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STILL NOT ON TRACK AS I WANT TO BE:

The rehearsals of the revised chord progression for my R&B song were once again stalled a bit, delayed, whatever word you want. Chalk it up to life stuff, other obligations, things like that getting in the way, you know?

But I have been on the Legato III refreshing myself on the song as well as trying to change up how the chords are played to get something that is more interesting and might even make me a better keyboard player than the barely-adequate one that I've been ‐‐ yet I suspect I'll still be light-years away from being a "keyboardist."

Nevertheless, I've slipped in a bit of rehearsal on the chords. Since I'm trying to punch up how the chords are played, I've been doing a lot of work at a very slowed-down tempo to try and do some work with my left hand that is beyond what I have ever done. Then, of course, I'll bring it up to tempo when I can play it at tempo. Having never had even one formal lesson on piano, I have absolutely no true coordination between my two hands and I can't come close to any sort of independent movement between the two. So that's my goal: to get something more interesting happening with the piano part. It will still be something probably not exceeding what a reasonably practiced twelve-year-old can do, but I hope it'll be sone kind of good step forward for my ability. It's like the bassline in the one section of "Backward in Time," the one that took me WEEKS to conquer.

Before I started rehearsing the song I imported the new drumkit tracks into the song project on the Tascam 24-Track. I say tracks in plural because, as is standard, the drum kit is in stereo, on two tracks, with some pan‐mix for the various drums, cymbals, etc. But before even doing that, I cleaned out all the tracks in the song project in the recorder: the original drumkit tracks, the spoken guide track, and the four piano parts.

I also had to redo the spoken guide track since the addition of the new chords in the progression changed where all the sections start and stop. After cleaning everything out I imported the new drumkit part and the new guide track onto the 24-track.

NEW ADDITIONS TO MY MUSIC/SOUND EQUIPMENT:

My new ART Tube MP Studio V3 Preamp

My new Whirlwind 10-band Bass EQ Pedal

The motivation to get these now is that I'm consulting on the soundwork for The Guild's production of Dial M for Murder and both are needed for a daisy chain between a wireless mic in the greenroom and the theatre's mixing board in the tech booth. But right after the show closes, both pieces of equipment will go to their real home to next be employed in the recording sessions for my 25/26 Music Adventure. This isn't the first time I've bought something new for myself that first made a detour to a theatre production. Years ago I bought a set of wireless phones for myself, and one of the two units was a prop in the Guild mounting of Belles, by Mark Dunn. There have been a few other times my personal purchases first hit the stage before going home.

Ultimately the graphic EQ is another supplement for my bass guitars, another enhancement for shaping tone. I had one back in my youth. I still have it though it's not in great shape. It was one of a few guitar pedals from last century that I intended to try to repair during the COVID shutdown, but that project never got off the ground.

The preamp is intended to boost the volume for both mics and my bass guitars as I run them into the 24-track recorder. Sometimes the signals on these are much weaker than I like. The preamp will also come in handy in live performances ‐‐ IF such were ever to come about, that is.

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AMBITION VERSES MOTIVATION:

To be confessionally honest, I have barely rehearsed the R‐&‐B song's piano part. The ambition's there but I'm finding it difficult to muster the motivation.

It's an amalgam of two things. First, I have been struggling with what I self-diagnose as a low-grade depression, which has led me toward often going down a YouTube rabbit hole of reaction videos, both of younger people experiencing mostly music from my youth, or people reacting to episodic TV I like (Stranger Things & NCIS, especially). It's also induced me to sleep a lot. The other ingredient is procrastination, because, let's face it, I'm a bit intimidated by the work ahead of me to come up with, AND PLAY, this "interesting piano part" that requires me to improve as a ‐‐ (clears throat) ‐‐ piano player.

But I have taken action on this task. I went into the Logic Pro project that is specific to the drumkit track and I have rendered four WAV files with the spoken guide track mixed with the drumkit. Each WAV file is at a different tempo (speed): 50%, 75%, 90%, and 100%. The purpose is to play back these tracks so I can play along on my Legato, working on the piano part, trying to create that more interesting variation of the chords that will have me more than simply playing the piano part like it's a keyboard version of the rhythm guitar. Obviously, I'll start out at the 50% tempo and work my way up to full speed.

We'll see how long it takes me to avoid the YouTube rabbit hole and get my ass back to business.

On the other hand, I have recently come up with some other song ideas: snippets of lyrics and theme, as well as some concepts for the musical composition. I came up with at least the idea for a song, earlier today, as a matter of fact. Also, I still need to work on lyrics for the R‐&‐B song, which I have not done for a while.

ANNOUNCING THE CAST:

The Cast of Light Sensitive
CHARACTER		ACTOR
Tom Hanratty		Frank Maranje
Lou D'Marco		Jim Hagan
Edna Miles		Kerry Simpson

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STILL ON TRACK, STILL NOT AT ROCKET SPEED:

Another variation of basically the same photo.

There has been rehearsal of the main chord progression for my R&B song, but it still ain't sailing along. I'm on my Legato III piano, in the "electric piano voice" mode, which sounds a bit like a Rhodes piano. I'm still playing along to the drum track that's at 50% tempo, that's playing back in Quicktime player on my MacBook Pro, through external speakers. I'm trying to punch up the chords by adding little note fills to transition to each next chord. Since I ain't "Mr. Prodigious Pianist Guy," it's a.....paced project. But I'm hopeful I'll master it at 50%, then graduate to 75%, then 90%, then full speed; then it's record time.

THIS AFTERNOON I STAND WITH FUNCTIONAL DEMOCRACY AND THE CONSTITUTION:

What is a dark factor is that I, and everyone else who will attend, need to be mindful that we could be in jeopardy of being arrested, accosted, perhaps even seriously injured by law enforcement, especially from the federal level (can you say ICE?). We need to also be conscious that any of us could be injured, perhaps even fatally, by other U.S. citizens who are opposed to our opposition. It's not ridiculous to also recognize the potential for a death by the hands of one of those law enforcement agents. This far bad end is certainly at really low odds, but, again, such things can't be completely discounted.

It's happened in this country's past and we now have a party in charge of the federal government that is actively setting the stage for its supporters and its agents to go down this road, to do violence against American citizens that show disapproval of, and resistance to its policies, rhetoric, and actions.

Again, I don't know if there's a big chance of any of these bad things happening in Dayton, Ohio, but it's foolish to dismiss the idea out of hand; and I'm betting we could see some of this somewhere in the nation. And if people get hurt today, there are government leaders who will applaud and some percentage of the American population that will openly celebrate. That's where we are in the U.S.A.

I'M PROBABLY GOING TO A SHOW TONIGHT:

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I WAS ONE OF THE ESTIMATED SEVEN-PLUS MILLION:

An aerial view of a good portion of the few thousand at the Dayton No Kings Rally last Saturday. I did not take this and I do not know who to credit.

Heather Cox Richardson stated in a social media post that, nation-wide, "[c]onservative estimates put the turnout at somewhere north of 7 million, all peaceful. These were not the radicals that Republican talking points raged about. These were average Americans, seniors, parents, students, Americans of all political persuasions, all peacefully saying 'we love our country and we support the Constitution.'"

She also wrote of the national count, in her Letters from an American: "G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers partnered with Atlanta-based science newsroom The Xylom to estimate that as many as 8.2 million people turned out [Saturday] to oppose the Trump administration."

The Dayton event was peaceful and problem free. I personally wasn't aware of any counter-protestors, much less any who created trouble. My concern of potential trouble, even bad trouble, turned out to be for naught, though I still think it was a legitimate concern. I'm most grateful that, as far as I am aware, there were no bad incidents anywhere in the nation, nor in any of the No Kings rallies of solidarity that happened in other nations. And I don't know about you, but I was gratified to know that we have allies beyond our borders who are fully aware of our grievances and stand with us.

As for the national count, I'm guessing for every person who attended a rally, there were maybe fifty to 100 who didn't for one reason or another but wanted to ‐‐ that would put the number of discontented Americans at tens-of-millions, if not hundreds-of millions. I'm going out on what I bet is a thick, strong limb to guess that there are a lot of old-school Republicans who really wanted to attend though they didn't. I spoke to a couple of Republicans at the rally. One of them said he was now considered a RINO, though the truth is, in his words, "the GOP is now being controlled by the real RINOs."

Here's the write-up about the Dayton event, in the Dayton Daily News:
"Area protesters join nationwide ‘No Kings’ movement"

And here are a few dozen photos I took at the rally:

Former Dayton mayor, Nan Whaley

Poet, author, and bluesman, Jim Dwyer, leading the crowd in a rendition of the folk song "Which Side Are You On," with verses updated by Jim to reflect our current politcal climate.

The march, heading from the Oregon District back to the Courthouse Square

A little footage of some of those "radical, extreme-left, American-hating Antifas" engaging in "negative and violent behavior!"

I'm posting this here, even though, as of the time of posting it's also at the bottom of the page, I want it here, too. It's quite relevant to last Saturday, as relevant as it was when it released last July 4. It's not "For What It's Worth," or "Power to the People," but I am happy with it.....mostly

I DID GO TO A SHOW SATURDAY NIGHT:

Since my afternoon at Courthouse Square was a positive event, and I, nor anyone else, was arrested or detained by ICE, and neither I nor anyone else was injured or killed by a fed or a right-wing extremist, I was able to come go back to Dayton Saturday evening and attend the Don't Tell Comedy show in the Oregon District. For those who don't know, the location and the line-up of comedians at Don't Tell Comedy event are kept secret until the day of the show. The line-up is actually never revealed until the show is in progress. And only the ticket holders are told the location.

Saturday's show was at The LightHaus. It ran about ninety minutes. It featured six comics:

The host, Kyle Kemper (IG: @kemper_kyle) Alexis Massey (IG: @_alexismassey) Nick Osman IG: @nickosman1 Mark Perkins IG: @markperkinscomedy Tony B. Cruz IG: @TonyBCruz The headliner, Raymond Jackson IG: @raymondjacksonjokes

I don't know if Kyle Kemper is the Kyle that its website credits as having started Don't Tell Comedy, and though I did offer him kudos after the show, I did not ask. His set suggests he's a native Daytonian, and I know this is a nationwide entity, with shows in more than 200 cities, so maybe not; but then, it may have been founded in Dayton for all I know. Most of the comics were Daytonians, with the exception being Cruz, who is from Columbus. These are newer stand-ups and they are sharpening their teeth. Jackson, the headliner, was far more polished, and his set was longer, maybe thirty minutes. He's clearly been in the game longer.

I had a good time at the show. There were about twenty in the audience. It was an enjoyable night out. I'm on the email list, so I'll likely attend more shows in the future.

Kyle Kemper	Alexis Massey	Nick Osman
Mark Perkins	Tony B. Cruz	Raymond Jackson

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AN ALBUM LATER OR AN EP NOW? (OR) I'M LOOKING AT CHANGING THE PROJECT NAME BACK:

I'm still working on the electric piano chords for the R&B song and it is a slow process. Remember, I have the chord progression, I'm now trying to work up an execution, with some little note frills that will make it more interesting than just chords on the downbeat. And because I'm not Elton John and have absolutely no pianist's training, whatsoever, it's a laborious task. But I have been working out some little note fills from one chord to the next, and have been noting on paper what they are. So far I haven't come up with any Rick Wakeman-like brilliance, and won't later, either, but at least it's going be something with more flare than I started with, if just a little.

You five regulars will know that I've been working on this on my Legato III, playing along with a drumtrack that's on playback in Quicktime player on my MacBook Pro, running through external speakers. I'm still rehearsing ‐‐ and working out the better execution ‐‐ with the drumkit track thats at 50% of the full tempo. I'll probably graduate to the 75% track soon. This all just proves I am not a musical virtuoso.

