Once again, there is no kibbutz Seder to my disgruntlement; this year we will
be hosting the Seder for our smallish family. This is going to require some
juggling with regard to food preparation: I'm making a stir-fry in the wok and
chicken thighs in the slow cooker, as well as mashed potatoes, crispy potato
cubes and possibly rice. The chicken dish isn't a problem in terms of when it
has to be cooked, but I don't want to start making the stir-fry while we're
reading the Hagada, so I'll make this in advance and keep it warm for an hour
or so. Obviously I'll make the mashed potatoes and rice in advance; the potato
cubes can be prepared in advance but only cooked once we begin.
I wish a happy and kosher Pesach to all my readers.
Unusually, it rained this morning - very untypical weather for Pesach. On the other hand, we had a heat wave at the beginning of the week that was very unpleasant.
A couple of weeks ago, I started work on a new song. At first I was suffering from what I call 'second chord syndrome' - deciding on a first chord is easy but what should come after it? I'll tried all kinds of intervals as well as changing the quality of the chord (minor, augmented - although I don't think that I've ever had a diminished chord as the second in a sequence), but it always seems to be a problem, especially as I am harmony led and not melody led. Somehow I got past this barrier and developed what was initially an eight bar sequence that defies standard harmonic practice: Em7 A Dm7 G C Bb Am D. I keyed this into the sequencer along with its tune, but I wasn't too enthused about it. Every now and then I would play with the sequence, doubling it to create a verse, then creating a second verse and then a bridge, but all through this process I wasn't too enthusiastic. That D chord later became a Bm chord, which is more interesting, and at the end of the verse where it is doubled, it becomes a B chord, thus leading back into the Em chord.
About a week ago I changed some of the instrumentation and suddenly the arrangement took off; had I plotted the number of changes against time, I would have attained an exponential curve. Since Thursday I've been adding change after change (for example, a more syncopated bass part in places) and earlier this morning I deemed the arrangement complete - except for the small matter of a solo in the song's coda. This was 'originally' going to be the bridge, or at least a slightly abbrieviated version of the bridge, but as the first four bars of this section had the chords G F C Bb, I couldn't think of anything reasonable that would sit upon this (I didn't want to repeat the tune). Last night I had a minor breakthough when I told myself that I don't have to follow the sequence lavishly and so I replaced the Bb with a F: much more harmonious and easier to play over.
By chance, I happened to hear a song on the radio this morning - I have no idea what the song was except for the fact that it is a modern style - that caused my ears to perk up, as in the instrumental breaks this song seemed to include a traditional tune (also not recognised). I thought to myself that maybe I could find a tune in a major key and in common time that I could lay over the chords. After some poking around and searching, I found 'The fairy ring' that appeared to be suitable. I had to change the tune slightly as the harmony in the 7th bar is an Eb chord and the 8th bar starts in Eb then moves to F, but this wasn't too difficult.
As usual, I have no idea whatsoever what the words are going to be about. These will have to wait a few days.
| Title | Tags | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 826 | How not to display data in graphs | Statistics | |
| 1121 | Apology to Israel Railways | Trains | |
| 1602 | More bells and whistles for the 'Blog' program | Programming, Delphi, Blog manager program | |
| 1741 | Update on our spring performance | Musical group |
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