the rain had something to do with it.
Saw some bats in back too, and now I'm wondering if it's possible they're living way up there in the locust tree.
Now that the mulberry is gone, it's high arching branches are hanging over a huge empty space below... which is what I've heard bats like, because it allows them to dive down and build up speed to fly.
--<>--
My only goal for today is to get back to work on the music for Closer to You.
I'm getting kind of anxious to have it done, and start working on the next song.
I realized last night that there are two or three good songs from back in the day that never got recorded well... songs I actually used to perform.
Clue Phone is the best of those, and was a staple of our repertoire when I was in the band with Brian for five years.
We did record a studio version of it, but the guys recording us were inept, and the result was pretty bad.
------------{=0=}------------
11:06PM
It was raining hard enough when I left for work I used my umbrella to get to the car... and then from the car in and out of Fiesta Food Mart for smokes... and then into the school building.
Later on in the day it died down, and the sun even came out for a bit, but then on the drive home, it was another downpour like last week.
And while I was going slow down Montgomery road, out in the wide open countryside, barely able to see the car in front of me... THIS popped up on my phone!..
Not a watch, but a goddam TORNADO WARNING until 6PM... which is when I normally get home!
So I was a bit spooked out there, but I got to a strip mall that had a Subway, and pulled in to get a sandwich... because I was pretty hungry anyway.
In there, I heard a guy on the radio saying the Tornado was spotted outside of Oswego, heading east.
That was well south of me, so I figured I was safe, and the clouds parted anyway, while I was eating, and the sun came out.
I left the strip mall at about 6:02PM, and went home.
--<>--
As planned, I spent the evening in the studio, working on the latter half of Closer to You, while listening in headphones.
I was disappointed to find out that the pitch bending tricks I'd learned from YouTube only work with native sample sounds.
Supposedly there are ways to get some imported VST samples to pitch bend, but... clearly not the free ones I'm using!
That's how they gitcha!
It wasn't that big a deal though.
The big effort tonight was just working out the whole section where the refrain happens three times, with those three big horn builds.
So, it's a six measure thing that happens three times... four measures of refrain, and two measures of build.
The idea is to add a few more instruments each time, but... it's easy for that to turn into a huge mess!
The first refrain, post bridge (this is all post bridge) is great! And that build is the original horn build, so that's fine too.
In the second refrain, I've been trying to add in the suggestion of train (trolley) travel, with the additional elements of... piano, cowbell, a shaker, and flutes that are supposed to mimic train horns.
And that was getting messy, but I've almost got it cleaned up and working now!
I think what needs to happen is that the bass guitar needs to calm down for the train part, so that you can hear the piano and cello more clearly.
--<>--
In my peak with the 8-track digital recorder, back around 2006 and 07, I got really good at kinda drawing pictures with music.
Embeded below is the song, "In A Dream," which features a section where I'm singing about jumping off a cliff down into a river and then swimming underwater to try and get back to the surface and the shore.
And the music makes you see all of that, with plunging violins for the jump, and descending pan flutes for the air you're falling through... and after a splash, the swimming sequence is even better.
--<>--
So, I'm trying to recapture that ability in the current song, by using intruments to evolk a trolley ride... which is pretty wild!
Basically, that first big horn build goes into the trolley ride, and the idea is that this utopian vision of the past has suddenly become real.
--<>--
I like the whimsical romance of making a trolley, or lack thereof, the central issue of a song.
And I like so much how the little, "downtown," phrase from earlier in the song, turns into this utopian theme... that I kinda want to keep aluding to it, in the rest of the songs that will be on this, "album."
--<>--
And yes!.. this is the first night that I'm thinking in terms of, "album."
It may take a year or two, but eventually I'll have recorded enough new tracks to group together into a playlist [knocks wood].
And that will be my first album since 2008!
It can sit up there on Soundcloud with the other four... never getting played by anybody.
But hey!.. a guy can always dream of posthumous fame, right?
------------{=0=}------------
MIDNIGHT
Okay! Well... Wednesday's over, and I'm not sure what my Thursday's gonna be about.
Still waiting for that goddamn letter BMO said they were sending.
Probably need to get groceries delivered.
But rain is now back on the table for this fine Thursday!
So we'll see what Rainy Day 3 has in store!
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
So, Yesterday started hot and sunny, then we got a good hour long soak around 3:30PM, then the sun came back out.
Not the rainiest rainy day, but it qualified.