Now I'm looking at the fact that I started this album project, in earnest, in December of last year. In the past ten months I've finished two songs; two songs that come to just about 11:30 of music for an album that will be anywhere from 50:00 to 1:10:00 in length. Granted I have three instrumentals I've recorded over the past few years that are slated for this album, and they are an additional 13:30; The R&B song is going to run about another 4:30. This leaves me with another 30:00 to 40:00 of music to record after I finish the R&B song, and I may get that done before New Year's Eve, or I may not.

I'm contemplating putting all, or most, of the music I have finished on an EP. I say "all, or most" because I'm not sure if "Backward in Time" fits the musical tone and aesthetics of the other music ‐‐ the three instrumentals originally composed and recorded for promotions for Dayton Theatre Guild productions, and the newer Winter season ballad, which I have slated as a single to be released the end of next month (well, probably an edited version with a sightly different mix than the full-length version).

If I put the three instrumentals and the long version of the Winter season ballad on the EP, that's just shy of twenty minutes. Then I'd release the single version of the Winter season ballad by itself with a music video. That is, if I go with releasing the shorter version. I may shortly consult a few people seeking feedback on what seems the smarter marketing: a 7:00 single or a 4:20 single. As an indy recording artists who isn't likely to make commercial airwaves where shorter is better, 7:00 for a single might not really be an issue; "Just One Shadow" is 6:00, and the music video is 7:11; of course, that single wracked up no sales and has had almost no streams.

Yeah, I'm a major Pop Idol!

Regardless of which version of the Winter season ballad I put out as a single, I do plan on that music video. I need to soon start giving time and energy to that. I only have a vague idea of what I want the video to be. There are few ideas. The one I like most is probably not feasible, because I don't have the resources or the budget. It may end up being a lyric video, but there can still be interesting visual aspects. I've thought about stock footage as part of the mix; that will call for a budget, too. There's also the question of whether I use the 4:20 or the 7:00 version for the video. I could put out the 4:20 as a single release, with the longer version on the EP, and also use the longer version for the music video ‐‐ IF I release the shorter version, at all. I don't know, yet, but the decision and action need to both happen soon.

The bottom line is that this "25/26 Music Adventure" is quite possibly going to revert back to the "2025 Music Adventure" as I shift the immediate focus away from an album, that is clearly a ways off, to an EP that I can have released in the not-to-distant future.

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NEW RELEASE COMING SOMETIME SOON:

So, I have quickly moved from "I'm contemplating releasing an EP" to "I've decided to release an EP." And I'm going to release it as soon as I can. The playlist is 99% decided upon. It will be the three instrumentals that have been recorded over the last few years and the Winter season ballad that I recently finished; and I will very likely add one more song, already released.

The first thing to do, which I did last night, was to slightly remix the long version of the Winter season ballad. I also expected that I might have to slightly remaster the recording, but with the exception of pumping the volume, I did nothing to the finished master recording.

You see, as I've listened to the master, in recent times, I've wanted to alter the mix, mostly having to do with the volume balance of various elements in the recording. That likely meant also a slight altering of the mastering, especially the intensity of the Exciter. But after I did the slight remix I found the mastering that was in place still works, save for the master volume issue.

I also will need to normalize the overall volume levels between the different songs on the EP songlist. I doubt there will be any remixing of any of the three instrumentals, but they will all have to be normalized to balance with the Winter season ballad, which is technically remastering, but with master volume being the only dynamic changing from before.

As for the song I may ‐‐ probably will ‐‐ add: I have been considering for a long time a remix of Burning Bridge. It would not be edited into a shorter version, I just want to remix some of the instrumentation to get a different feel, maybe even more of a rockin' feel. I think the song rocks pretty well as it is, but I'm thinking about a different approach that brings those faux rhythm guitars more into the forefront. I'm at least 90% sure it'll be on the EP line-up. So, you may have one title from the EP, already.

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WHAT'S IN A LINE-UP?:

Wednesday night I normalized the master volumes for each of the tracks for the EP. Last night I fine-tune the levels for a closer match. I also brought the volume level for the single version of the Winter season ballad into conformity with the others. And I suppose that in a sense, I remastered it further by using Logic Pro varispeed to bumped the tempo by 15% ‐‐ which dropped the play-length down from 4:18 to 3:36, not including the silence at the end of the track.

I'm now working on the 2025 remix of "Burning Bridge," and making good progress; I'm heading toward the remix concept I've conceived. I'd been thinking for a while about ideas to meet my goal. One of the things I've already done is tweak the EQ for the rhythm bass parts (i.e. faux "rhythm guitar" parts). Like I've stated in an earlier blog post, I decided to bring this "rhythm guitar" section more into the forefront of this mix. I also pumped the volumes and changed the placements in the stereo pan for most of the "rhythm guitar" section as well other elements, and I may not be done with those pan changes. I'm also seriously considering using varispeed to bump the tempo of this version, too, as I did for the single version of the Winter season ballad.

As I've listened to the playback of the normalized tracks, all together, I've wondered if one of the instrumentals may be a little out-of-place on this specific EP playlist. Just like "Backward in Time," the particular instrumental doesn't seem to fit the feel and mood of the rest of the line-up.

The other contributing consideration is that if I cut that one I'll have a playlist with two instrumentals and two songs which have vocals and lyrics, and I like that symmetry, especially since it keeps the EP from being instrumental-heavy.

As I'm getting this EP together for what I hope is a release as soon as possible, I have the parallel task of getting the single and its music video together for, again, release as soon as possible, actually, even sooner than the EP.

I've started seeking images and footage for the video; that's a venture that needs much of my present attention. I'm looking at stock footage, video of snow scenes, and right now, unless I take a trip somewhere north of my part of the country, there are no snow scenes for me to go out and shoot. This means I'm dropping some money to purchase the licenses for such footage, and it may run me a few hundred dollars. I have a certain amount of snow-scene stills that I've taken over the years, and I'm hoping I find a treasure trove at Creative Commons; plus, I have a few photographer friends that I'm betting have some nice pics of wintery stuff. But I want video in the video.

Now I just have to decide if I'm putting the video to the single version or the longer, EP version of the Winter season ballad.

JOHN MULANEY, 2.0:

Yeah....I spent WAY too much for a ticket to see one of my absolute favorite stand-up comics, John Mulaney for the second time. I had to borrow from my line-of-credit account to cover the ticket. But I'm in the middle of the second row at the Taft Theatre in Cincinnati, which is comparable to where I sat the first time I saw him at the Schuster in Dayton in 2022; so, I'm telling myself that it was worth it.

Despite needing production money for the forthcoming music releases and the music video, I dropped a few hundred for this seat.

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A FEW STEPS BACK TO GO MORE STEPS FORWARD:

If you're one of the five who may be regulars, or semi-regulars, here, or if you happen to be someone who knows me, you won't be shocked that I've decided I need to remix and remaster both "Burning Bridge (2025 mix)" and the Winter season ballad. In my efforts at normalizing the volumes of the four songs on the EP, and at a louder overall volume, I find that in both these cases I've pushed the gains too much.

Both master-recording WAV files are on the verge of being too hot, i.e.: they have the subtle beginnings of loudness distortion and clipping. The push of the gain also makes both recordings a bit dirtier than intended, in other words, there is too much overall distortion, especially on "Burning Bridge," and both have an almost blanket muddy sound. I want them both to be cleaner. The only thing that should be dirty in either song are those chorded rhythym basses in "Burning Bridge."

I reworked this and the other in the mixes and the mastering. Beyond a more conservative use of gain, both for various stems in the multi-track master projects as well as the final master recordings, I also tweaked a lot of EQ, and some amount of stereo pan.

ADAM Audio D3V 3.5-inch Powered Studio Monitor Pair

However, there's been a short hold before starting the remixing/remastering of those two songs ‐‐ and possibly the single version of the Winter season ballad. Earlier in the week, one of the speakers in my external monitor set for my MacBook Pro blew. I have another set but the speakers are not as good. I could mix and master using my headphones, but honestly, the pair I have are not good enough for that use. I just ordered a new set of better speakers, a pair of ADAM Audio D3V Studio Monitors, from Sweetwater. At some point soon I'll buy a studio-quality set of headphones, but the new, studio-level external speakers are the priority.

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NEW TOYS, *TOOLS*:

Last blog post I wrote of how I'd blown one of the speakers in my exterior monitors for my MacBook Pro, which is what I use for all my audio editing and processing. That's where Logic Pro X and GarageBand are, the latter which I use exclusively for drumkit programming and for some MIDI instrument voices. It's also where Show Cue System (SCS) is, inside the VMware Fusion emulator where I can run Windows®. SCS is Windows-based software for doing sound-cue programming for theatre sound-design.

My new ADAM Audio D3V Studio Monitor speakers set up in the usual workspace.

In the immediate present, the need for new monitor speakers is for the 2025 Music Adventure, which has recently morphed more accurately into the "2025 EP Project," though I'm not going to bother officially retitling it such. I have remixing and remastering to do on that project, and quickly; and as you'll see below, more of it than I originally thought. But, again, in the long run, the need goes beyond just the Adventure, the EP project.

At any rate, as I wrote on Oct 28, I ordered a pair of ADAM Audio D3V Studio Monitor speakers from Sweetwater. They arrived Wednesday and that evening I hooked them up. They sound great, but I wasn't getting the volume I want. The real culprit for that is my MacBook. Its inherent volume just isn't terribly robust. So I went fishing to see if there are apps out there to boost the laptop's volume. I found one. It's called SpeakerAmp: Booster and Equalizer. I didn't even download the premium version; I installed the free version and I have more than enough volume boost. I also left the equalization flat, which is relevant to the 2025 Music Adventure entry below.

RELEASE DATES ARE ON THE NEAR HORIZON:

You know from above that I got new external monitor speakers for my laptop, the ADAM Audio D3Vs, which arrived Wednesday and I took for a drive that evening.

The D3Vs are studio speakers and I can testify that they sound great. But I did run into a couple not-so-great things while trying them out. First, of course, as I related above, was the volume issue, solved by getting the SpeakerAmp app to boost the volumes on my laptop, and that works like a charm.

The second issue was that most of the 2025 Adventure master recordings sound muddy through these speakers, based mostly on there being too much low end and too little high end in the recordings. So, beyond the reworking of gain on "Burning Bridge (2025 mix)" and the long version of the Winter season ballad, I need to do far more remixing and mastering, which I suspect is going to include a lot more gain reduction and clearly a lot of adjustment to EQ, probably all the way down to the stems in the multi-track Logic Pro projects.

I know, by the way, that the low-end heaviness is in this 2025 adventure's recordings because I've listened to other recordings as comparison from my library of commercially released music and from stuff on YouTube, and it all sounds just fine with a good balance of EQ. So the problem is the audio engineer for this project; he's a bit more of a novice than he'd like, you know. But I suppose he's slo-o-o-o-wly learning.

Since it will release first, so is the priority, the remixing/remastering overhaul began last night with the single version of the Winter season ballad, but I only had to remaster. I'd tried that first, to see if I could get a satisfactory sound without going back into the multi-track master to tweak things, and I found that in this case I could. There is a slight sibilance in the lead vocal but I have elected to live with it.

I rendered an intermediate master recording then imported that into a new Logic Pro project simply to render a final mastered recording with a bumped-up volume. It was an experiment that worked and will be even more helpful as I deal with the recording with the bad low-end muddiness that needs addressed.

"Burning Bridge (2025 mix)" is next, as I move on to the EP, which I'll get to after the single release is ready to go.

---

Earlier yesterday, in the afternoon, during downtime while I was attending to a task at The Guild, I went hunting for stills and stock footage for the music video for the single release.

