Sunday, January 31, 2016

Four Times At Bat in the Rockhouse

There's been a whole lot of musicking today and this last was the fourth time so me corpus is feeling it.  One bit of advice on this: if you want to played a stringed instrument, do not ever break your left thumb.  Do what you like with the others, Django played with two, but do not mess up your thumb.  Nothing else can make enough pain to stop me but that can because the hand stops working.

That matter is germane because the soft instrumental part has attracted some pretty acousticness with electric and I'm liking it more and more but it hurts one flaming bitch to do it.  This type of playing takes a different pressure as in more of it to get the right sound so that's why it's relevant.

The intro to "Andromeda Weeps" is instrumental so that's a big thumb demand right off the top.  I also like using it for an outro because that gives the gentle lift-off and the gentle landing which presents a peach of a contrast to missiles blasting off and blowing things all to hell.


Some people compose but, for me, it's like taking a sheet out of the dryer and shaking the wrinkles out of it.

(Ed:  you compose based on which keys are broken or based on your laundry experiences?)

Both, apparently.


The sound of the arpeggiation bit got a bit fatter because I put another layer on it and the combination with the guitar is luscious ... and loud.  There's a call to war, to launch the missiles, to kill the fuck out of every damn thing.  The music for this part has to be aggressive.

The music is structured but insane at the same time in part because the generals have a process for destroying the world and they are determined to follow it.  The arpeggiation is everything which can happen from every single step, something they usually ignore.

The visual on this bit is vague because there's the likely possibility of harvesting a virtual missile silo in Second Life.  Unknown if it's possible to get video of a real one.  If that were the case, there would have to be another layer of green screen with The Raven and Suitable Squeeze to isolate them and then drop them into the setting with the real silo, something of that nature.  I know I can do that but logistics are difficult.


Some Trips parts have been tried with the thinking simple is good for wild jams so maybe even a monochord because that permits playing just about anything you like for lead.  I tried with two chords and it was ok and most of this is about getting in and out of it of this particular phrase.  Go off and trip for a while and then come back but keep it on the beat, bucko.

The breakaway from the primary bit can't be like you just got hit by a fish, you should realize what happened and then it connects immediately so you think, yah, of course it did that.  If that doesn't happen then the song sucks and/or the musician tried an experiment which did not work.  Same thing coming back out of it.

Trips has to be there.  We need the mad-in-love part because, well, they are and this is an improv bit on both sides.  If, say, I get The Raven and Suitable Squeeze into this then this is where they play it out while I go ripshit in some trippy way on the guitar.  Everything is marvelously groovulous at this moment because they don't know yet the alert to war is coming.  That makes this bit free-form lovey.

(Ed:  what if they get naked?)

I wouldn't reject the clip on that basis.  That visual is their art and, unless I just think it flat-out sucks for some reason, it's really not for me to dictate too much the content.  I need to portray a particular thing but how they choose to do that is at the discretion of the artist.  The Raven and I worked that once before and it was excellent.  It was like he had an intuitive feel for dance theater.

(Ed:  what if they don't want to do it?)

Then all of the story part needs to be virtual.  The green screen aspect still applies because that brings the virtual into the real Rockhouse.


The part which needs the storyboard is during the actual reading or singing of the lyrics.  That's the immediate story telling and the visuals must follow that, whether real or virtual.


Maybe all the rot about musicking is a drag for some but I fried on what's on the news.  It's all so damn stupid and/or angry and/or evil.  The biggest reaction on Facebook has been a storm of memes mocking Sarah Palin as if there is yet another mother lode of stupid things to say about her.  There hasn't been much of anything she said but loads and loads of people quoting things she didn't say.  Mountains and mountains of rubbish.  She speaks and it's rubbish and they react to make yet more rubbish.  Pfft.

So, lotta musicking happening and yet more coming but the Silas is gassed after four rounds.

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