2019: Year in Review

2019: Year in Review

I began the year with a wondrous hangover. My friend cooked me a breakfast I almost had to reject. We then spent the morning watching back-to-back episodes of Bad Education. Did this augur well, or ill?

The world around me, as it happened

As current affairs unfolded through the year, I looked on mostly with a sense of impotent horror. Would we leave the EU without a deal? No. Would we leave with a deal? No. Would parliament make up its mind? No. Would May survive? No. Would parliamentary democracy itself survive? It began to look doubtful. The parliament of 2017-19 was so foul that it needs its own name to mark it out for posterity. There is the Merciless Parliament of 1388; the Rump Parliament of 1648; I suppose the parliament that ended in 2010 will be known as the Expenses Parliament; this one needs a fitting name as well. Here are some of my suggestions:

• Deadlock Parliament
• Parliament of Fouls
• Dishonourable Parliament
• Parliament of Liars
• Defectors’ Parliament
• The Parliament That Could Not Make Up Its Mind

Suggestions on a postcard.

The low point was after the Supreme Court overruled the Queen and sent the parliamentarians back to discuss Brexit some more – because, after three years of talking and voting for deadlock, they needed more time to talk about deadlock. Only, they chose to discuss something else: themselves. In scenes of fury and self-righteousness, parliament made itself irrelevant like it had never been before, and I hated the MPs for it; I hated them the more that they pitied themselves.

To cap it off, they refused for weeks and weeks to dissolve themselves.

With the election December, for the first time since 2010 we have stable majority government: the next five years will be without a major election or (one hopes, as one looks to Scotland) referendum. We have had, in the last five years, two referendums (both traumatic) and three general elections. That is too much for us to bear.

Personal objectives for the year that has passed

In my last review, going into 2019, I set myself six objectives, which I totally forgot about and ought really to have pinned to my bedroom wall. As it is, here they are, assessed:

1. Get the novel drafted to a standard that I can send it to an agent. Verdict: No. Utterly FAILED. I was too daunted when it dawned on me how much work needed to be done, more than mere tinkering. I have started, though, belatedly.
2. Get a story or poem published somewhere. Verdict: FAILED, but not for want of trying. My energies dried up with continued failure. I am less sure why my stories were not taken, for I thought they were interesting. My verse is too traditional to be of much interest to the gatekeepers; local poets have effectively said as much.
3. Get fit, not so much to lose weight as to tone up and be healthy. Verdict: Mixed. I seem to drift in and out of fitness. I was doing well with Parkrun in the Summer into the Autumn, but a foot injury has done for that. I shall resume in the new year.
4. Finish the album of music and vanity-publish it: FAILED, because I began to question the point. But I have renewed impetus now.
5. Play live more often: SUCCESS. Of all the objectives, this was the least likely, but I am in a band now, and the next year looks promising for us. 
6. Watch more local rugby: SUCCESS. The easiest to achieve, of course. I have adopted Tonbridge Juddeans as the club I support.

This time last year; and since

I began this year optimistically. Work was going well. I had my first flat. I had achievements I was justly proud of. Not much has changed since then. I still live in the same place, work in the same place, mix with the same friends. The year has been less about progress, more about stability, and in pursuing a life outside of work (but not always knowing how).

There have been some changes. I have continued to lose weight – and this continues to be expensive. But I think I have rediscovered the art of buying clothes. When I was bigger, I unconsciously opted for darker, drab things that attracted no attention. I am now aware of a desire for the opposite; to wear eye-catching, even daring things that I would never have countenanced before.

Added to this, I am also more aware of how welcoming my home can be for others. Especially with seating space and a large kitchen. I have started taking an interest in cooking and hosting, and I am shortly going to buy a cookbook – my very first! Probably Nigella.

Writing

Creatively, I am much stalled. I had a novel which I knew was miles away from being good enough; yet I was so blinded by what I had produced that I could not see how it ought to be. That problem now is solved; at least, I think so. I have radically altered the design; now, I just need to ‘action that’. Some of the pain will be in devising new passages; the rest of the pain will be in butchering and deleting much of what I have already slaved to achieve. Heart-breaking, in a way. But necessary.

Away from prose, I got involved with the local poetry society, but I am ambivalent about it. They have very well organised monthly meetings with high-flying modern poets, usually dividing the evening between an open mic and the guest slot. But I was not inspired by any of the guests. The low point was when two of them, on a joint ticket, recited their collaborative project inspired by Brexit. It became a group therapy session; for those of us not grieving, it was uncomfortable and a bit insulting.

Music 

Arcadian Dawn's first gig

We are Arcadian Dawn. We had our first gig, as a supporting act, in early December, and we were good. We had only had four rehearsals, but four was all we needed: when it was over, the whole thing felt to me as though it had been a real moment. We know we’re onto a good thing, so we are staying together going into the new year. This is what I have wanted for a very long time. I have been searching for other musicians online, but it’s worse than online dating. At present, we are doing covers, but I and one of my bandmates both write original music. For this reason, I now have added cause to get my demo recordings finished, for now there is actually a chance of some of them being played.