I found a few good photos from my library of my own photography, but most of the images I scavenged were "stock photos," in the quasi-technical sense, from Creative Commons.

Then I found some almost perfect footage at the website envato, where I bought a month's membership to download the licensed footage. The footage isn't precisely what I was looking for but it's close enough to work quite well. I may look other places for more stock footage.

After I remastered the Winter season ballad single, I created the cover artwork (the thumbnail) for the music video's YouTube posting. From that I made the cover art for the digital single release of the song, with some slight alterations for the format.

I'm contemplating making the official video as also the lyric video; if not, I'll make a separate lyric video, probably with less moving parts, visually. Either way, I'll be back in my graphics app, Corel Painter, making graphics of the lyric lines. I sometimes do text there instead of using the text feature in Final Cut Pro X, because I can get something tailored uniquely. It's how I did the lyric text for the "Backward in Time" music video.

Ya know, I've had the Motion app for a long time, it was bundled with FCPX when I bought it, and I've yet to utilize it. Beyond a lot more ways to present text in DV movies, there are a lot of effects in there I've not only never used, I don't even know what's available for my use. Maybe with this coming music video‐‐‐

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FIRST THINGS FIRST:
Let's not be blowing off the local elections. We are in this monumental Constitutional crisis in part because of the results of local elections. Many of these bad patriots who are stomping on the rule of law, who are assaulting the Statue of Liberty, who embrace, invite, and invoke this Third Millennium, American, Neuvo Fascism were first elected to city councils and school boards and trusteeships. They were state senators and representatives. I did my part, to the best of my ability, to thwart any more of these bad players from being in the game.

THE RELEASE IS AT HAND:

Last night I began editing together the Winter season ballad single's music video in Final Cut Pro X. I got to the 59-second mark, with a few seconds at the start before music begins. The single is 3:46. It was a couple hours of work. I'm trying to be as reasonably close as I can be to illustrative of the lyrics at any given moment with the images chosen to accompany them. I'm also trying to not reuse any image (still photo or movie footage) anywhere in the video, but I may not be able to avoid it before I hit the 3:46 mark in the song. I may have to do it a few times. I could go hunting for more stills and footage, maybe. I might have the time to do so and still get the DV movie to a locked edit in time to post with the single's digital premiere.

I'm still not decided wholly on whether or not I'm adding lyric text to this "official" music video, or creating a separate lyric video. It's still a 50-50 proposition. I have started looking on YouTube at some how-to videos about using Apple's Motion, but I've barely begun that process. I could still get enough of a grasp to add lyric text to this video in time, but it would definitely be a novice, beginner's use of the app's possibilities.

The release date is not too far off. I'm thinking either ThanksGiving Day, or the next day, November 28. The date will be in cement at some point today because I'll be sending the WAV file and the artwork for the single to CD Baby today. Probably at lunch. So, when filling out all the info, the release date is kind of required. I'm not sure yet about the release date for the EP; it'll probably be mid-December.

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ON THE LAUNCH PAD

At lunchtime yesterday I uploaded the WAV file and cover art for the Winter season ballad single to CD Baby and did all the processing ("paperwork" and payment).

As you can see, the digital release date will be Friday, November 28, the day after ThanksGiving.

I'm still looking at a target of mid-December for release of the EP. At this point the plan for that is for a physical release (CD), as well as a digital one.

November 28 is also the premiere date for the single's music video. Work on that in Final Cut Pro X continued last night. I'm now at the 2:00 mark, having gained another minute, with 1:58 of that two minutes being the music. If this progress is consistant for each editing session then I'll will surely have a final cut to upload to my YouTube channel well before Nov 28, even considering the addition of lyric text. As to whether I put lyric text on screen in this version or not is still not decided. I will still continue to look at how-to vids at YouTube for using Apple's Motion for the lyric text, whether it's for this video or a separate one, the latter which I'd also like ready to upload on Nov 28.

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MORE GROUND GAINED

After last night's session, my editing of the single's music video in Final Cut Pro X has me now exactly 3:06 in, which means there are only 42 seconds of the song left. It's obvious I'll have the final cut ready way before I need to upload it to my YouTube channel.

That would include adding a text overlay of the lyrics, which I am still on the fence about, whether I do it one of the ways I have in the past, or if I learn how to do it with Apple's Motion. The lyrics are going to be an issue in terms of the November 28 release date either way, because if I don't put the lyrics to this video, I'll create a separate lyric video, as I've written before; and I want that video to be ready when the single drops, as well. But it would be a much simpler video.

This main video, lyric text or not, will also be longer than the length of the song. I'm putting credits at the end, most especially the photography credits for all the stills I used from Creative Commons. I did the same for the "Just One Shadow" music video, and I always put the copyright notices, for the song, the recording, and the DV movie.

NEW SUB-PAGE AT THE ARTISTIC WORLD OF K.L.STORER

At the moment those ventures are only about releases of recordings. There may be a day when there's something there about gigs, ya know, live performances. It's not off the table, but I can't see anything in the near future. I haven't performed live in front of an audience as a musician for almost forty years. If I do it any time in the future, it's going to be with a band. You just don't throw a band together to play live, not if you want the band to be worth seeing, and more importantly, hearing. The players need to get to know each other, need to jell as bandmates and fellow musicians, and need to seriously rehearse their live show. So, no, no live gigs for me any time soon.

There will be a new page focused on my acting at some point, too. Probably in some strong fashion, more-or-less, an actor's on-line résumé in many ways, but more than just.

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ANNNNNNND MORE GROUND GAINED

The music video for the Winter season ballad single is tantalizingly close to a final cut. Last night I got all the way through the song and started the credits at the end, after the song's fadeout. I may still insert some imagery in the last thirty seconds or so of the song.

I also have to go through the video and inventory all the Creative Commons photographs I used, so I can list those and properly credit the photographers. That's not something I can do at lunch at work because the Final Cut Pro X movie project is on my Western Digital Thunderbolt Duo 4tb External Dual Hard, and I'll need to look in the FCPX movie project at the index of clips used to identify the exact photos and photographers; I didn't use every single photo I pulled from Creative Commons; that hard drive is not something I bring to work, so I'll have to do that at home; but it's not like I don't have a window of time.

I'm still not decided on putting the lyrics on the screen for this music video, but last night, after watching what I have finished, I'm leaning in favor of putting them in. As to whether or not I employ Apple's Motion for that task is a "Stay Tuned" proposition.

---

Since I know the track listing for the forthcoming EP, I've begun work on the artwork for that release, meeting the specs from CD Baby and CD Baby Manufacturing. That, despite that I have not done the remixing and remastering of the four songs yet.

But I've finished the icon for the digital release, and the front and back covers of the CD case, which will almost assuredly be a digipak as opposed to a jewel case. Both the digital icon and the CD front cover artwork are based on the art for the single that precedes the EP's release, even though the single is a different version of the same song that will appear on the EP. All I have left is the artwork for the CD (the disk) itself; and I pretty much know what I'm going to do; it's a pretty decent bet I'll get it mostly or completely finished at lunch today.

Without thinking about it, I also created a thumbnail graphic for a YouTube video, which won't be needed because there won't be a music video of the EP, though there may be music videos for a couple of the songs on it. I am seriously thinking about an expanded version of the music video for the single, to accompany the longer version of that song on the EP. I'm also considering another song from the EP as the next single; but I'm getting ahead of myself. Making the thumbnail was productive though, because I was able to pirate from that to get the CD's front cover art.

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CLOSING IN ON GETTIN' THAT NEW MUSIC OUT:

The music video for the Winter season ballad single is now UBER-tantalizingly close to that final cut. I have gone with that lean toward adding the lyrics as text to this main, official DV movie, and I chose to not attempt it with the Motion app. Though I am going to put time aside to learn Motion. For this I created the lyric text, line by line, in Corel Painter then superimposed the images (lines) over the appropriate footage, a process I've done quite a few times before. I'm not quite finished with this process; I have the last verse and the final chorus to still add lyrics to, which will happen today.

Also, I did add imagery at the end of the song to enhance what I'd already done. And I finished out the credits at the end, adding the names of those whose images I got from Creative Commons. The music video will make final cut today.

Yesterday morning I wrote that it was a "a pretty decent bet [I'd] get [the EP CD's disk art] mostly or completely finished at lunch." I won that bet. Now, all the artwork for the EP is finished save for one image. I have the thumbnail for the digital release, the front and back covers for the digipak CD case, and the art for the top of the CD disk, itself. All that is left is to add a UPC barcode to either the front or back cover of the digipak, after CD Baby provides that barcode graphic to me. I did still saved all the art to PDF format and it's virtually ready to send to CD Baby Manufacturing when it's time, after I've re-rendered one PDF with the added barcode. It needs to be time to send very shortly, too, if I want the CDs in my hands by a mid-December official release date.

But, of course, as you five who have been following along know, before I can send the material for this release to CD Baby, I have to remix and/or remaster the EP's four tracks to address the low-end overabundance in the EQ of the recordings. Some will need more attention than others, but they all need some love on this front. Fortunately, I have just started a four-day weekend, and that should be enough time to get this job done and start the process to get the EP release out, as well as its predecessor, the single.

So, stay tuned! I may soon announce the EP release date!

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LOOKS LIKE A FINISHLINE UP THERE:

The final cut of the music video for the single version of the Winter season ballad was arrived at on Saturday and I uploaded it to my YouTube channel on Sunday, though it's not published yet and won't go live until the single's November 28 release date. Or maybe I'll publish a day early on ThanksGiving Day; that idea has occurred to me; we'll see.

I'm more than pleased with the music video I have. The stock footage I used from envato and the stills from Creative Commons (essentially, if not technically, stock photography) all worked extremely well to tell the story of the song. I didn't get an absolutely perfect match of footage and still images for my vision, across the board, yet my vision was met. As an aside, unlike my first two official music videos ("Just One Shadow" and The Night Before the Night Before Christmas), I make no appearance in this one.

A few days back I discussed a thought about doing a music video for the longer version of the Winter season ballad, that which is a track from the forthcoming EP, where I'd do an expanded version of the single's music video. I've been mulling that over and I'm thinking rather than expanding on the shorter version I may create a different DV movie, using the same footage and still photography, with possibly new footage I shoot myself. Local conditions would have to meet the thematic needs for me to shoot my own footage as source material, so we'll see ‐‐ as I write this there is a layer of snow on the ground outside, which is the condition to be met, and I am on vacation today, but I have more pressing matters to attend to *(see next item). This is Ohio, so when I have the time to go shooting we could be in an Indian summer spell with the snow mostly or completely gone at that moment. But, regardless of that, essentially, the thought is to repurpose the source material I have, and any new material, and get a quite different music video for a reasonably, if subtly, different version of the song. Once again: it's a "we'll see" situation.

Yesterday I started the task of remixing and remastering the four songs on the EP, to rid the finished master recordings of those various levels of overabundance of low-end in the EQ. I started with the two that needed the most attention. I dealt first with "Burning Bridge ‐ 2025 mix." Next was the long version of the Winter season ballad. I got both those in shape and normalized against each other. Today I'll do the two instrumentals and normalize each against the Winter season ballad. These need much less work, so getting them done today is not a challenge.

If I get the EP master recording finished soon enough today, I can execute the process for its release ‐‐ send the audio files and all the artwork, for the digipak and the CD disk itself, to CD Baby and CD Baby Manufacturing, and fill out them forms. Again, all I need for the art is the UPC barcode, which CD Baby will provide, and probably quickly. So I'm hopeful I'll possess the physical CDs by that targeted mid-December release date. Though, realistically I don't need the CDs in hand when the digital version releases; but I'd prefer it.

That EP release-date announcement is much closer!

