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Thu, Jan 1, 2026
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SETTING UP THE "HORN CHART":
Last night I pulled out my
Oxygen 61 Keyboard,
connected it to my
laptop,
and auditioned
MIDI
horn voices from
Logic Pro X,
for the R&B song's quartet "horn chart." I've picked
a "trumpet," a "trombone," a "tenor sax,"
and a "baritone sax." I chose the voices then adjusted the
settings for them and made note of each setting. Except for some
ideas in my head, no composing of the horn arrangement has happened
yet; that'll start today.
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Sat, Jan 3, 2026
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STARTIN' THE CHART:
Last night I officially started working on the arrangement for the
MIDI
horn chart for the R&B song. I probably got about 75-90%, or so,
of the trumpet part composed. It'll be the main melody part of the
horn quartet. AT this point the plan still also includes two saxes
and a trombone voice.
STRANGER DANGER:
I've been purposefully avoiding Season V of
Stranger Things
because I'm rightfully afraid I'll drop straight down the rabbit
hole and binge every available episode at the sake of my music agenda.
But I've decided to risk it and attempt to temper my viewing. I'm
dropping back to the first four seasons first. The last few months,
I'd watched some of the episodes via YouTube
reactors, about the first two and-a-half seasons, but the jump cuts
to prevent copyright hits made watching them a little annoying. So,
I'm back on Netflix, where
I started back with S1:ep.1,
"Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers."
Fellow modern TV-watching bingers will get it that I want to be totally
immersed back in the ST universe with a refreshed experience
of the whole cannon before I dive into Season V. I confess that I
binged into from the start into season 2 on Thursday while I did a
lot of 2025/2026 switchover personal and business data documentation
work. That was necessary crossover work, so I wasn't slacking off
the music project(s). But now that business is out of the way, so
Stranger Things gets slide in where it fits from this point
onward. And it's been a real bitch avoiding Seasin V spoilers.
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Mon, Jan 5, 2026
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Technically, this artist's retreat spilled into the first few days
of the new year. It was productive, though I didn't get to a lot of
the things on the agenda list that were potential. I didn't even get
one song for Album 2.0 Project
totally competed. In fact, all I worked on, artistically, was that
project's R&B song. I recorded the rest of the piano work for
the song as well as the bass line and the start of the MIDI horn
chart. I also have finished off the lyrics for the song.
Early yesterday morning, just past midnight, in a session that started
Saturday evening, I began recording the
MIDI
horn chart, playing on my
M-Adio Oxygen 61.
I started with the first trumpet, recording from the horn intro at
the start of the song, up to the end of the first chorus section.
Yesterday, in two chunks, I finished off the first trumpet.
Beforehand, I'd gone on a hike at
the Narrows Reserve
in the early afternoon and did some composing in my head for the
instrumental section, which will feature the horn chart.
For the record, the instrumental section through Chorus 3 was done
in seven takes; the Outro in three. Then I migrated the
stem
from the
24-Track
into the song project in
Logic Pro X
on my laptop.
Only three more horn voices, two backing vocals, and a lead vocal to
go.
Also in the wee hours of yesterday morning I finished off the lyrics,
getting that third verse out of the way and tweaking the rest of
the lyrics just slightly. And, of course, I can guarantee that odds
are in favor of more tweaking being done.
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Though I knew it wasn't likely, I had some hope that I'd get to at
least the first cut of this project during
Artist's Retreat ‐
Staycation
2025, but that didn't
Happen.
My plan with this one is to
mix
and master
each of the eight* tracks in the order they will appear on the album;
that order has been determined for decades, and to do so with each
track in between finishing songs for the
Album 2.0 Project.
With the Heart Walks opening track, I also am seriously considering
adding a bass line. It initially wasn't intended to have one, but
I'm rethinking that. So, after I'm finally done with the R&B song
for
Album 2.0,
I'll drop into to start this project with Track 1, which may or may
not begin by writing and recording a bass line.
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*) There are also two extra tracks from the Heart Walks
sessions that won't be on the album , but I'll mix and master
those, too.
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It would have been a shock if I'd managed to get to the first track
of the ambient music album project during the
Artist's Retreat.
This one is solely a
remastering
project. There are five tracks and technically I could get them all
remastered in the same session. So, this one could be attended to
at any point during my little critical-pathways musical endeavors of
2026. Though it could easily be completed first, I'm not sure I want
this one released before Heart Walks,
however.
Recently I've been twice invited to audition for a particular
theatre production that is coming up. I'm not sure where I stand on
this. I've not yet come to a final decision about my future relationship
with theatre, at least with the local
non-professional theatre
community. And I also don't know if I want to pull a lot of focus
from the current music project(s). The particular stage production
seems like a nice opportunity but I'm skittish about most stage-work
right now. The last thing I did, I only did because I'd committed
to it before I started having second thoughts about me and most
local theatre. I still am looking at the exit door. I haven't walked
through it because a few people I still trust have urged me to hold
off.
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Thu, Jan 8, 2026
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HALF THE R&B SONG HORN CHART DOWN:
Continuing work on the
MIDI
horn chart for the R&B song, I started on the second horn voice,
a tenor sax voice, Monday night. I composed and recorded the part
from the start of the song, the horn chart intro, though the end of
the second verse. I was able to record that in one take, thankyouverymuch.
Tuesday night I wrote and recorded the sax's harmony part during
the instrumental break. Again: One take, but we're only talking
nine measures, so, there was limited room for a misstep. To be
honest, in the technical sense, it was really two takes, but each
of those was one half of the whole section, so I only played the
whole section once while the record light was on. Last night I finished
the song in eight total takes: Verse 3 ‐ one take; Choruses
2 & 3 ‐ five takes; Outro ‐ two takes. Now I move
onto the MIDI trombone. After that will be a second trumpet.
My original plan was to have two saxes, one trumpet, and the trombone
voice in the brass quartet. I've since realigned that to two trumpets
and one sax, keeping the trombone. That second trumpet is likely
to be in the "soprano" position of the quartet.
Having finished the sax part last night, it's now migrated into the
song's
Logic Pro X
project.
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Jan 30-Feb 15, 2026
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