The Dublin Murder Squad, continued

Buried in the middle of book five of the Dublin Murder Squad series, "The secret place", was this gem: If you make friends inside some bubble that’s going to burst on you in a couple of years – like training, or like here – you’re an idiot. You start thinking that’s the whole world, nowhere else exists, then you end up with all this hysterical shite (Chapter 17). The direct reference is to friendships made between girls at an all-girls boarding school, but it also refers to police training college (one of the detectives is talking to the other about their mutual training when she makes that statement about bubbles).

And yes, it can also been seen as referring to my adolescent years. Whilst I didn't have any real friends at grammar school (apart from Robert, and we'd been friends from primary school), it certainly refers to the bubble of Habonim. Yes, I lived in a bubble and the only meaningful relationships that I had were in that bubble ... and then the bubble burst.

This is the added value that these books bring. And this may be the cue for writing words for the song that I started at the beginning of the year.

If I'm writing about songs, then I should mention that I started playing something on the piano the other day, a tune in the key of F# minor. It started with an F#m7 chord in third inversion (i.e. E F# A C#), then the E dropped down to the D, resulting in a DMaj7 chord. A bit later on, I found myself playing a most peculiar chord, voiced D F# G# B - technically this can be seen as a D6b5 chord, but I doubt that anyone would call it this. A better name would be Bm6, first inversion, and another possible name would be Gm7b5, second inversion. Whatever. This chord resolves very nicely to C#7sus4, simply by dropping the D down a semitone to C#, and then the F# (the suspended fourth) can drop down a semitone to F (or rather E#) to create a C#7, that is of course the dominant seventh of F# minor. Maybe it was the slightly unfamiliar key that didn't allow me to recognise the chords straight away. I started sequencing the fragment that I played but only had sufficient time to transcribe the chords and the initial melody idea. This may turn into the verse of a song.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
235	28/02/2010	Still working even when feeling lousy	Programming, Organisation behaviour, Blood pressure
457	28/02/2012	Sequencing "Lost"	Van der Graaf Generator, Peter Hammill, Reason, MDI
552	28/02/2013	Sansa clip+ mp3 player	MP3

The Dublin murder squad

I don't want to give the impression that my life outside of work is solely concerned with guitar effects pedals, so I thought that I would write a little about the books that I am currently reading. Over on the Reddit Cormoran Strike channel, some people have recommended the Dublin Murder Squad series of books, by Tana French, so I thought that I would try them.

I am currently about half way through the fifth book (out of six) so at least I know what I am writing about. As one might imagine, the books are concerned with murders committed in the Dublin area and the attempts of the police to solve them. As opposed to most detective series, there is no titular policeman. Instead, protagonist #2 from the first book becomes protagonist #1 of the second book; protagonist #2 of the second book becomes protagonist #1 of the third book; a character from the third book becomes the protagonist of the fourth book, and another, more minor, character from the third book becomes one of the protagonists of the fifth book. All of the books are written with a first person narrative, that is slightly off-putting at first until one discovers who the narrator is.

Titular detective series devote as much time to the detectives' private lives as they do to the murder mystery. In this series, it seems like even more time is devoted to the detectives' private lives, but as each book has a different detective, all this information is not carried over from previous books but instead has to be read (and written) and absorbed each time anew. Whilst this gives author Tana French bonus points, in my opinion it is somewhat overdone.

The first book was very good (if slightly long); the second book was very long and not very interesting - in fact, I'm not sure that I even finished it. The third book was so-so (the background material was more interesting than the murder story); the fourth was more about detecting, but again over-long. The fifth, so far, seems to have struck a good balance; in fact, there's much less background material.

Somewhat off-putting is the language; apart from a small amount of Dublin slang, there is also a tremendous amount of swearing. Judging by 'The Commitments', the swearing content was about right, but it's annoying to a polite person like myself.

Reading these books is fairly hard work and it's not particularly rewarding (at least I can read them, as opposed to some detective novels that I found unpalatable and not worth reading). I hope that rereading these will be more rewarding.

I mentioned fictional detective Cormoran Strike in the opening paragraph; I discovered yesterday that two of the televised books ('Lethal white' and 'Troubled blood') are to be broadcast again on tv here in the next few days. Apparently work has started on filming the next book in the series, 'The Ink Black Heart', a book that is generally considered to be inferior to 'Troubled blood'. This no doubt will present a huge technical challenge as a fair amount of the book is composed of discussion group chats, often three at a time. These chats make reading the book (especially on a Kindle) very hard. 