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THE RELEASE DATE IS FIRM:

My endgame for the long weekend was pushed down the road twenty-four hours due to the infamous "unforeseen circumstances."

In Tuesday's blog post I wrote that on that day I planned to remix and/or remaster the two instrumentals, then normalize each against the Winter season ballad. Yeah, well, that didn't happen.

I ended up back working again on both "Burning Bridge ‐ 2025 mix" and the long version of the Winter season ballad because I'd come to have multiple issues with both. However, I did come out of the ordeal having learned some things, one of them being especially important

It's that "Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men" concept, with a big heaping dose of "help" from that danged production gremlin. At least that's whom I want to blame. First of all, and I hate to admit it, but through no fault of the gremlin, I didn't start to work on the music until late afternoon. The plan of this man ‐‐ (or is it mouse?) ‐‐ was to get started on the slight remixing, if any, and remastering of the two instrumentals by mid-morning, or right after lunch at the latest, then make sure all four pieces were normalized to comparable volumes, and a consistent volume between them at a decent level of loudness; for me that means louder. The last actions, of course, being uploading all the mastered sound files and all the artwork to CD Baby and CD Baby Manufacturing, and filling out the forms for the release. But here's what happened:

Late afternoon, Tuesday, when I finally sat down to do the work, I first opened the previously mastered WAV file for one of instrumentals, to scrutinize what I might want to change about the mix, the overall EQ, and to also compare the volume level to the two songs I thought I was done working with. Specifically I was going to compare it to the Winter season ballad. I noticed right away that the instrumental's master recording seemed a bit louder than that for the two songs I already had done for the EP. I didn't even notice mix or EQ issues because I instantly focused on the volume. What's more, that instrumental's volume was more to my liking.

So, after pulling up the "finished" master for the Winter season ballad to verify that I needed to normalize its volume up to meet the instrumental, I opened it's mastering project in Logic Pro to boost the volume. That's when I SAY that the g0|)@#$%!! gremlin popped in to screw with me. I could not get the song louder. It was the same with "Burning Bridge." I'd up the volume and the gain, in various places in the mastering projects for both songs, and repeatedly render new WAV files that would not get louder than a certain level that was not as loud as I wanted. Not only could I not increase the volume, the rendered WAV files didn't sound right. The mixes did not sound as they did in the master projects. I think the word I'm looking for is "subdued"; the rendered mixes sounded subdued. It was frustrating, to say the least, even more so because I had been able to render much louder mastered sound files of both the instrumentals in the past.

To say the truth: I. WAS. GETTING. PISSED. OFF! That yelling and cussing you all heard coming from southwest Ohio on Tuesday evening was me. The cackling was that g0|)@#$%!! gremlin.

At some pont, after some frantic searches on the web that gave me no good answers or solutions, I discovered the problem. When you render a multitrack recording to a stereo or mono sound file (the app calls it "bouncing"), there is a Yes-or-No option you can choose called, "Normalize." That was on "Yes." I don't remember choosing it and clearly in the past I've render WAVs, etc., with it not on Yes. But, Yes was chosen. It was that g0|)@#$%!! gremlin, that's who did it, I'm telling ya!

The other issue was, afer I got volume and sound quality that I liked, I changed my mind about some of the mixes for both songs. I thus went back in to both master projects, tweaked the mixes and again remastered and re-rendered final mastered WAVs of them both.

And, so, it goes, that Veteran's Day 2025 was not about me getting all the music master-ready and then sending everything to CD Baby to get the ball rolling on that mid-December release. It was me redoing these first two songs. In spite of the delays, I was able to get the two instrumentals mastered and everything volume-normalized yesterday evening. I did no remixing for either of these tracks, I only fiddled with the mastering.

Though it was virtually twenty-four hours, exactly, after my target goal, I uploaded the sound files and art work to the appropriate legs of CD Baby, and completed the appropriate forms for each division. The EP's release process has begun.

The release-date is December 15

That the digital format will be available to purchase from such places as iTunes on the 15th, and all or most streamers will have the tracks, that I am certain of. Whether or not the physical CDs make it to me by that date is more of a question. The estimated delivery is sometime between late November and the first few days of December, but, we are moving into the Christmas season....

Well, the 2025 Music Adventure is winding down. Had it stayed the official title for the new album project, then it would still be going strong. In fact we wouldn't even be at the halfway mark ‐‐ and it would have stayed with its brief renaming of "The 25/26 Music Adventure." But when the EP is out, with the exception of promotion, a probable music video for the long version of the Winter season ballad, that possible second single from it in early 2026, and that associated music video, the adventure is almost concluded. The rest of December has me in crossover from one project to the next; or if you're cinephilia-inclined, I'm in a lap dissolve from one scene to the next; the next being, obviously:

There are those other recent song ideas and concepts, too, as well as the songs from the WayBack Machine, i.e.: the titles I wrote in my younger years, back in the stone age of the 1970s & 80s.

AND SPEAKING OF "2.0":

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BACK ON TRACK:

After more than three weeks, during which I focused on what became the virtual wrap-up of The 2025 Music Adventure, I'm now back working on the piano arrangement and performance of my R&B song, now a part of this ALbum 2.0 Project. Not only am I back in rehearsal, attempting to elevate how I'm playing the main, electric-piano-voiced keyboard part on my Legato III, but I'm going after finishing the lyrics, too, both exactly what I told all of you I would do NEXT.

The keyboard part I've come to have worked out with the Legato's Rhodes piano-like voice has turned out to be less elaborate than my ambition. That's partly because of my frustration over my poor skillset on the keys, but also because of what I am determining the song needs. For one, I'm probably going to simplify the "Rhodes" part even more and transfer what I've worked out to an acoustic piano voice where the fill notes will have more sonic impact.

Meanwhile, I have the first verse of lyrics completed. There are two verses to go and still holes in the chorus where I've only had four of the needed seven lines for quite a while.

I have lyrics and/or music started for quite a few new songs, too. Over the weekend I got an idea and wrote a couple lines down. I have snippets of more than a half-dozen others, as well, some reaching back to cabin vacations during the COVID pandemic period.

I also had a pretty good idea a few days ago, but I didn't write it down and it's lost, maybe temporarily, but lost for the moment, none-the-same. I only remember it vaguely, and I do remember liking the idea, but that's it. It's like when you wake up and you know you just had a really great dream but for the life of you, you can't remember a thing about it, or at least most of it. And I just got an idea inspired by this: "Paul McCartney Joins Music Industry Protest Against AI With Silent Track." I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do, but some vague concepts have already hit me.

The five regular visitors, and perhaps a few other folk who read this and know me, may know that with the exception of my nephew, David Bernard's guitar work on "Identity," I Paul McCartney/Stevie Wondered the Virtually Approximate Subterfuge album, playing all the other instruments and doing all the vocals. I could add Dave Grohl and a few others to that DIY album list. The point here is that for this album I want to bring in other musicians, especially for specific songs. I've already had a conversation with one and I have some other musicians in mind to approach.

There's a song I wrote in my head a couple years ago at work that I would like to have at least two acoustic six-strings on. I worked out the chords I'd heard in my head on the piano, but if a piano ends up in the recording, it probably won't be prominent. There are other songs I have specific ideas for guest musicians to play on, too. And though I wouldn't say I have all the specific musicians in mind, once again, I do have at least a few specific people to approach.

In relationship to new songs and guest musicians, in a lot of the cases there will likely need to be a demo recording for said musicians' uses. And despite the imagery in the icon to the left, those demos will be electronic sound files, most probably MP3s. However, for some songs that will end up on the album, the cassette tape image is more than just a symbol as they are material from that 1970s/80s WayBack Machine of songs I wrote in my late teens to mid-twenties, more so the latter. I have some cassette demos of those that I'll digitize and clean up as much as I can. Maybe I'll use Peter Jackson's machine-learning program. Those tapes are not in the greatest shape, but I can probably get a decent enough quality that both I and any guest musicians can utilize them. Myself, I will need them to help me remember some of the chords and chord progressions. Hey, I haven't played most of these songs for over four decades!

SELLING SOAP & FIXING STUFF:

Though I don't exactly have a million-dollar promotional budget ‐‐ in fact, I don't have a promotional budget at all ‐‐ I have created a half-page ad for the EP, to run in the printed playbill for the upcoming DTG production of Light Sensitive, by Jim Geoghan. I didn't include the single because it releases November 28 and Light Sensitive doesn't open until December 5; although I do mention the single in the blurb. I may try to get an ad in for the EP in other local theatre playbills if my wallet can afford it.

Over the weekend I created a subpage for the website to highlight the still images in the music video for the Winter season ballad single. Of course, it won't be posted until the single releases and the music video is published on November 28. In the process of making the page I discovered that I'd left a Creative Commons photographer out of the credits at the end of the DV movie, which is already uploaded to my YouTube channel though it's not live yet. I promptly added the photographer to the list in the description field for the YouTube video along with an apology to the photographer for leaving them out of the credits roll in the actual music video.

THEN ‐‐ DOH! ‐‐ it hit me: the video's not live yet. I can delete this instance of it from YouTube, add the name to the credits in Final Cut Pro X, re-render the fixed version and upload that, all in plenty of time to make a November 28 debut. I'd also previously noted one little image error, which I'd decided to live with, but since I was in there, anyway, I fixed that, too.

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FORWARD:

The rehearsal for the R&B song has morphed into me playing the chord progression for the whole song on the Legato III's Rhodes-piano-ish voice, without any chord-transition fill notes, because, as I've already shared, I think the fill notes sound better coming from an acoustic piano voice. The electric piano part is better as base chord-harmonics. I've rehearsed a bit of that acoustic piano part, too. That one's not at an Elton John-level of prodigious keyboard work, and let's face it, it ain't gettin' there, but it'll at least add somewhat interesting melodiousness.

I am thinking about a third piano part that may be a little more challenging but will be used a bit more judiciously sparsely in the song. Whether I can pull off the part I'm hearing in my head is a question. But right now, the real focus is memorizing all the chord changes in the chord progression of the song, from start to finish. There are some slight variations in each of the verse and chorus sections each time they appear, so I need to get the differences etched into my head and hands.

I have also been thinking about other aspects of the arrangement. I've been contemplating the bass line, which I now have a slightly different concept for than I originally had. I've thought some about the "horn chart," too. That, of course will consist of faux horns, i.e.: Logic Pro MIDI voices played on my Oxygen 61 Keyboard.

As for the lyrics, progress, if minor, has been made, but only some tweaks to that first verse. There have been no additions to the lyrics in the chorus and the second and third verses are still blank.

FIXING THE "FIXING," OR, CORRECTIONS 2.0:

Looks like "2.0" is some kind of recurring theme these days.

So! in Final Cut Pro X I edited the music video for the Winter season ballad single to fix errors I'd discovered. I added the Creative Commons photographer's name to the credits roll at the end. I fixed the other image error I'd detected, that being an image that did not have the correct opacity assigned to it. Tuesday, at the rent-payer, I deleted the version of the music video already sitting on my YouTube channel, in Private mode, then uploaded the newly rendered version.

After YouTube had processed the new video, I watched it. Guess what?: another @&$%$#!! error! I'd love to blame that damned production gremlin, but that little bugger is not the culprit. Nope. I know exactly what happened and it was all me.

For my supplemental webpage that will highlight the stills from the video, in the order of their appearances in such, the page having both the video's versions and the original versions, I needed screenshots of all the still images I used in the DV movie as they are manipulated for the video. That usually means a zoom in and the universal fact that they are all at 75% opacity in order to be tinted blue due to an underlying blue background. To get a clean copy of many of the screen-captured video versions, I had to disable superimposed lyrics over the frames, so the text would not be in the images I captured. But I found that when done capturing, I did not re-enable the lyrics in two cases before I rendered the DV movie the second time.