And then last night it started coming down pretty hard after midnight.
Today is a properly rainy day, but sadly, the forecast has changed...
We're gonna have to endure sun tomorrow, before getting back to rain on Friday and Saturday.
I didn't get anything accomplished yesterday, other than taking the bins out.
But when I was out there, it did seem like there were more lightning bugs than usual... so I wondered if the rain had something to do with it.
Saw some bats in back too, and now I'm wondering if it's possible they're living way up there in the locust tree.
Now that the mulberry is gone, it's high arching branches are hanging over a huge empty space below... which is what I've heard bats like, because it allows them to dive down and build up speed to fly.
My only goal for today is to get back to work on the music for Closer to You.
I'm getting kind of anxious to have it done, and start working on the next song.
I realized last night that there are two or three good songs from back in the day that never got recorded well... songs I actually used to perform.
Clue Phone is the best of those, and was a staple of our repertoire when I was in the band with Brian for five years.
We did record a studio version of it, but the guys recording us were inept, and the result was pretty bad.
It was raining hard enough when I left for work I used my umbrella to get to the car... and then from the car in and out of Fiesta Food Mart for smokes... and then into the school building.
Later on in the day it died down, and the sun even came out for a bit, but then on the drive home, it was another downpour like last week.
And while I was going slow down Montgomery road, out in the wide open countryside, barely able to see the car in front of me... THIS popped up on my phone!..
Not a watch, but a goddam TORNADO WARNING until 6PM... which is when I normally get home!
So I was a bit spooked out there, but I got to a strip mall that had a Subway, and pulled in to get a sandwich... because I was pretty hungry anyway.
In there, I heard a guy on the radio saying the Tornado was spotted outside of Oswego, heading east.
That was well south of me, so I figured I was safe, and the clouds parted anyway, while I was eating, and the sun came out.
I left the strip mall at about 6:02PM, and went home.
As planned, I spent the evening in the studio, working on the latter half of Closer to You, while listening in headphones.
I was disappointed to find out that the pitch bending tricks I'd learned from YouTube only work with native sample sounds.
Supposedly there are ways to get some imported VST samples to pitch bend, but... clearly not the free ones I'm using!
That's how they gitcha!
It wasn't that big a deal though.
The big effort tonight was just working out the whole section where the refrain happens three times, with those three big horn builds.
So, it's a six measure thing that happens three times... four measures of refrain, and two measures of build.
The idea is to add a few more instruments each time, but... it's easy for that to turn into a huge mess!
The first refrain, post bridge (this is all post bridge) is great! And that build is the original horn build, so that's fine too.
In the second refrain, I've been trying to add in the suggestion of train (trolley) travel, with the additional elements of... piano, cowbell, a shaker, and flutes that are supposed to mimic train horns.
And that was getting messy, but I've almost got it cleaned up and working now!
I think what needs to happen is that the bass guitar needs to calm down for the train part, so that you can hear the piano and cello more clearly.
In my peak with the 8-track digital recorder, back around 2006 and 07, I got really good at kinda drawing pictures with music.
Embeded below is the song, "In A Dream," which features a section where I'm singing about jumping off a cliff down into a river and then swimming underwater to try and get back to the surface and the shore.
And the music makes you see all of that, with plunging violins for the jump, and descending pan flutes for the air you're falling through... and after a splash, the swimming sequence is even better.
So, I'm trying to recapture that ability in the current song, by using intruments to evolk a trolley ride... which is pretty wild!
Basically, that first big horn build goes into the trolley ride, and the idea is that this utopian vision of the past has suddenly become real.
I like the whimsical romance of making a trolley, or lack thereof, the central issue of a song.
And I like so much how the little, "downtown," phrase from earlier in the song, turns into this utopian theme... that I kinda want to keep aluding to it, in the rest of the songs that will be on this, "album."
And yes!.. this is the first night that I'm thinking in terms of, "album."
It may take a year or two, but eventually I'll have recorded enough new tracks to group together into a playlist [knocks wood].
And that will be my first album since 2008!
It can sit up there on Soundcloud with the other four... never getting played by anybody.
But hey!.. a guy can always dream of posthumous fame, right?
Okay! Well... Wednesday's over, and I'm not sure what my Thursday's gonna be about.
Still waiting for that goddamn letter BMO said they were sending.
Probably need to get groceries delivered.
But rain is now back on the table for this fine Thursday!
So we'll see what Rainy Day 3 has in store!
°¦}