And talking of Kindles, I managed to lose the cover bag for mine a few weeks ago; this was made by a seamstress on the kibbutz who took some material, folded it over, sewed it up and used some velcro to close the bag. Not to worry: I ordered a kindle cover from Temu. This is like a mobile phone cover, where the device sits snugly in the back cover and a front cover protects it. Unfortunately, my kindle is relatively old and is slightly smaller than the cover that I ordered (which was the smallest on offer); a few pieces of double-sided adhesive tape solved that problem.

Writing about velcro and double-sided adhesive tape makes a fine introduction to my guitar pedalboard that arrived yesterday. There are plenty of videos on YouTube about putting together a pedalboard, but 99% of these are concerned with the pedals and only a few discuss how to attach the pedals to the pedalboard. Fortunately I found one of these and had an aha! moment, after which I succeeded in attaching the various devices that I already have to the board. Yesterday I ordered a tuner pedal, and finally a tremolo pedal, so I'll attach these when they come. I also redefined the presets on the multi-effects pedal to be more useful with approximately matched volumes.

The board comes in its own gig bag with a voluminous extra pocket. I was able to distribute all the bits and pieces that I carry around with me (manuscript paper, strings, cables, capos, laundry clips [for the paper], pens, etc) between pockets on the guitar gig bag and the pedalboard gig bag, so I don't need to carry around yet another bag.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
337	27/02/2011	Michael Palin	TV series, Prague, Poland, Michael Palin
456	27/02/2012	More spooks	TV series, MI5
928	27/02/2016	Chicken breasts in tomato sauce	Cooking
1013	27/02/2017	What are the benefits of ERP enhancement?	ERP, DBA
1203	27/02/2019	Pneumonia again	Health
1476	27/02/2022	More musicians	Obituary, King Crimson
1587	27/02/2023	Bone conduction headphones/mp3 player	MP3, Headphones

Jasmine Myra

Yesterday I was sent an email by Gondwana Records, the label formed by trumpeter Matthew Halsall to shine a light on the talent Matthew heard in the local clubs. The subject was saxophonist/flautist Jasmine Myra, announcing the imminent release of her second album, 'Rising' that will be released at the beginning of May 2024 (why the wait if the music is ready?). The email contained a link to the title track, at Bandcamp, but the track can also be heard at YouTube.

Along with the saxophone of band-leader Myra, the recordings feature flute, harp, piano, guitar, bass and drums, producing a sound slightly reminiscent of Halsall's earlier albums, with the sax replacing the trumpet, although here there is prominence given also to the guitar (played by Ben Haskins), an element that is not to be found in Halsall's recordings. A definite yes to this sound!

Once I heard 'Rising', I had to see what else was available from Myra: her debut album, 'Horizons', can be found in its entirety on YouTube, along with a few live performances. On one of these (at the Art School live festival, 2022), she dedicates a tune to the Canadian musician, Kenny Wheeler, who played on Bill Bruford's debut solo album, "Feels good to me", so this is for me a point of reference. At the moment I have yet to ascertain any structure to the pieces (presumably written by Myra), but that will no doubt come in time. 

I'll order 'Rising' in due course.

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In the mean time, I made a 'proof of concept' setup of all the equipment that has been arriving over the past few weeks. The equipment in the picture is not arranged in any sensible order, so I'll explain it logically: the blue box on the right is my practice amplifier. Next to it are two pieces of equipment: at the bottom, looking like a mobile phone in a closed case is a 'solar power bank' - this is like a battery that can be charged either via the electricity mains or by an inbuilt solar panel. The output of this goes into the little box with lights on it - this is the power distributor - and the output of this goes into the red box with the light on - this is the octave pedal. In terms of guitar signal, the guitar is connected via the lead that plugs into the right hand side of the octave pedal (black cable); the output of this pedal (white patch cord) goes into the multi-effects box (on the left) and the output of this (black cable) goes into the amplifier. Nothing is connected to the mains power supply.

It all works together. The octave pedal sounded much better today than it did in its initial trial although it was slightly noisy; this presumably is a side-effect of the power distributor. Not all the outputs of this box are equal - half have low output and half have high output, so next time I'll try powering the octave pedal with a high output to see if this makes any difference. Otherwise I may have to buy a noise gate pedal. I made a new preset for the multi-effects box that has a slight amount of phasing and nothing else; this is intended to be the default preset for the box.