Thus my second upload to YouTUbe was still a flawed version because a few lyric phrases were missing. I had to go back in Final Cut, fix the fix, re-render again, and do a third upload to YouTube. But before I did that third upload, I watched the newly rendered DV movie several times to be sure I got it all correct this time. If I've still missed something.....I'm gonna be pissed.

I remember in a production class in college that I didn't catch a typo in a lower third text overlay in a documentary video, (which was essentially the final exam for the class), until long after the assignment was turned in. One of the production gurus on campus said to me about that: "That's why there are ADs." When you are your own AD?: that's not a good idea, at least not for me.

MY CURRENT THEATRE TASKS:

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FORWARD IS FORWARD:

The chord progression doc for the R&B song.

My apologies to those of you who have followed much of my blog, if any of you are reading this, [if ANYONE is reading this], but I have to return to a recurring theme here: if I were a proper musician who practiced on my chosen instruments on a regular basis, the text of this post would be different. But I don't practice as a musican ought to, so....

I'm still working on the keyboard part for the R&B song, rehearsing the chord progression on my Legato III. The focus is still on the main, Rhodes-piano-ish voice, but I'm also still doing some work on a couple acoustic piano parts that will be more garnish. I don't know when I'll fire up my 24-track recorder to start laying things down. At the moment, all that's in the R&B song's project on the machine is the drumkit stereo tracks and the spoken-voice guide track. But maybe, just maybe, some recording will happen during this holiday week.

"What about lyrics?" you ask. There has been some forward motion. Another small tweak to the first verse has been made ‐‐ I changed one word ‐‐ and I have one line for the second verse.

CDS REASONABLY GUARANTEED BY THE 15TH:

Got an email from CD Baby Manufacturing that my order for the EP CDs is done, will ship out today, and the estimated delivery date is tomorrow "between 9:15 a.m.‐11:15 a.m." The shipment will be delivered to the rent-payer, more specifically to campus Shipping & Receiving, which is usually where I have shipments sent. I'm on vacation these three workdays of this holiday week, so if the shipment makes it before too late on Wednesday, I'll drive in to get my disks as soon as I know they've arrived. Otherwise, I should be able to get them next week when I return to work. Regardless of delivery and/or pick-up this week or next, I should indeed have them in my hands by the December 15 release date.

Not that I have a clear marketing plan for the physical CDs or anything. But at least the few comps I plan to give out will not have to wait. I'd send one to the local public radio station but that move has rendered no results I'm aware of in the past. The station clearly is not interested in me or my music.

Maybe it's time for me to start figuring out how to sell CDs in some manner besides at live performances ‐‐ those which we know I'm not doing now or any time soon. I could upgrade to vending services with my domain service....

ALMOST BUT NOT COMPLETE OBLIVION:

My weekly artist's report from Apple Music usually shows zeros for both Plays and Shazams, but every now and then I get a hit for Plays, and on a few rare occasions there has been a Shazam or two. I'm sorry to report that there has never been a report of a purchase on iTunes. The latest report, for November 14‐20, showed two streaming plays, one for "Cozy Anxious Chaos" and one for "Roll the Dice." The former is the one I've had the most streaming hits on Apple Music for, but usually in Copenhagen, and I assume from the same user who I suspect has the instrumental on a playlist that grabs it every now and then. But this time it was played somewhere in the U.S.; the city wasn't identified. The latter song, which is the modern-day, virtual version of a seven-inch, vinyl, 45 RPM "B-side", i.e.: was the extra track for my first single release, "Just One Shadow," was streamed in Lisbon, Portugal. So, a jazzy instrumental somewhere in the States and a tongue-in-cheek blues-rock ditty across the ocean in Europe. I suppose there's still no threat to the legacy of The Beatles, nor for Taylor Swift's management team, but at least my music isn't absolutely, completely lurking in the blackest bottom depths of the cold, dark void.

Occasionally, I get reports like this, and I usually don't bother mentioning them, but sometimes I need to remind myself that there are ears out there hearing my music, and more importantly to me, ears on people who don't know me. There may not be many, but they exist.

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I tend to not want to recognize or honor what is termed "The First Thanksgiving" here in the United States, because though it's mostly considered not to be a myth that early European settlers (English Pilgrims) and indigenous people (Native Americans) did gather in commensality to honor and celebrate the harvest and the goodness of nature, we know that the future history of the relationship between the settlers and the indigenous became adversarial and deadly as the settlers became conquerors who wiped out large portions of the indigenous over the latter's audacity to not want to give up their lands and their ways of life. There's also the fact that such feasts date back to long before "The First Thanksgiving" in many different cultures in many different places on the globe including many Native American nations ‐‐ see "The History of Thanksgiving in America." As I've written before, I see this holiday as a celebration of that commensality for its own sake, divorced from a specific historical narrative. I celebrate and honor the gathering of friends and family to focus on whatever sense of gratitude is relevant to whoever sits down at the table. So: Happy ThanksGiving to you and yours! And go ahead, have that second piece of pie!

MAYBE SOME TRACKS GET LAID SOON:

I've been pluggin' along on the keyboard work for the R&B song, all on the Legato. The focus is still the Rhodes-piano-sounding voice part, where the big idea is to get the chord progression memorized, which I think has been accomplished; I now am remembering the small variants of chord changes in various parts of the song. I believe I will be turning on the 24-track recorder tomorrow to at least get the Rhodes voice part recorded. I've again done a little work on the second keyboard part (acoustic piano voice), so, who knows, maybe that gets laid down tomorrow, too. And if it's a really amazingly-productive day for the song, and the album, maybe I'll work out that third piano part and get it recorded tomorrow as well. Though I do have some sound design work for DTG to attend to and probably ought to give it some attention tomorrow.

Progress has been made on the lyrics. I've got the second verse finished, save for any changes we all know I inevitably will make.

CDS IN HAND:

The shipment of CDs of the EP arrived on campus Monday, a day earlier than estimated. It came in the morning and though I was on vacation from the rent-payer the three workdays this week, I would have driven in to get the box that day, but my car was in the shop Monday so I didn't get the disks until Tuesday. But you'll note that was still twenty days before the official release date of the EP.

CURRENT THEATRE GIG:

I did agree to do soundwork for the latest Guild show. It's not a tasking gig at all. It has consisted almost entirely of putting together the music for preshow and intermission, with a little bit of production music, and only a few SFXs in the show, one of those that includes within it the production song that takes us into Act 1. I have had to build some of the SFX's and that's done. I've also finished curating the music and only have some sound-file processing and then the programing of the show in Show Cue System. Opening Night is a week from tomorrow night, and Tech Week starts this Sunday. I'm in good shape, though. I watched a full run rehearsal Tuesday evening which has helped inform me for finishing my music selections for preshow, intermission, and production, as well as adding two SFX cues to the sound plot.

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My new single, "White Landscapes," formally referred to as "The Winter Season Ballad," is officially released today. The music video is also live and you can see it by clicking here.

A longer version of "White Landscapes," with a slightly different mix, is one of the four tracks on the EP that is releasing eighteen days from now, on December 15, and as you see on the right, is titled, Chasing White Landscapes.

And where the single is a digital release only, the EP, as you will know if you saw the last blogpost or quite a few before that, also will be a physical release, in CD format. Right now I have no venders from which to market it, or my past CDs, for that matter. But if you know how to contact me, (see my contact page if you don't), we can do a "backroom" transaction. I think $5.00 is a fair price ‐‐ I believe it's what it'll cost to download it from iTunes. Of course, if there's postage involved, I'll need to pass that along.

Here is the track listing for Chasing White Landscapes:

1. Becca's Lament
2. Burning Bridge ‐ 2025 mix
3. For Loyalty's Sake
4. White Landscapes ‐ long version

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INCHES FORWARD ON MY BRAND OF R&B:

Late last night into early this morning I was still rehearsing the Rhodes-esque piano part, but I'm categorizing this as "in the studio" because I was plugged into the Tascam 24-Track with some hope that I'd actually record the part. I came close to pressing record, but I wasn't completely happy with my rehearsal, though I do now have the chord progression memorized.

It may seem weird that one would have to memorize something that they composed, but that is usually the case, at least if the song is more than just three-chord blues based. This one has thirteen chords and about seventeen unique chord changes over the course if its eighty-plus measures.

I might record that Rhodes-voiced part today, I might not. Tomorrow is Tech Sunday for DTG's mounting of Jim Geoghan's Light Sensitive and I have to spend some portion of today getting the soundwork for that finished and ready for tomorrow. As well, there's some other things relevant to that production that I'll probably work on today. But then, there isn't a mountain of stuff to do for the show and the tech doesn't start until tomorrow afternoon, so it's not at all impossible that I have laid down at least the first electric piano voice part for this song before I walk into the theatre tomorrow.

While looking at the session notes I noticed that I had previously laid a second electric piano voice part, which I don't remember now. And since I cleared all the previously recorded tracks out on the 24-track, whatever that part was is forever lost. I do remember laying two acoustic piano voice parts, one with the Legato III's Baby Grand voice and one with its upright piano voice, and I have a decent memory of those parts. I am rerecording both those, though they won't be the same this time even if I remembered them perfectly. I may again add that second electric piano voice, too, and there's some good chance it'll end up serving the same purpose this time that it probably did then, which, at least this time, will be to bolster the first electric piano voice part in some way or another.

I had also previously worked out a bass line, or at least the main musical theme for one, but I am inclined to throw that out when I get to the bass this time. It had not been recorded yet before. I think I was about to when I was stricken by my late-summer emotional-crisis event ‐‐ that for which is not completely eradicated today. The bass line will be on the Epiphone Viola Bass with its flatwound strings because I want that tone and texture for this white boy's attempt at a Motown sound.

MOVING INTO TECH REHEARSALS:

I also may do a bit of preproduction ‐‐ which would normally be postproduction ‐‐ for the promo trailer, editing together all the elements of the trailer in Final Cut Pro X, save for the rehearsal footage. Principal photography of the rehearsal will be shot during the full tech run Monday evening. If I can fit it in today, I may also put together 95+% of the lobby movie, which will run in the lobby at the theatre before each performance. All that would be missing would be the group cast portrait.

So, one can see why I may or may not get to any work today on the Album 2.0 Project.

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RESPONSE:

Thus far, one friend has responded with a nice complement on the YouTube video page and another gave a rather neutral response via email. Otherwise: "chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp,    chirp-chirp...."

MOVE OVER FLORENCE!

INCH BY INCH:

Yesterday, after tech rehearsal at The Guild was done *(see below), I managed to fire up the Legato III and get in some more rehearsal on the Rhodes piano voice part for the R&B song. There are still some inequities in my execution of the performance that kept me from pushing Record on the 24-Track recorder. Since I've ratcheted down the difficulty of the part the big issue is some sloppiness on my part that has been occasionally resulting in clunker notes that just cannot be tolerated.

I'll be bitching even more when I get to the acoustic piano part where I will go for the more difficult arrangement. That'll likely be the Baby Grand voice on the Legato. Looking at the calendar and at what is left to workout and record for this song, it will be a fantastic miracle if the song is done before New Years Eve.

INTO TECH WEEK:

"It's tech week. Now the people who don't usually get the spotlight step in. Thank you to [Sarah Saunders, K.L.Storer, Rhea Smith, and Margie Strader]. Not pictured: Red [Newman], Shawn [McIntosh], Rob [Waldron], my producer Deirdre [Root] and especially my amazing stage manager/assistant director, Kathryn [Sykes]. Theatre is a team sport." Photo & text: Rick Flynn

Honestly, though the actual rehearsal yesterday afternoon was about one-hour, I was actually there mid-morning to get the Show Cue System sound design loaded into the tech booth sound tech laptop, then configured for the theatre's sound system. That included adjusting the volumes for the theatre space. Of course, I had initially programed the show into Show Cue System at home on Saturday, after I had finished processing the preshow and intermission music and creating normalizing MP3s for each song.

