A couple of new days later ..

Thursday, 12th April 2012
10:57:Hrs;
That was yesterday .. today’s another day .. In fact that was yesterday around mid-day .. and the afternoon was different and the evening was different again ..
Intellectually we all know every moment is new .. and of course it is ! So .. lucky us .. human beings .. maybe not appreciating enough the wonder and marvel of simply .. life .. perhaps not giving enough thanks .. I would like to .. right here and right now ..
Whoo ! where to start with what’s been going on ? Generally speaking of course .. too much information .. both giving and receiving so .. a precis maybe ..
Yesterday’s stuff in the afternoon will be on the other comp .. I went to it to try out the simplicity of being on the sofa with just the comp and no peripherals .. went to Ableton 8.2.2 because it has a lot of sounds and instruments that I don’t have available on the Lite or trial 8 versions .. Made a couple of tracks of weird sounds using clips and the Operator synth .. Fun .. a bit crazy but a relief from the rigors of trying to make straight music in such a complicated way and also from all that heavy beats DJ type music which I don’t even like much and Ableton seems so oriented towards .. It would be great if they were a bit more balanced in their approach and gave a few more ‘normal’ instrument sounds at a lower entry level .. It’s perhaps not what they are all about but it seems a shame that maybe there isn’t an equivalent level for straightforward sounds and music .. Pro Tools perhaps ? (I should write to Hashim) .. Maybe I could write to their support team / forum and suggest it ?
So .. when I had done that I stuck them with some photos on Picasa and did a couple of videos .. just banged out .. one with a short and more spacey track using images of the universe that I had collected about the Unleashed book cover, here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq_UZ7-LO0s&context=C46dea66ADvjVQa1PpcFNhfdob5DaKstjUiMqlXGk4UHU08dt9hBI=
and the other one more crashing and weird and a bit longer using the images of comic answers to the search for Truth, here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9jCfEvrnZI&context=C4b894a5ADvjVQa1PpcFNhfdob5DaKshd4B8GWSWMlI7Cihsq_69s=
.. Quite fun .. although of course nobody’s going to look at them ! ha haa  .. Who can I direct to them ? Mahmoud .. Martin .. Vicki .. Jamal .. Patricia .. I just basically think it’s nothing they haven’t seen before and they’re all much too busy to spend time on that stuff .. (?) .. negative attitude ? well maybe .. or just realistic .. I don’t know .. Of course it begs the question of why do it in the first place .. (answer .. practice .. getting better .. gradually jacking up skills in all areas & how to get them onto the net .. which equates to ‘general release’ .. maybe in the vain hope that someone will find them and like them .. a bit like the thing that that dear old Oxford professor type said to me in Brighton .. “You write to be overheard.” .. and like Alix’s thing of calling my music “Songs from another room.” ss’O.K.)
Then there are all the people on Facebook .. but what to do there ? Many of them will give over the top praise which they tend to do in a spirit of lovee and spirituality and positive thinking but it is hardly objective or useful criticism .. I don’t think I need it and really perhaps I don’t want it because I already know how amateurish the efforts are .. just ideas chucked out and bits and pieces put together using the tehnology available at a general level these days to make some collages and to me they are fun .. but ..
So anyway .. I did that .. (I know in some ways I should put all this stuff on the ‘Just Me’ blog .. but .. I don’t think anyone would want to read it really .. and it is a bit embarrassing sometimes and I have this silly thing about having started it on a Tuesday) .. so again .. too much information .. the mind running on and maybe I should learn to control it .. There were some good comments on that thing I looked at last thing at night the other day .. Some Zen quotes or something and somewhere in there it was well expressed about the one who is talking doesn’t have time to learn or something like that ..
So where was I ? Mmm (I pop back and put some links in to the vids just in case I do blog all this crap) ..
And .. I suppose the point is .. absolutely dog tired and falling asleep at the comp, I decided to have a look what it would be like using the keyboard with Mixcraft (and maybe afterwards Fruity Loops and Cubase .. ) .. Well that was fun .. !
So easy actually .. not a bad piano sound and actually a quite good sax sound .. (thinks .. could I import VST instrument into Ableton somehow ? .. probably) ..
I did a meandering track of an unedited paino idea as it came to me and then trying out the sax and then adding some bass .. (after the fact, which is not good timing-wise but helps to suss out, a) what is really happening vis a vis chord changes and basic arrangement and b) some sort of skill in doing bass instead of just following the melody)
and finally some drums .. which though it is not a typical drum kit thing of driving the rhythm is more like an added percussion to emphasise and underline bits .. a skill which I am developing out of necessity ..
Alltogether .. though very rough it was quick and easy and had ‘something’ a slightly haunting laid back thing and I liked it enough to listen to it a few times .. there is the germ of an idea there and also I am aware all the time that the last couple of things I have tried on the piano (after many years away from it and very rusty) .. have a lyric feel .. they beg for words and to be made into songs ..
So .. of course .. I banged it up on SoundCloud .. here:
http://soundcloud.com/sufibridge/meandering-trail
and .. to my surprise ! .. there is one comment on it from a guy in Los Angeles .. saying “Nice track.” Well ! ..
So this morning I went back to have a listen and played around putting some effects on which make the whole sound more rich .. I ought to put that version up if it sounds that much better (tho then I’d lose my one fan !  unless I leave both up and I am rapidly running out of time of course .. If necessary I can buy a £29.00 one or even get the five months if I go for the Ableton upgrade .. We’ll see .)
So is that it then ? .. more or less .. Another development was .. as I am interested in that lovely sax sound I like so much on arrangements (remember those days when people like Van Morrison and Joni Mitchel went jazzy with such lovely arrangements .. ?) I went and listened to Stan Getz of which I have quite a lot in my music folder, much of which I haven’t listened to properly, and got quite intrigued around a track called “Amorous Cat.” which is on an album called Apasionado. I also watched a video of the track on UTube .. and, as usual was impressed by the size of the venues and the numbers of people, as well as thinking about all the money that must be generated and how wealthy he must have become .. I didn’t go into his biography, which jumped up everywhere, but while looking for the chords or some music to the track did end up on one of those Guitar sites and had a quick look at Wonderwall and the words and chords .. I can’t for the life of me think what it is that intrigues me about Noel Gallagher .. I suppose bright and gutsy and Irish Mancunian .. The words are clever/poetic and the chords interesting enough to go back and check up on .. Strange to think how one may see a bit of how his head works (at least vis a vis the guitar) by looking at the chord progressions ..
There was all this advice about a capo on the second fret and your two fingers remaining on the same strings and I don’t know what .. but actually the chords are what is interesting .. I am kind of stuck around a sound I like, which seems to have originated in that kind of Los Angeles, Carol King, Steve Stills era thing .. and seems to be something to do with white notes on the piano and an A minor key perhaps .. the relative minor to C major ? so it would be good to try something different.
Anyway .. that’s about it .. except that the chords to what I was doing last night are around Amin7th Emin7th F and G .. though I think not exactly that ..
I even wonder wether to try to find someone to teach me about music as I was thinking a couple of years ago when I first arrived down here all ‘up’ and full of the joys of Spring and a new start etc etc ..
Hey ho .. Life is good all is well ..