There are two more items that have to arrive that will complete the set-up: a pedalboard, on which everything will be mounted (this should arrive in the next few days) and a tuner pedal. The order of effects will be mixer (in case I use two guitars in a performance; this won't be wired up at first), tuner (ordered yesterday), octave, chorus, multi-effects. This is, to say the least, slightly unconventional, but I'm relying on the multi-effects box to produce overdrive, and anyway I'm a rhythm guitarist, not a lead guitarist.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
65	24/02/2007	Post Mortem	Programming, Cooking, Migraine
680	24/02/2014	Somebody's been lying	Psychology

More guitar effects

As the late Jerry Pournelle would have written: Donny, the Donner octave pedal that I ordered via Amazon, arrived at Chaos Manor yesterday. The delivery was relatively quick and hassle-free - it's a shame that more deliveries aren't like this. On the other hand (sorry: as Pournelle would write, on the gripping hand), I did pay $15 for delivery ... or did I? The invoice included in the package states that there was use of a promotional certificate for $15, so the delivery was actually free. But first a report about the multi-effect pedal being used at band rehearsal.

During the exchange of messages enquiring as to whether we could have a session on Saturday night (at the moment we're playing once every two weeks and last Saturday was supposed to have been an 'off' night), I mentioned that I had a new toy to display. So everyone asked about the little pedal and were either impressed or amused by all the lights on it. Most of the time I was using one of the presets with chorus, although for a short solo I used another preset with a great deal of echo. This was fairly successful although sometimes I managed to get the pedal out of preset mode, so I had to turn it off and on again. The chorus sound is very trebly (as usual) so I turned down the tone knob on the guitar. I shall try to do more with the tone settings on the pedal and the amp.

And now to the harmonic square aka octave pedal. I should point out that the same pedal is available under the Mooer label; had I bought it in Israel, it would have cost about 300 NIS (including delivery) so I definitely saved money by buying from Amazon. Testing the pedal allowed me also to test the pedal power distributor: I had one cable from AC mains to the distributor, one cable from the distributor to the pedal, one cable from the guitar to the pedal and another cable from the pedal to the amplifier. Spaghetti time. I am pleased to say that the electricity side of the equation worked perfectly fine.

In advance I had already worked out four different modes of use for this pedal:

1. Setting the wet and dry to 50%, the switch at the top to 'sharp' and the interval to one octave basically makes the guitar sound like a 12-string guitar, where every note played on the guitar is doubled an octave higher.
2. As above, but setting the interval to 7 semitones (a perfect fith) is supposed to cause an E note to be doubled as a B. If I play an E chord, then the pedal will 'play' a B chord; the result should be an E Major 9th chord, namely E G# B D# F#. 
3. Moving the switch at the top to its middle setting, detune, creates a chorus effect whose depth is dependent of the setting of the big knob.
4. Setting the wet knob to 100% and the dry knob to 0% causes the pedal to act as a capo: if I move the middle knob to the '3 semitones' position, the top switch to sharp and play shapes in Am, it's as if I'm playing in Cm (this will be useful at Passover). Similarly, after moving the top switch to flat and the middle knob to '2 semitones', playing shapes in G will sound as if I am playing in F.

As with the multi-effects pedal, I'm not sure that my practice amp was the best option to test the capabilities of the pedal. For setting 1, I actually had both wet and dry signals to 100% and this seemed to overload the amp when playing chords; single notes were ok. Setting 2 didn't seem to work as I expected, although again this could be because of the level of the wet and dry settings combined with the amp. Option 3 worked fine as expected and so did option 4, although this was somewhat disconcerting as I could hear the acoustic sound of the guitar playing (for example) an Am chord whereas the amplifier was sounding a Cm chord. In a band setting this problem won't exist, but it might appear when playing at Passover.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the pedal although it apparently wasn't as good as I expected (especially for settings 1 and 2 when playing chords). The power supply problem is also slightly annoying, although this is expected to improve when the pedalboard that I ordered will arrive. Then I can set everything up properly. At some time in the future I will also order a tuner pedal that will sit neatly on the pedalboard.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
1376	20/02/2021	Cormoran Strike (3)	Cormoran Strike
1377	20/02/2021	Winter comfort food	Cooking

Mike Procter, RIP

Another sporting figure from my youth has passed away - Mike Procter, a South African cricketer who came to play for Gloucestershire in 1968. As the Guardian obituary says, "In 1968 overseas players were allowed to adorn the English game and Gloucestershire promptly signed up Procter". Those were the years when I saw a great deal of county cricket, partially under the influence of my friend Robert, whose father played for Gloucestershire and might even have captained them that year.

