WHAT I WAS DOING WHEN THE NEW YEAR RANG IN:

Yeah, yeah, technically Artist's Retreat ‐ Staycation 2024 spills over into the new year, but we're gonna keep this simple and not fret over silly, minor points. I think Artist's Retreat ‐ Staycation 2023 spilled over into 2024, too. So, big deal.

Meanwhile, last evening into early this morning, I recorded the second MIDI strings part and another percussion part, this time double bass drums, for the winter season song. The recording of both was planned, though I wasn't sure exactly what MIDI instrument voices I would use. It took me a while to find the right string voice because I needed something that would blend well with the instrumentation that was already there.

ADDING THE SOLO AND BLOWIN' DUST OFF MY BASS:

I'm starting to have a strong affinity for my little winter season song. What started out as a kind of experiment, a game of sorts, has become more substantial or relevant to me. This whole concept of taking a traditional song and reinventing it has yielded an attractive result; well, one that I'm liking, anyway. In fact, as I said, or at least alluded to, in another blog post, what I have now is far removed from the song I used as the springboard. Mine really no longer bears much resemblance to the other, if any.

Late night New Year's day, I added a double-bass drum part, another MIDI voice from Logic Pro X. Then, still in the Logic Pro MIDI world, on into early morning on the Jan 2, I arranged and recorded the solo, a cello. The added percussion and the cello solo brought something new to the song; they engendered the new affection I'm feeling for the work. I wasn't displeased with the song beforehand, but when I listened to playback, I heard the whole recording with a different ear.

Yesterday I pulled out my Epiphone Viola Bass, which, if you notice on the left, happens to be the bass featured in the "K.L. On Bass" icon. I worked out a large portion of the bass line for the song, but I still have a lot left to work out. At this point the bass part is rather bland and I will change that. There are sections that need to be simple and straightforward, but I also want to have some nice counter-melodic spots and some good bass fills and I've hardley begun to create those moments.

Bottom line, once again I am OUT OF PRACTICE ! The last time I played any of my basses, which was both this Viola bass and my Epiphone Embassy Pro, was when I wrote and recorded the theme music for the promo trailer for the Dayton Theatre Guild production of Wednesday's Child; that was in the late autumn of 2023! So, once again I have to reacquaint my hands and my mind with the frets of my guitar.

Yes, I have gone more than a damned year without even pulling any bass out of its case, much less doing anything close to woodshedding. It's really pretty shameful and why I don't get to call myself a "bassist" ‐‐ "bass player" is barely justified. Needless to say, I wasn't ready to record the bass line yesterday. We'll see if it can happen today: maybe, maybe not....

RECAPPING:

The view out my front door, late morning today. It's not easy to tell, but there is snow fall in the photo, but the flakes are fine. They've been falling for quite a while, though, so....

Last evening my little staycation retreat technically came to a close and today I was supposed to back in the world of the rent-payer. However, I get another day off from the rent-payer because of the heavy snow we are experiencing in all of the Ohio Valley, so Artist's Retreat ‐ Staycation 2024 may have gotten a one day extension; and since it's late morning and still snowing, that potential extension might just expand to two days. But eventually I'll have to go back to work, and sooner than I'd prefer. Well, at least I don't hate my job, but I gotta tell ya, were it not for the size of my debt, I would be a retired guy and the "artist's retreat" would be the normal state of things. But I do have that debt and I am not retired, so the retreat will soon be over regardless of weather-related extensions.

The retreat has not been as prolific as I had hoped and planned, but I knew I had put a lot on the agenda, and these days I am doing what I can to not stress about things. These days I see many things to be stressed over, so I adopted a breath-deep-&-chill attitude about whatever artistic progress I made or did not make over the last fifteen and a half days. And there was a lot on the agenda that did not get done, that I didn't even get to.

There was no movie editing. There are two DV movies at the top of that list. First, there's a performance of Campaigns Inc. by Will Allan, which I had shot during the run at The Guild for Will so he could see the production of his play mounted in his home town; he could not get to Dayton from L.A. because he works for the Los Angeles Dodgers and they were in the World Series, so he couldn't get off work. The Dodgers were up against and reigned over the New York Yankees, by-the-way. Obviously Will knows I shot the footage, since I needed his permission, and he's probably wondering just exactly when he'll get the damned final cut! I also have footage I shot three years ago for a music video for one the pieces off my first album to be released, Virtually Approximate Subterfuge. It's the instrumental, "Cozy Anxious Chaos." There are a couple other miscellanies DV movies to edit together, but they are lower priorities.