I did do the preproduction for the show's promo trailer on Saturday in Final Cut Pro X, as I wrote Saturday morning I planned to. I've assemble everything for the DV movie save for the footage of the actors, and that principal photography will happen tonight during the full tech run. I even acquired and dropped in some new royalty-free music for the trailer, as what I already had in my library didn't fit the show.

I put together the show's lobby movie yesterday, during downtime shortly before the tech run began. That one is complete but for the cast portrait which will be taken, probably, tomorrow night.

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FAUX RHODES TRAVELLED:

Last night I finally rerecorded the electric piano 1 part, the Rhodes piano-like voice. I did it in five takes, which is pretty good for me. Of course, this was not exactly a challenging part to perform, but still, it's good to not have had the aggravation of twenty-something takes, or more.

I have decided that I will again record a second electric-piano-voiced part, but I plan on not using the chorus effect, which will move it away from that Rhodes sound. I'm not sure when I'll start work on that; maybe it'll be this weekend, though, if you read below, you'll see I now have a music video production priority that may move this song a little back on the schedule. But, ya never know.

A LONG VERSION FOR THE LONG VERSION:

Again, I originally wanted to shoot particular original footage for the "White Landscapes (single version)" music video, but there needed to be good snow cover and, alas, there was none. I've been holding out hope that there'd be a good snow in time for me to shoot footage for a music video for the EP's long version of the song.

And then along came yesterday. A good snow and the whole day off. As I wrote above, after the campus went on delay, I targeted the afternoon vacation time to shoot this snow footage. Then, I got an earlier start when the campus went to closed-all-day.

So, I headed over to the combined Pearl's Fen/Oakes Quarry parks to do some principal photography. I took my iPhone, a tripod, my MacBook Pro, and a portable TV tray. The TV tray was to set the MacBook on; the MacBook was for playback of the song so I could lip-sync, and also to have the lyrics pulled up so I got them right when doing said lip-syncing. The shoot took me about three-and-a-half hours and I got some good footage.

I'm so happy this opportunity came about; sometimes serendipity is a really good friend.

The next step for this DV movie production is for me to work on still graphics. I have some concepts. I'll also reuse some of the stock footage I used in the music vid for the single. I'm not sure about the Creative Commons photographs from that first video, but I haven't ruled them out.

I'm optimistic that I'll have a final cut on-line on the EP's Dec-15 release date.

Here are a few cropped frames from the footage I shot yesterday at Pearl's Fen and Oakes Quarry Park. These are in the original coloring. The footage in the video may be colorized quite differently.

WINDING UP TO OPENING:

Again, like the next afternoon for the new music video, rather than bringing in any of my Canon Vixia DV cameras for the principal photography of the promo trailer, Monday night, I shot this with my iPhone, too. I hadn't received clearance to use dialogue from the script in the trailer so the goal was to capture about forty-five seconds of compelling action on stage, and I didn't see a need to do a multi-camera shoot, as I would were I shooting a cohesive portion of a scene with dialogue. Plus, to be honest, my iPhone actually shoots higher quality DV footage than the Vixias. I did do a bit of color correction during post in Final Cut Pro X, yesterday, and it looks pretty damed good, I think.

Of course, the original plan for yesterday's post production was for me to finish the trailer editing during the afternoon vacation time, but with the snow day, I was able to get it finished and even published to the DTG YouTube channel in the morning.

To see the trailer, CLICK HERE.

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MORE R&B TRAVELLING:

Wednesday night I was home earlier than expected from the dress/tech rehearsal of The Guild show so I fired up the Legato III and Tascam 24-Track and managed to get ahead of the game by actually working out and recording that second electric piano voice for the R&B song. I did it in seven takes, some of them partial, a couple being punch ins to fix some clunker notes or chords. This is a supplemental part to enhance the electric piano 1 part. The George-Martin-wannabe recording producer and the dark-green recording engineer in me are already thinking in terms of the mix and where I'll place the elements of these two piano parts in the stereo pan.

When done recording, I started working on the third piano part (aka: acoustic piano voice 1). This one is that one that will use the transition fill notes between most of the chords in the song, at least most of the chords in the verse sections. I'll have to go back to using my varispeed recordings of the drum track to start out at a much slower tempo then graduate up to full tempo. Remember: Not Elton John-level piano playing coming from me.

MORE PREPRODUCTION:

If I want the music video for the long version of "White Landscapes" to be live on my YouTube channel on the December 15 release date of the EP, then I need to attend to editing it together in Final Cut Pro X as a priority.

I'm trying to supplement the footage I shot this past Tuesday at Pearl's Fen and Oakes Quarry Park, and the stock footage I used in the "White Landscapes (single version)" music video, with new still images I'm putting together, frantically. I do still have all the Creative Commons stills I used for the previous music video, and even have a few photos I grabbed from Creative Commons but didn't use. I'm still undecided about using any of those images, however.

Regardless, I do want to have a final cut ASAP, which means diligent attention to creating new stills. I actually sat in the greenroom during most of Light Sensitive rehearsal Wednesday, watching the performance on the monitor while working on these graphics. Last night I was only there long enough to prepare a couple things for tonight's Opening Night, then I went home to work on the graphics for the rest of the evening.

Click here for the promotional trailer of the show

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THE NEXT PIANO PART FOR THE R&B SONG:

Last night I worked more on that third piano part (acoustic piano voice 1), for the R&B song, on the Legato III. The part that is developing is not what I had in mind, but I like it, so either what I had in mind will be taken up by another instrument, or it will be scrapped. I could take it up with "piano 4" (acoustic piano voice 2), maybe, but I did have something else in mind for that. At any rate, what I'm working out for piano 3 is not exactly as challenging as I had charged myself to make it, but it is interesting and a good fit for the song; so, if I'm rationalizing to justify not putting in the sweat equity on a more difficult part.....I. DON'T. CARE. And, I will say that it's going to take some rehearsal on my part to get it ready to record. Also, I'm not done composing the part, so it could become more challenging.....

THE LONG VERSION'S VERSION:

With the release of the Chasing White Landscapes EP in just one week, next Monday, December 15, the push to get the music video for the long version of "White Landscapes" to final cut and posted to my YouTube channel has been on the front burner.

Friday evening was dedicated to finishing still images for the new DV movie. I ended up with a nice array of images for potential use in the music video, all addressing the winter landscape motif.

Saturday I started the editing of the music video in Final Cut Pro X. I laid the foundation of the DV movie's start, all the footage of me lip syncing the lyrics, which I shot at Pearl's Fen and Oakes Quarry Park, last Tuesday, and then I added the ending with the credits.

Yesterday, much to my shock, I added virtually all of what we'll call the b-roll, and I may just have added absolutely all of it; I'd assumed it would take most of the week. The "b-roll" is other footage I shot at the parks last Tuesday as well as the footage of horse-drawn sleighs I licensed from envato and used in the music video for the single version of "White Landscapes." I also consider the graphic still images I've created as b-roll. I had thought this b-roll process would take far more time because, though I had an idea of what I wanted to do, I was still doing it on-the-fly, making creative choices as I went. So it looked to me as if the final cut might not be finished until late in the week. Now, it seems it'll probably be done sooner that I expected.

Beside my estimate that the b-roll work would take much longer, another reason I placed the end point later is that I do want to give more time and energy to the R&B song for the Album 2.0 Project, as the entry above illustrates.

I also still have to superimpose the lyric text. Beyond that I need to add cello images, specifically for the cello solo section as well as in some key spots during the ending of the song. I also would not count out several passes through to tweak and fix things. Nevertheless, having the new music video ready to upload by December 15 is a cemented goal.

Some of the images I made for potential use in the new music video:

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ANOTHER INSTRUMENT LAID:

After a few days of further rehearsal for Piano Part 3, I decided to record it Wednesday night: seventeen takes, but no good takes. A couple performances came close, one of those almost making the grade, but ultimately I was not satisfied with any of the takes. Last night I finally got a good take after thirteen more bad ones. So, this was only thirty-one takes (he said sarcastically).

I know I wrote that I decided to not have the filler notes during chord transitions, and that made this part easier to conquer, but I didn't say it was ultimately a cakewalk for me now. The difficulties lie mostly in my lack of precision and focus.

One recurring clunker for me has been moving quickly from low octave hit on G♭ to C with my left hand. I've been consistently hitting the low octave Bs rather than the Cs. Other clunkers come from me forgetting where I am in the chord progression and playing the wrong chord. If you read some of this blog you may remember that there are some subtle differences for the different occurrences of the verse and chorus sections. There was other minor sloppiness during the Wednesday takes. And, again, there was a least one take ‐‐ #16 ‐‐ that I could have accepted, but there were still some imperfections; I decided I might as well try for a better performance. Of the fourteen takes last night, there were a few that came close before the magic number thirty-one.

Now I start on Piano Part 4 (acoustic piano number 2).

MAYBE A FINAL CUT:

At this very moment I am 99.9% certain that the music video for the long version of "White Landscapes" is in final cut. But, you know......ya never know.

Monday night I dropped the lyric text over the footage. I also fixed a couple places where the synchronization between the vocals and the footage of me lip-synching the words in those spots was off. Then there was one other spot where I needed to tweak the rhythm of the visuals to match the music; that was at the bridge into the faux-cello solo.

And as for that cello solo, I added the cello images over the solo section on Tuesday evening, and also over a portion of the beginning of the outro. I had to redo the images first. They are PNGs with transparent backgrounds, or they were supposed to be, but the background was a translucent lightgray, so I had to go back into Corel Painter to eliminate that see-through gray background. I also somehow created a transparent spot in one of the cellos, but I decided that I liked it, for some reason, so I didn't go back to "fix" it.

While in Final Cut Pro X, Tuesday night, I tweaked and fix a few other things. I added a little zoom-in in the beginning of the video that jazzes up a brief moment; I color corrected a cutaway; and I fixed a blip in the final fadeout. Then yesterday I went back in and corrected another cutaway, one of my still graphics, that the edge of wandered into frame during a Ken-Burns-Effect moment.

Ultimately, I rendered the DV movie three times, because after I render is often when I catch little errors that I don't seem to be able to see when the movie is still in the editor app. You know, like after a college student turns in a paper then catches a glaring error in their copy of the work, or how we all notice an obvious typo in an email message or text after we've hit send. That's how I caught almost everything I tweaked or fixed Tuesday and yesterday, by watching the rendered DV movie in Quicktime.

Now, as I wrote at the start of this entry, the music video is probably finished. I'll watch it a few times before Monday and see if the "final cut" status sticks. Okay, okay....I'll watch it more than "a few times."

MUSICAL MULTI-TASKING ‐‐ AKA: SOMETHING NEW *(old) TO ADD TO THE CURRENT WORKFLOW:

Maybe a couple of you five regulars will know, or remember. from past blog posts (most long-past) that in the mid-1980s I recorded an entire double album. It's a concept album titled, Heart Walks. I recorded it in the music room of my music partner, Rich Hisey's, house on Arbor Avenue, in Dayton, Ohio. Virtually everything used belonged to Rich. It was recorded on his Fostex 4-track, analogue cassette recorder. Rich also had a nice array of Moog synthesizers, and a Fender Rhodes piano. Pretty much the only of my equipment used on the album were my Epiphone bass of the time, which doesn't appear on every track, and my small collection of guitar pedals. He's joked, accurately, that he's the executive producer.