Mike was an all-rounder: a good batsman but also a fiery opening bowler. He had a peculiar style of delivery that always seemed to compose of no-balls, as the ball left his hand whilst his stance was on 'the wrong leg'. I remember watching his bowling from the members' enclosure via binoculars: it was truly frightening.

Mike came to prominence in the years when South Africa was banned from international cricket, so he only managed to play a few test matches before the ban came into operation. Otherwise I have no doubt that he would have become one of the greatest all-rounders of his time, if not of all time.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
158	19/02/2009	Increased production	Programming, ERP
336	19/02/2011	One flew over the cuckoo's nest	Films, Literature, Tom Wolfe, Ken Kesey
676	19/02/2014	Carole Bayer Sager - one	Carole Bayer Sager
677	19/02/2014	This day in music	Carole Bayer Sager
812	19/02/2015	Changes in fortune, continued	ERP, DBA
1112	19/02/2018	Left joins in Priority	Priority tips
1472	19/02/2022	Finishing "You hold me"	Home recording

The multifunctional guitar effects pedal

I've mentioned this device a few times over the past month or two, which can be purchased from several suppliers under several brand names. I ordered from Temu and it arrived the other day, after inexplicably being held up at the local warehouse for about a week. Their delivery time varies between two and three weeks, seemingly dependent on local problems (another package probably arrived yesterday but I was in Tel Aviv and today the 'post office' is closed so I won't be able to pick it up until Sunday). 

Incidentally, I ordered this device along with curtains for our grand-daughters' rooms. The picture of the curtains misled me: I thought that I was ordering three pairs of curtains when in fact I ordered only three curtains - so I had to order another three. They're still cheap and my wife couldn't find anything comparable here.

Back to the m-vave device. This is tiny: its dimensions are about 16 cm X 5.5 cm X 2 cm, although I suspect that it's slightly larger than the new breed of mini-pedals. The device contains its own battery that supposedly holds enough charge for six hours' use; charging it the first time took about an hour. It's a shame that it doesn't have a power out socket via which I could supply current to the pedal power distributor; one can dream.

As can be seen in the picture, there are several rotary knobs that control the various effects; these are grouped into three types: pre-amp, modulators and output. The pre-amp grouping includes the 'type', 'gain' and 'tone' controls (the first three controls on the right hand side) - one can choose between nine types of pre-amplifier where two are clean, three overdriven and four distortion. The modulator grouping consists of the 'mod' knob (either chorus or phaser), the 'time' knob (the feedback speed of the echoes), the 'fb' knob (the number of echoes), and the 'mix' knob that controls the ratio of dry and wet signals. The final output grouping contains the reverb knob, and the IR cabinet (i.e. an amplifier modeler). There is also a volume control.

One can use the device in 'live mode' where the current settings of the knobs directly affect the output. Similar to this mode is 'edit mode' where one can establish settings for the third mode, 'preset mode'. This latter mode would appear to be the standard mode of operation: the device has three predefined settings of all the controls that are operated by pressing one of the three pedals. These settings are defined in the 'edit mode'.

The device also includes a guitar tuner, although this is somewhat awkward to use and I can't imagine anyone using it in a live setting. One gets an indication of whether a string is flat or sharp, but not by how much the string is flat or sharp.

I've defined one preset for personal use, leaving two of the factory defined presets. All of the presets sound somewhat metallic through my little practice amplifier, although I hope that this is a failing of the amplifier and not of the device. I'll see how well these presets perform in a band setting tomorrow night.