Outdoor pursuits 

I began well. In February, I walked around Bewl Water, which I think is 13 miles. I even filmed my day. But I never made a video of it, nor did I do anything greater than a day’s walk this summer. I regret that. The greatest achievement was in August, walking from Tonbridge to my friend’s place in Maidstone, where he put me up for the night. I traced the route of the Medway and saw it in its full Edenic beauty. I had often thought Kent was overreaching slightly when it bills itself as ‘The Garden of England’, with the obvious resonance of Eden; yet I saw it, on the approaches to Maidstone especially.

I wrote a number of pretty verses about the River Medway, before and after this walk. Together, they are basically a pilgrimage text and a love letter to Kent. I dedicated one of them to the outgoing GCSE students, who were good enough to tell me they liked it. I am doubtful any of it will ever see the light of day in publication, not for inadequacies, but because nothing I write ever finds favour with other poets. I am not modest; I know what I write is technically accomplished, but out of step with the times. This year was not my year; perhaps with some luck, I can begin to be published in the year ahead.

Resolutions and objectives for 2020:

1. NO dry January
2. Observe Lent: give up coffee (did me the world of good last time)
3. Reach a decision about the Reserves
4. Keep up the exercise routine
5. Do a proper walk of several days, across some county or other
6. Get the novel done
7. Get published (prose or verse)

The Echoes Sessions

The Echoes Sessions: Easter, 2017

This performance of 'Echoes' is the culmination of a week's work on this piece of music.

Our Arrangement

This performance is based upon an online backing track, which itself is modelled upon Pink Floyd's performance at Pompeii in 1971. Our drummer and bassist were unavailable for these sessions, but as the vocals, guitar and keys are the most complex parts in this song, it was still of value for Adam and I to get them right between us.

The digital stage piano emerged as the preferred key instrument for this piece after we decided we needed organ or synthesiser voices on the overdrive parts in the funk section of the song. Previously we had been mic-ing up a grand piano but it didn't cut through very well in the mix and could only do one thing. There are no piano parts for the keys on the original rhythm section, only organ parts, but we liked the jazz feel that the piano gave to the arrangement whilst the guitar is in support.

Of my two guitars, the best for this piece is Edgar, the Telecaster. He can play a characterful rhythm as well as a soaring lead, which suits what we were aiming for in this song: for the piano to lead in some parts, support in others, and vice-versa with the guitar. Cassius is very effective on rhythm, sitting lower and more discretely in the mix than Edgar, with a shimmering tone. He also has the advantage of having a floating bridge, enabling heavy use of the vibrato during the overdrive sections. However, the tone was less pure and, when leading, less soaring than Edgar's with less sustain. He did a respectable job of it during a rehearsal the previous day, but Edgar's voice is the most pleasing for this piece.

There are many ways of doing the funk section. Pink Floyd's studio version is sparse at first but becomes fuller, with a relentless, hypnotic beat underpinning it. In Pompeii in 1971 and Gdansk in 2006, the emphasis was more upon overpowering improvisational sections, especially Gilmour's, alternating between the organ and the guitar. Their otherwise unnotable rehearsal in Toronto in 1987 took a different stance, emphasising the rhythm guitar and setting the lead overdrive parts lower in the mix, with the organ more dominant and lending a lustre to the lead guitar when Gilmour took over. We decided the approach we liked best was their 1987 version, which felt more like psychedelic funk than rock, and we took many ideas away from it as well as adding our own ideas on how it could be done differently.

How We Did It

The Journey

From our first 'Echoes' session

We had been mucking around with this song for some while. Knowing it well as I do, I assumed my performance would naturally be up to standard. It came as quite a blow, then, when we filmed ourselves playing without a backing track, only for me to realise that my playing was not up to standard on review, for two main reasons above all:

1. I did not play in time
2. I had misconceived how to execute the funk section

I spoke to a close friend of mine about these problems. He said he had had similar experiences when he had been studying music at Conservatoire, and that he had realised back then that he had to put his love of the piece to one side, in a way, and aim for what he called an 'out of body experience': divorce yourself from enjoyment of the music, lest you bash your way through it in a fit of fun; rein yourself in and focus instead upon precision, execution. 

I took this advice on board. 

I later shared with Adam how I would play the rhythm differently: less of a rock riff, more of a slick soft funk, lower in the mix and in support of, rather than competition with, his piano parts. The overdrive sections would need to be toned down as well: still dominant, but more predictable, less improvised and better mixed with a new organ part in order to give the audience an experience of a euphoric rush, rather than being just an opportunity to show off.

We made a demo track based on a backing track we found online, and were immediately thrilled with the result, deciding that this was it, this was how we wanted to sound. We could not wait to hear how it sounded live.