Heart Walks has been in the can now for four decades. I guess you could call it my Smile, you know: minus the musical-genius quotient. There are ten titles on the album, five of them over ten-minutes long, and one of those clocking in at twenty-five minutes (back in the days of LPs that would have been the entire side of a vinyl disk). The whole album runs one-hour, thirty-eight minutes. Two of the tracks are songwriting collaborations with Rich.

It's a very electronic-music based album, with some of it quite New-age in style and at least one track moving into earlier Pink Floyd territory, more-or-less reminiscent of parts of their Ummagumma album, or from other albums from that era of their music. There's really only maybe three songs that can remotely fit into the rock genre, and none of them can be labelled out-and-out "Rock‐&‐Roll." Although there is a progressive rock version of one of the other songs, that version not intended for the album.

The point to writing this entry is that I have come to realize, recognize, admit, (whatever word best fits), that the Album 2.0 Project is going to be in production for a while. It may not, probably won't, be wrapped in 2026. It could, I suppose, but I am not anticipating that album releasing until 2027. But I have material to put out. I have this whole Heart Walks double album; I also have the ambient music album that it would not take too much effort to get released. So, while I'm plugging along, writing and recording the new album, I can still be releasing what is essentially new material, at least new material to other than myself and a tiny handful of people.

Some of you five may know that I digitize the analogue stems for all the songs on Heart Walks and they're sitting, waiting for me to mix and master the songs. However, I will add bass guitar work to at least one song, and I am seriously considering adding one to others. I may think about adding other instrumentation or vocals to other songs, too. None of this is decided except for that one bass line, which has always been planned; I basically composed it in my head, years ago.

Heart Walks is a pretty firm guarantee for a 2026 release, probably early summer at the latest.

THE CAST:

CHARACTER		ACTOR
Mary Jane		Kayla Graham
Ruthie / Tenkei		Caitlin Larsen Deer
Sherry / Dr. Toros		Amy Askins
Brianne / Chaya		Shana Fishbein
Amelia / Kat		Alison Jamieson

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THE NEXT PIANO PART IN THE WORKS & ANOTHER ONE IN THE QUEUE:

For my R&B song, I believe I have worked out Piano Part 4 (aka: Acoustic Piano 2), or at least in the neighborhood of 95-99% so. I rehearsed for a couple hours last night and feel like I could be ready to record tonight or tomorrow.

This piano will come in fifteen measures into the song. I do often stager the introduction of instrument parts in my music. I like the build. The part is, of course, not as complex as I wish it were; it's not like the work of Nicky Hopkins or Keith Emerson ‐‐ *I felt like I should reference some different great keyboardists than I usually do. No, it's not like their work, but, who knows, it may be a little more complex between now and when I get that good take that I'll keep for the recording.

In addition, I have decided to add a fifth piano part that will come in much later in the song. It'll probably be almost the ending of the song, around measure #68; there's probably going to be around 95 to 100 measures in the recording. This was actually about where Piano 4 came in during the first recording sessions for the song, but #4 was playing a different musical role in that version, the role that #5 will play in this version.

Unfortunately., because of the winter storm warnings the midwest U.S. was under yesterday, the Saturday performance of the show was cancelled. Our big concern was that driving conditions would be hazardous after the show would have ended, for every one from audience to cast to crew to staff. I'm not too sure it ended up being that bad, but if we were going to make the wrong call, this was the side of the coin to make it on.

Directed by Rick Flynn Produced by Deirdre Root Thomas Hanratty, lifelong resident of Hell's Kitchen and once the most dangerous white cab driver in New York, was blinded eight years ago in a drunken accident and is fading into a routine of self pity and alcohol. His bartender and only friend is moving to Vermont with his girlfriend, but finds it difficult to abandon Tom. He recruits a slightly handicapped volunteer reader who battles her way through Tom's shell.

The Cast of Light Sensitive
CHARACTER		ACTOR
Tom Hanratty		Frank Maranje
Lou D'Marco		Jim Hagan
Edna Miles		Kerry Simpson

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RELEASED TODAY!:

The EP Chasing White Landscapes is officially released today. For those new to this blog, the EP consists of two instrumentals that were originally composed and recorded for stage productions at Dayton Theatre Guild, a remix/remaster of the rocker "Burning Bridge," originally from my Virtually Approximate Subterfuge album, and the long version of "White Landscapes" ‐‐ the shorter version having released as a single last month.

The Chasing White Landscapes song list: "Becca's Lament" * "Burning Bridge ‐ 2025 mix" "For Loyalty's Sake" ** "White Landscapes ‐ long version"  *) originally composed for the DTG production of Wednesday's Child by Mark St. Germain. **) originally composed for the DTG production of For the Loyal by Lee Blessing.

The music video ‐‐ to catch some up, I wanted to shoot some original, live-action footage for the music video for "White Landscapes (single version)," but there needed to be significant local snowfall, but there was none by the time I needed to have that music video in final cut. But I'd decided that I'd make another music video for the long version of the song, and this time there was a good local snow fall in time to shoot and I got that footage. So this DV movie features footage of the recording artist as well as some of the same stock footage used in the video for the single version and some winter-scene still graphics that I made. I'm terribly happy about the new footage I got and the resulting DV music video. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE MUSIC VIDEO.

PIANO 4:

Logged some rehearsal time on Piano 4 for the R&B song last night. From what I'd already worked out, there were only some slight alterations to the arrangement, or the composition, whichever word you want to use. They probably really were more improvisational variations than anything else.

My hope was that last night I could get the performance to a level that gave me confidence to hit the record button on the Tascam 24-Track, but though I was running through the Tascam to play this part in accompaniment with the tracks already laid, I was not ready to record it. It's the same issue as I recently wrote of for piano part 3: some lack of precision (sloppiness) and some lack of focus to keep myself on top of what chord changes are coming in each variation of the sections. The other issue was that my hand would get a bit fatigued so my fingers would start lagging in executing the brief, simple arpeggios that make up a good portion of this piano part. So some of what needs to happen is simple woodshedding of those sections to workout my hand and fingers to get them in the physical condition to succeed.

Still, if I could record tonight and get a good take, that'd just be awesome.

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MISSED POSTING THIS YESTERDAY

"Chanukah Sameach!" to my Jewish friends and acquaintances

PIANO 4‐WARD:

Spent some time last night rehearsing Piano 4 for the R&B song. Gaining ground but still not confident about pressing the record button. Still some lag creeping in, some lack of precision in the execution of the brief arpeggios, especially during the ending where there is an extended, recurring repeat. Don't know if tonight is the night I lay the track or not. I will target tonight but I'd much rather get through the whole song in one take rather than punching in to fix screwups.

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NOTE TO SELF: "NO |)@|\/||\| PUNCHING IN!!!!":

Well, I did more work last night on Piano 4 of the R&B song but am still not quite ready to record. The sticking point is still the brief arpeggios that start at the second verse section. I made considerable improvement last night but I still would not have recorded the part without needing to punch in several times, WHICH I WOULD RATHER NOT DO. I did make it almost completely through the song a few times but not quite all the way. The big issue is the same as I last reported: my hand gets a bit fatigued and both lags behind the tempo and causes inprecision in hitting the right keys. Once again it goes back to my not being a well-practiced musician, which is all on me.

Chocolate Milk Break ‐‐ I remember reading an article, years ago, about Steely Dan, specifically about their producer, Gary Katz, who would attend to little details to make the musicians and recording staff happy; one thing he did for one of the albums was that he discovered that one of the musicians or perhaps the engineer ‐‐ someone ‐‐ liked to snack on M&Ms, so he made sure there was always a bowl of them in the studio. And I know that a golden rule for theatre and movie productions is to have some snacks handy during rehearsals and production. Last night, at one point, I was getting a bit frustrated and anxious, to I took a break and made myself some chocolate milk. I can't say that it helped, but it certainly didn't hurt.

Notice in the little movie above that my pinky finger seems to dance in the wind. This is, I believe, a clear indication that I'm not trained on the piano. My pinky probably ought to being employed for a lot of what I'm doing there. And I try to keep it stable but as I move the finger that's next to it, it wants to move as the result. It's the same often on my bass with my left pinky. I have noted in concert footage of both Geddy Lee and Chris Squire that they frequently tuck that pinky in rather than use it, which is, again, an indicator they are not formally trained; and yet, as they are two of the greatest bassists ever....

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ARPEGGIO OR BUST ‐ PLUS WORDS & HORNS & STUFF:

I did rehearse through the whole R&B song on Piano 4 last night, but the focus for more than the second half of the session was on the series of brief arpeggios that appear in verses two & three and then during the repeated coda at the end. I concentrated on the precision of the note values and rhythm, and on the accuracy of hitting the correct notes. Like I've mentioned before, the inaccuracy in notes played is the result of my hand getting fatigued from the quick repetition, so much of this phase of the rehearsal was about physical exercise for my hand as much as anything else. Also, a lot of it was about muscle memory, i.e.: acclimating myself (my hand) to playing the part, which is of course quite frequently what instrumental rehearsal is about.

I'm still dead set on that goal of no punch ins when I lay this part down on the Tascam.

On the way in to the rent-payer this morning, it occurred to me that it could be a good thing to mix down a demo of the rhythm track of the R&B song, as it is, so I can listen to it while I work on finishing the lyrics.

I have the third verse to write and I have two lines to write to finish the chorus section. One of those two lines need to have a significant weight to it to match what's happening musically, that having been decided when the musical moment was conceived; the thought was something like: "The words here need to say something significant."

To let you in on a little secret, the R&B song, in the grand fashion of pop music, is about romance. But I am avoiding all those obvious, over-used rhymes in love songs: "heart," and all its recurring rhyming words like, "part" or "start," etc., as an example. It's especially true for the two lines to fill out the chorus, but also for verse 3. I well avoided such with verses 1 & 2, with only one rhyme anywhere close to the realm of commonly done, but I don't think done too frequently.

It's also not a bad idea to have such a demo to listen to while I contemplate elements of the arrangement. The composition of the "horn chart" is most important part of this thought. I'm hearing some general concepts in my head, but listening to a demo of the melodic foundation could help with this greatly. Other aspects of the arrangement could benefit from this, too.

The big issue for me in terms of mixing a demo is, at what point do I do it? I'm thinking sooner rather than later, maybe right after I finally record Piano 4, which means this instrumental, rhythm-track demo would only be the drum kit and the first four piano parts, no Piano 5, no bass line, no rhythm guitar (chorded bass), if there is such rhythm guitar, I haven't yet decided. Having the demo to study obviously could benefit the composing of these missing elements, though the main point for me is the horn chart.

I haven't migrated any of the R&B song stems from the 24-track to my laptop in order to get a cleaner mix in Logic Pro X, but that would have to happen first.

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ARPEGGIO SUCCESS BUT A DEMO SNAG:

Thursday night I surprised myself by actually recording the Piano 4 part for the R&B song, with all of its arpeggios that had been challenging my limited keyboard skills; and the kicker is that I recorded it in TWO TAKES ! I also DID NOT NEED TO RELY ON ANY PUNCH-INS !

I attribute this unexpected success to a few things. A fresh session probably factors in. But more so I think I came in with the right mental groove going on. I sat down for a rehearsal session; I had no expectation that I'd record. But I told myself when I sat down: "Dude, just relax and pay attention." I found that I was not attacking the keys during the arpeggio sections with quite as much fervor and that was making it possible for my amateur hand and fingers to play those arpeggios without the muscles in my hand or my fingers tuckering out. Plus I got through the song a few times without screwing up even one chord change, nor playing any clunker notes/chords. So it was: "Might as well record this sucker!" So I hit "Record" and got the job done.

Did I mention that I recorded it in two takes with no punch-ins?