Bottom line: for 183 NIS (maybe $50, including air shipping), this device supplies 'much bang for the buck'.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
64	16/02/2007	Working hard (but seeing the light at the end of the tunnel)	Programming, ERP, Cooking, Soundclick
454	16/02/2012	Solving the unflushed inventory problem	ERP
1008	16/02/2017	Reviewing someone else's academic work	ERP
1201	16/02/2019	I can't sleep without CPAP	CPAP
1585	16/02/2023	Transferring another interview	DBA, Mobile phone

Red bell pepper

I want to sing the praises of the modest bell pepper (it doesn't matter much if it's the red or yellow version - the red will probably be cheaper):

• It contains more vitamin C than an orange, and in fact one reasonably sized pepper contains 125% of the recommended daily amount of vitamin C.
• As opposed to an orange, there is little to no sugar in the pepper (only 20 calories per 100g).
• It contains plenty of fibre and is a good cure for constipation.

Need I say more?

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
809	12/02/2015	Frankie	TV series, William and Mary
1470	12/02/2022	You hold me (yet another new song)	TV series, Song writing, Home recording
1582	12/02/2023	Memories	Psychology, Non-fiction books

The good, the bad and the self-delusion

After my previous blog about guitar effects pedals, I decided to look for the chorus and phaser pedals; as I suspected, they were under the bed. I first looked at the phaser pedal: initially I saw no way of opening the sturdy metal box, but eventually I saw that in each corner of the box was a screw so I unscrewed them and opened the box. The electronics had been wrapped in a foam-like materal that had seriously deteriorated in the forty years of the pedal’s existence. Not only the foam: the pedal had been stored with a 9v battery still attached; although I was able to partially detach the battery, one pole of the pedal’s plug seemed fused to the battery, and in trying to free it, I merely tore the battery pole. Into the bin the pedal goes without further thought.

Then I had a look at the DOD FX65B chorus pedal: this is sturdily built and fortunately there was no need to open it up as there is a battery compartment at the top of the pedal. I connected a new battery to the pedal but there was no sign of life. Then I read the manual that was stored in the pedal’s cardboard box: a line that caught my attention said “if you’re not going to use the pedal, unplug the input jack so as not to waste the battery”. Could it be, I asked myself, that I’ve always been checking the pedal with no cable attached? I found a guitar cable, plugged it in – and the little red light on the pedal came on when I depressed the pedal. In other words, this pedal works fine! 

I saw a mention of the possibility of using an external power source instead of a battery so I thought that this would be a good opportunity to try out the pedal power box that I bought from Temu. At first I plugged the USB cable that comes with the box into the USB power out then wondered what I could do with the C connector end; then the penny dropped and I plugged the C connector into the unit and the big USB socket into a telephone charger. Blue lights came on. At this stage I realised that I had been deluding myself: I thought that this unit would store electricity that could then be sent to any connected pedals, but it appears that this distribution unit itself has to be plugged into the electricity when being used. At least it saves on a multitude of external adaptors, aka wall warts. 

I then discovered that the chorus pedal can use an AC adapter that of course I don’t have – well, this pedal is from the 1990s. At least I can use the chorus pedal with a battery. The multi-effects unit (which has been released from Israeli customs but has yet to arrive here) is promised to contain its own USB charged battery. I think I confused this with the power distributor. 

I took the pedal with me to band rehearsal last night. It drew a few comments, so I explained the history of the pedal (my brother in law reckons that he gave it to me in 1988, but that's wrong as he would have been too young then). I used it sparingly in the songs, primarily in the new one that was introduced a month ago. As I had the chorus effect on the pedal, I set my amp to use a small amount of phaser. We recorded that new song, so it will be interesting to hear what my guitar sounds like.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
24	11/02/2006	One small step	Programming, Psychology, Kaizen, The brain
451	11/02/2012	A change is gonna come	Films
1580	11/02/2023	This week's rant	Israel
1581	11/02/2023	Hot filling soup	Cooking, Weather

Guitar effects pedals and me - a short history

For those that don't know what I'm writing about, here's a link to an explanation of effects pedals.

In my first incarnation as an electric guitarist, 1975-8, I had a commercially produced tremolo pedal and a home made volume pedal. A  tremolo pedal cuts the signal at a frequency determined by a knob on the pedal; despite this option of changing the tremolo speed, I found that it was useful either at a high (i.e. fast) frequency when playing lead guitar (the example that comes to mind is the lead guitar on the Tremeloes' "Silence is golden" [pun not intended]) or at a low (i.e. slow) frequency when playing chords. I don't remember what happened to that pedal. A friend made a volume pedal that I remember using at a performance in March 1977 (see this recollection); as I wrote then, "I remember feeling that I couldn't play as loud as I wanted (and we were very loud)". Again, I don't remember what happened to this pedal. 