The few people who frequent, or at least sometimes visit, this blog ‐‐ those people affectionately known as "you five regulars" ‐‐ may know that I have two full albums on the back-burner that need mixing and/or mastering. One of them is an album of ambient music, which only needs to be mastered, actually: remastered. This remastering could be done in less than an hour, so don't ask me why I didn't get to it during the retreat; clearly it was a matter of not being focused on it. I was so honed in on the 2025 Music Adventure that it missed my radar screen. Same for the other album project, which I recorded in the mid-eighties; that one needs both mixed and mastered. It also needs a bass guitar line recorded for one song, and there are a couple others that don't have a bass line that I'm considering adding such to.

I also had intentions to get back to the manuscript for my full-length play. I haven't worked on it for months now. During this retreat I did do a little bit of work on the story bible for the characters who inhabit the universe of the play. Yet, even that was not a significant amount of work.

If you didn't already know, the artistic focal point of the retreat has been the new music project (er, um, "ADVENTURE"), and all of that focus has been on the winter season song that was intended to be completely done, with a music video up on my YouTube channel on Christmas Day. It became more of a project ("ADVENTURE") than I'd originally conceived, and taking the new direction derailed the December 25 deadline. There was some hope for it to be finished by the end of the retreat, but that was a pipedream, too. It'll surely be mixed and mastered before winter is up, or it can be. But now I'm considering holding off any sort of public release until whenever the album is released, which may or may not be in 2025.

To catch anyone up, the song is loosely based on a traditional Christmastime song, that people associate with the holiday but actually is a song for the winter season. Using the lyrics and the chord progression of the original as a template, I have significantly reinvented both elements and I now have something completely different. Thus far, I've laid down twelve tracks. I should point out that two of those tracks are the stereo signal from my Legato III piano, set on its PAD voice. Most of what I've recorded are Logic Pro MIDI voices: some sort of percussive voice, or some sort of string voice, all played on my M-Audio Oxygen Keyboard.

Saturday night I recorded the last track laid so far: the bass line. I used my Epiphone Viola Bass, which is basically a knockoff of the Höffner Violin Bass, made famous by Paul McCartney.

Read this past Saturday's blog post, above, and you'll read me whining about being terribly out of practice on the bass, because, well, I don't practice. But I still managed to work out a bass line that I am happy about. It works, and honestly, it works quite well. It'd be great if my chops were better, even if they were up par with how they've been at various times in the past. That way I could have thrown in a a fancier fill here and there that's at an elevated skill level. But the song doesn't call for virtuoso work from someone like Geddy Lee or Flea, or Paul. It's probably much better that it's a simple part; that probably serves the song much better.

I did not employ my new Bass Whammy Pitch Shift Pedal for this song. However, I did run my bass through my Bass Chorus Pedal. I also hooked my Super Octave pedal into the daisy-chain, to get an octave note doubling below, but I ended up turning that pedal off. It's a great effect, but after only a few minutes of playing, I recognized that it's not the right effect for this song. I also could have used the Whammy the same way, but I didn't pull it out because it's a new toy and I need to acquaint myself with it, and I didn't want to take the time Saturday night. It would have been time wasted, anyway, since I nixed the effect.

I have neither fully worked out, nor done any recording of, any vocals for the song. As written before, I have the idea about the melody but it's not developed. I do know that there will be more than one vocal part; I have a solid concept for the vocal arrangement. I did not work on it yesterday because, again, referring to Saturday's post, I was still a little congested yesterday and my throat was a little bit scratchy. I wanted those issues gone before I sing. especially that budding sore throat. I also had quite a bit of back-logged housework to attend to, still do. Yesterday was mostly about that.

So, though Artist's Retreat ‐ Staycation 2024 technically ended last night, it may have ended about 1:30 yesterday morning, when I was wiping my Viola bass down before closing the lid on its guitar case. During the day, yesterday, I could have worked on some arts thing not related to music, or related to another music "ADVENTURE," but, seriously, some of my housework was terribly overdue, some still is.

ANOTHER STEP FORWARD, AND PERHAPS A SIDESTEP:

In what ended up being a one-day extension of Artist's Retreat ‐ Staycation 2024, last Monday evening I started to really attack the composing of the lead-vocal melody line.

Remember that I've had the basic idea for the melody but wanted it to be more interesting than what was popping in as my instinctual reaction to the instrumentation. I haven't recorded the vocal yet though. I still had a bit of congestion and sore throat Monday, so my vocal ability wasn't up to snuff, for one thing. I also wasn't yet satisfied with the melody line. I'm still not.

Monday was the last time I worked on the vocal line, at least directly. I have since further conceived of the vocal accompaniments, including a rough idea of a multi-part harmony arrangement for the end of the song, as well as others for some of the transition bridges between verse and chorus and chorus and verse. I've also done more tweaks to the lyrics.

I'm not sure when I'll get back to recording on this song, but my plan is sometime during this week. I have theatre stuff drawing my time and attention away. Plus, my voice/throat is still not in the best shape, and the single and low double-digit temperatures outside haven't been an aide.