In the previous blog post I wrote that I've decided to make a demo of the R&B song's rhythm tracks, thus far recorded, to listen to while I work on finishing the lyrics and while visualizing the further composition of the arrangement. Thursday, after that good Take 2, I migrated the eight existing stems from the 24-track recorder to the project in Logic Pro X on my MacBook.

But when I got to the mixing and mastering I encountered a rather strange problem. While I was mixing in Logic Pro X I wasn't getting good output volume to my external speakers. The meters in LPX were showing a high volume, in fact, they were reading too far in the red at times, meaning the volume was "too hot." But I was not getting a loud volume in the output; and what's more, the audio I was getting wasn't distorted as it should have been based on the meters being so consistently high in the red zone. However, the stereo-mixed WAV file I rendered was both quite loud and quite distorted. What the EFF was going on? I trolled all through the settings in Logic Pro and in the system OS audio preferences and I could see nothing amiss. I was flummoxed.

Then yesterday I took one more stroll through the LPX settings, and there it was. The audio output was set to "Macbook Pro Speakers" rather than to the third-party "SpeakerAmp" that the rest of the OS is set to use. So last night, after making that adjustment, I was able to get a decent mastered mix of the demo. I did have to remix and remaster, but the remix was adjusting volumes on all the stem tracks then adjusting the volume in the mastering project, too. Now I have something I can work with.

And I have no clue how & why I missed that setting on Thursday; I guess I was stressed so it didn't register despite that it was precisely the sort of thing I was looking for.

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And in the spirit of today's Winter Solstice, here's my music video for the last song on my EP, Chasing White Landscapes:

WORDS & INSTRUMENTS:

Yesterday afternoon I took my little demo recording of the R&B song's rhythm section ‐‐ on my iPhone ‐‐ on a little hike at John Bryan State Park and I worked on the lyrics. I wrote one of the two lines needed for the chorus; I'd thought I'd come up with both, but I ended up rejecting one of the lines, but I then wrote it at home a little later in the day. Now I have the third verse left to do.

Musically, I'll next be working on that fifth and last piano part as the next thing to record. This one should be a breeze (famous last words, right?), it's just going to be a bit of garnish toward the end of the song, probably starting at the repeat of the chorus at the end. And I don't think it's going to be a difficult part (famous last words, right?). Then I'll move on to the bass line, which may be a little more of a challenge. I'd composed most of the bass line months back but I believe I'm ditching all that for something new.

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Even though I think it's been implied, I did virtually sneak into this Artist's Retreat ‐ Staycation 2025 officially unannounced. Of course, it may be mostly about the Album 2.0 Project, and more pointedly, the R&B song that I'm currently focused on. But I could also get some worked in on the mixing and mastering of the Heart Walks album project; maybe I'll add the bass line to at least the one song from Heart Walks. And if there's some amazing miracle, I could get some mastering in the Ambient Music Album Project, which I have decided to add to the present agenda. I'm not really sure that I'll get to the second or third musical venture during this two-week period; I do habitually load more on my plate than I can eat.

YESTERDAY & TODAY:

Yesterday saw no work on anything musical, but this afternoon and/or tonight will see me working on that fifth and final piano part for the R&B song.

I may also attack the lyrics for the third verse.



I will be splitting my time between three different music projects as of now into 2026, and, much to my chagrin, probably into 2027. It's now three because beyond the Album 2.0 Project, and the long-overdue completion and release of the Heart Walks album project, recorded between about 1983 and 1986, I've decided to actively work on the final mastering of the Ambient Music Album Project that I recorded twelve years ago and have used in two theatre stage productions: George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead™ Live at the Dayton Playhouse, and Wednesday's Child at Dayton Theatre Guild.

Obviously I hope to get at least some work done for all three during the Artist's Retreat ‐ Staycation 2025, but, to repeat myself, I may only get through work on the R&B song for Album 2.0, before my time off from the rent-payer has wrapped. The plan for this so-called "multi-tasking" is to finish the recording of a song for Album 2.0, then mix and master a song for Heart Walks ‐‐ and in at least one case, add a bass line, then remaster a cut for the Ambient Music Album. Both the latter, older works should be able to release in 2026; Album 2.0 is more probable to have a 2027 release. Although that doesn't mean that an early single couldn't release off it; that's not a plan but it's not out of the question.

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PIANO WORK IS WRAPPED:

Don't let this impress you too terribly much but last night I laid Piano 5 for the R&B song in, waIt for it:
ONE TAKE!
Mind you, it's part of the ending of the song, starting at the repeat of the chorus section (the chorus' last appearance), then the coda repeat of the verse chords; so it doesn't cover much ground in the song. Plus, it's not at all a challenging part to play; it's simply a garnish for the ending of the song, an atmospheric enhancement. But still, one take.

Today I start on the bass line. I will use my Epiphone Viola Bass with its flatwound strings because, as I have written here before, "I want that tone and texture for this white boy's attempt at a Motown sound." Though, at this point, what I've laid doesn't remind me much of a Motown record; but I don't know that I ever expected it was going to be much in that groove. I played a bit of the rhythm track demo for a friend at a party Saturday night and she said it reminded her of Steely Dan. I'm not sure I hear that, but I'll take it.

Back to the bass line, like I wrote in the last blog post, I had composed most of the bass line a few months back, but I am going to abandone that, or a lot of it, and start over. It's not likely that I'll be pressing the Record button today. Today will be a composer's day.


And for the holidays, here's one, written and mostly recorded on this date in 2019:

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BUILDING THE R&B BASS:

I started work late last night and into early, early this morning on the "new" bass line for the R&B song. From the plan I've had, I'm using my Epiphone Viola Bass, with its flatwound strings. This is also the virgin intended use of my new Bass Ten 10-Band Graphic EQ, which I've only previously used as a live SFX for The Guild mounting of Dial M for Murder, last October. Now it's in its permanent home and working its real job, not to make actors, speaking into off-stage mics, sound like they're on the phone from on-stage speakers, but to fine-tune the tone of my bass to tailer such to the particular song at hand.

The work last night was simply getting the fundamentals of the song down on the bass. It was making sure I was playing to the right chords, so it was mostly just playing root notes with some walking on the neck from chord to chord. As my hands and fingers get more rehearsed on the song's chord changes I'll start truly composing the melody of the bass line, with the hope that I can pull the song back closer to the "Motown-sound" feel that I want the song to have.

I may get a little rehearsal in today on the song, but I doubt I get much done. It's Christmas Eve with the family. If I do get any in, it'll be this evening, after I get home. I slept in and I have to get ready to head out the door fairly soon.

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And for today, here is my cover of the 1943 Christmas ballad, "I'll Be Home for Christmas," written by Kim Gannon, Walter Kent, & Buck Ram. It is the extra track for my 2021 single, "The Night Before the Night Before Christmas." Once upon a time this would have been the "B side" of the single.

BACK TO THE BASS AFTER A DAY OFF:

It wasn't really a terribly good bet that I'd get any work done on the R&B song's bass line, yesterday. I didn't have time before I headed to Christmas Eve with my family, and afterward I wanted to do my Christmas ritual of watching my favorite Christmas movie, Scrooged, (don't judge!).

But I will be on it, today. Of course I'm still on my Epiphone Viola Bass and running through my new Bass Ten 10-Band Graphic EQ. I'm considering adding my Super Octave pedal to the daisy-chain between the bass and the 24-track recorder. I'm not recording, yet, but I'm feeding into the recorder so I can hear and play along to the rest of instrumentation already recorded; plus I can use my earphones as the monitor, rather than speakers, to not bother the neighbors.

I'm still at the early phase where I'm getting down the structure of the song, the exact chord changes from start to finish. I'll start composing the bass line's final melody once I have all this down.

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BASS LINE PROGRESS:

I've made progress on composing the melody for the R&B song bass line but the creation is not completed. I fired the Viola Bass up last night, though I must admit I was on it while watching one of my annual, traditional Christmas movies, Christmas Inheritance, which I also admit might lean a little into schmaltzy, but what can I say? Anyway, I think I am coming up with something that'll get the song back closer to sounding like a "Motown" song.

As an aside, I ended up not using the headphones; I ran from the Tascam to speakers so I could play while watching and listening to the TV. I just kept the music volume low so as to not disturb my neighboring apartment dwellers ‐‐ One person's wall is also another person's wall.

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THE ALUMINUM ANNIVERSARY OF MY HEART SURGERY:

Just as yesterday was the tenth anniversary of my heart attack, today is the tenth anniversary of my open-heart quadruple bypass surgery. Also, just as I wrote yesterday, it be great if I could experience another ten years and then another after that. That, of course, as long as I can stay relatively healthy, at least for the given age.

MORE BASS LINE PROGRESS:

Good progress last night composing the melody for the R&B song bass line. I'm not completely done. I've got a bit of rehearsal in and I've put some variations in but I want to play around with it and add some more.

I did go with the plan that I'd discussed on Thursday to add the Super Octave pedal after the Bass Ten 10-Band Graphic EQ in the daisy-chain from the Viola Bass to the 24-track recorder, but it didn't work. It took the bass guitar tone away from the "Motown sound" I'm hoping to get as close to as this mid-western white boy can manage.

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WILL I RECORD TODAY?:

Maybe, just maybe, I'm getting close to having the arrangement of the bass line for the R&B song composed. And, maybe, just maybe I'm close to rehearsed on the Viola Bass to the point that recording the bass part is close. It might even be today.

I'm paranoid that my bass line doesn't move the song closer to a Motown sound, at least not as close as I hope. However, I like what I've come up with and think it suits the music. I'm still going to tweak just a little bit of the arrangement, but all in all, it's close to a locked composition. Keeping in mind that someday I may play this song live, in front of an audience, I've simplified the bass line during the sections I sing, to make that playing/singing multi-task a bit easier. That may seem like cheating to some; it kinda does to me, but I'm okay with that. I also want to throw in a few more variations during the song. Still, I'm hopeful that I could be hitting the Record button today; if so, let the Music Godess favor only a few takes.

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BASS LINE ‐‐ "CHECK":

Here I am in a rehearsal on my Viola Bass, just prior to pushing the Record button on the Tascam.

It took twenty-one takes but I did record the bass line for the R&B song last night, well, technically, early this morning. Of course, most of the takes were partial, with many of them not making it past the first minute. But it's done.

I threw my new Tube MP Studio V3 Preamp into the daisy-chain between my Viola Bass and the Tascam 24-track. But just like I pulled the Super Octave pedal out of the series, I pulled the preamp. It wasn't working for me. I was getting too much distortion in the bass tone even when the meters on the preamp and Tascam channel weren't reading in the red. It could be that I'm just not familiar enough with the pedal at the moment. Whatever the reason, I had to pull it.

My next move is the "horn chart." I'll be pulling out the Oxygen 61 Keyboard for the MIDI horn voices. The composition of each horn part comes first, of course. I have been hearing the horn chart in a general manner in my head for weeks, maybe months, and have been hearing it more and more recently. Now it's time for direct composition.

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RHYTHM TRACK DEMO #2:

Yesterday I migrated the stems for piano 5 and the bass guitar from the Tascam 24-track to my laptop then into the Logic Pro X project for the R&B song. Then I mixed and mastered a new demo of the rhythm section with the two new instruments added in. I migrated that into my Apple music app on my laptop and my iPhone, replacing the first demo.

To remind, the big reason to have the demo handy is for listening at points when I'm not around an instrument and may want to audit the demo while I still contemplate the arrangment of each of the horns in the horn chart. I'll probably compose most of the chart while I'm at the Oxygen 61, but having the demo to hear at other times will be good.

There's still that pesky third verse I'm having a difficult time writing because I have a specific direction to go. And like the first demo, hearing this one might help me with verse 3. The first demo helped with the second verse and finishing the chorus.