Sometime in the early '80s, I saw an advert for a kit that would make a phaser pedal when put together. I prevailed on my parents who presumably were on a visit to Britain from Israel to bring this kit with them; they weren't very happy about this as the security staff on the airplane thought that the electronics might be the basis of a bomb. But I received the kit and I passed it on to the person who had built the volume pedal and was now living on the same kibbutz as I. I don't remember what happened, but my suspicion now is that the pedal didn't work, otherwise presumably I would have remembered it.

My brother in law, who was working in a music shop in the early '90s, gave me a chorus pedal. I remember using this when recording vocals onto the double tape deck that I bought second-hand in Britain in 1997. I still have this pedal although it doesn't work; I'm fairly sure that I tried it with a new battery at some stage.

Several years ago, I bought a peculiar device that is a multi-effects processor but can't be called a pedal as it is not foot operated. I have used this a few times when playing 'the Passover song', for a chorus effect. I brought this device with me when I started playing with the musical group but it too had stopped working even after I replaced its batteries. I bought a replacement (pictured left) but have yet to use it. This unit is cheap and cheerful, but awkward to use.

The Roland cube amplifier that I bought in 2011 sports a variety of effects, but these unfortunately are 'either/or': either I use chorus or phaser but not both. I normally have the amplifier set up with chorus and a short delay which is why I haven't bothered using the multi-effects processor mentioned in the previous paragraph.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
231	06/02/2010	Strict Joy	Swell Season, Business novel, Nick Hornby, Eliyahu Goldratt, Clientele
449	06/02/2012	A day in the life	Trains
547	06/02/2013	Research Proposal exam results	DBA
805	06/02/2015	Sending emails automatically, continued	ERP, Email

For the fifth time in five weeks

Need I say more? Shlemeleh. I don't even remember his given name*. I pity his son: a month ago, his father in law died and now his own father dies.

* Shlomo, hence Shlemeleh in Yiddish.

Barry John, RIP

If I noted the passing of Welsh rugby star J.P.R. Williams a month ago, then of course I have to note the passing of Barry John, 'rugby legend and the King of Welsh half-backs'. He had a shorter career than Williams or his partner, Gareth Edwards, but he burned brighter than them all. He decided to stop playing at the age of 27 for personal reasons.

I never saw him play in the flesh but thrilled to his performances whilst watching on TV.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
546	05/02/2013	Leverage	Delphi, Project management, HTML
803	05/02/2015	Sending emails automatically via Priority	ERP, Email
1005	05/02/2017	Grand-daughter is nine months old	Grandfather

Once again, a new song

For a change, I didn't have anything to do today (Saturday), so I thought that I would utilise the time to write a song. I took my trusty Washburn guitar, played around a little, and within 15 minutes I had the basis of a verse. Of course, when I came to transcribe and sequence the verse, I realised that it was a bit short and that I needed to add a little more. Once I had the verse, I found myself adding an introduction, a link between the first and second verses and a break that included a subtle modulation. Then came a simple middle eight in a new key ... and then I was stuck - how was I going to continue?

I may have downed tools at this point and taken the dog for a walk. I had determined that I wanted to use a standard structure of verse, verse, middle eight, instrumental verse, middle eight, verse, but that modulation had made things complicated. Where and what should I change so that the middle eight and final verse come out in the original key? Eventually I found the answer: have the instrumental verse in the modulated key, then subtly change the sequence at the end in order to have the middle eight. Then I added an extra bar after the second middle eight in order to ease the transition back into the original key.

As I wrote the song on the guitar, I realised that I should play fingerpicked guitar on the recording (when I get that far); this is something that I can't sequence and would sound much more natural if played in real time. This of course assumes that I don't transpose the entire song to make it easier to sing; I think that my range will be suitable. In fact, I could play guitar throughout the entire song, although I'm not too sure whether this would be a good idea, as I like to make changes in the instrumental texture. I don't have to fingerpick the entire song - I can 'lay out' here and there, and play single chords in the middle eights.

No words, of course, and no ideas. These will come in the future.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
545	03/02/2013	The twins came to visit yesterday	Uncle
672	03/02/2014	Philip Seymour Hoffman	Films, Obituary
802	03/02/2015	End of an era	Personal
924	03/02/2016	Problems with blogging	Meta-blogging