From our third 'Echoes' session, this time with Cassius

Whilst Edgar was waiting for new strings, on the 11th of April we reconvened, this time with Cassius, and used the same backing track. When we reviewed the film footage, it was obvious that it worked and that we had found the right approach, for us at least, for this song. I proposed we convene again the following day to record the performance properly and produce a video.

The Recording process

In order to aim for a good quality music video, we had to record the sound separately from the video and then edit the two together. 

The video is recorded on a mobile phone. The quality is not what we had hoped for, but there it is. That is the reason the footage is in monochrome: it disguises the picture quality. We shall have to use something else in future. Nonetheless, rendering it so does lend it the atmosphere of an early 1960s performance, which is no bad thing.

The audio is recorded on a portable digital recording unit, 'the black box', which can take down tracks separately from each other, much a like a recording studio, which is why the audio sounds so slick and 'studio' quality. There had been three tracks recorded: keys, fed directly into the box; guitar, which was picked up with a mic at the amplifier; and vocals, which is why I have two mics in the video: one for the PA, so that I could hear myself, and one for the black box. Unfortunately, the vocal mic did not pick up any signal, probably due to a faulty wire or connection, which is why the video only starts just after the second chorus had ended; it had been our intention to present as much of our performance as we could, but this fault prevented us from doing so.

Final Thoughts

We are very pleased with our performance on this video, and hope in time to be able to perform it for real. We are confident we have found an arrangement that is at once true to Pink Floyd's composition as well as one that is distinct and right for our own sound and style.

On Completing My Album

That's it! All done!

Well, not quite. I still have to mix everything. However, unless I find a gap during the mixing, all parts are now written and recorded. As a matter of interest, it was the very first two pieces of music that I recorded that longest resisted any lyrics being imposed on them. I might easily have junked them both, yet, unexpectedly, within two days everything finally fell into place.

In Retrospect

Most of the guitar work was done
on this old workhorse, called Cassius

There were honestly times I thought I would never finish this project. It has taken about two years, perhaps a little under - I think I started Easter 2015 but it is so long that I can't really remember. That's much, much longer than the first project which I did with my friend, Adam Steiner, when we were students at Aberdeen. He would come round with a bottle of wine, and I would cook dinner. We would eat and drink by candlelight. Fortified, we would then start jamming, or working on a preconceived idea, or whatever, and our work rate was such that we would bash out a song in a day.

It is likely one reason I was slower this time is that I had no one to inspire me, nor anyone for me to inspire. All my ideas had to be intrinsic, and to a large extent, spontaneous and well timed. During term, I am simply too exhausted and ideas never come. During holidays, I am often sick. At weekends, there are so many things to do. It is difficult to pick up the axe and mic and just churn them out like I - we - used to.

But there are other reasons. I am more of a perfectionist now, because I am a better musician. I take longer to rehearse parts before setting them down, whereas before, my method was pretty much to make it up as I went along, producing tracks with lots of good ideas but shoddily played and recorded. Also, the parts are more complex and layered with a greater variety of moods, which takes longer to devise and master. Some tracks I had to practise for days and days before I could even think about reaching for the mixing desk.

I also had to deal with some technological issues early on in the process. That didn't help. Two songs had to be re-recorded entirely at one point. But my gear now works a dream and makes it all sound great.

The Record

Edgar will now take up most
of the new work

I still have not decided on a track order yet, so I can't comment on the mood of it overall. Having worked on it for so long, I did not achieve my aim of creating a unified tone and theme. However, there are consistencies. Most of the songs, in one way or another, involve alienation. That includes optimistic reflection upon the opportunities involved in moving on, or confronting failure, departure, or else an angry riposte at someone or something. Some of it is about silent longing. Whatever this all says about me, I would not wish to tell. 

This is not by design. I almost always (with only one exception on this project, called 'Standing on the Shore') complete at least the structure and texture of the music first, before composing a melody into which to squeeze the lyrics. That's the tricky bit: sometimes a vocal line is just obvious, but other times the music poses no obvious solutions for the singer. 

In these cases I have two approaches:

• Download the track onto my phone and listen to it again and a
  gain on my way to work. Eventually, sooner or later, a phrase will just jump out, some few words that fit some rhythm or guitar phrase, and which act as a hook on which to hang the rest of the words. Like a seed, it germinates and blooms, and when it happens, the lines can be written in under half an hour, even after months and months of nothing but frustration, doggerel and emptiness.
• Wail over the top of the music. This usually produces a ghastly noise, like a dying bird or wailing pig, but before long and melodic line begins to take shape. Into this line I then pour some nonsense words, just to get the syllabic structure of it right, then adjust them with more meaningful words. An example of this would be something like 'hold my green waiting room' transforming into 'God save our gracious Queen'. 

Next Steps

Nothing. I just want to focus on performing with my new band. I am content to play covers until we are comfortably in our groove. Then I might push forward some of these songs for us to play, and if the band say yay, then so much the better; if they think it stinks, no matter: it can sit on SoundCloud anyhow.