Musical developments
Well, I've been trying to spend part of every day working on something for the album. Mostly right now this is practicing, and especially practicing with a metronome. I haven't used a metronome much and it's harder than you'd think. However I feel like I have been making progress and since I only started doing this on Monday, that's probably a hopeful development.
I suppose it's just being around the music more, but I've been writing a lot more too. Yesterday I got an idea for a song--Boats Have Bones, and wrote about half of it, and today I cleaned it up and finished it (pro tem) and set chords to it. And then I got part of an idea for another song that is following me around and tugging on my pants leg and looking appealing and I don't know what it wants. I mean, it wants to be finished but I don't know what it wants to be about. But it's a great frame, whatever it's going to be.
I have also been working on arranging, since I'm a bit concerned that all my songs will sound alike. I am definitely making progress on crosspicking, plus I can switch back and forth between crosspicking and strum when the chord changes get too fast for crosspicking which sounds kind of neat if I do say so myself. I have written a countermelody for You Stand Alone, though I'm still tweaking it, and discovered that if I just capo two, the chords for The King's Lute become easy instead of really really challenging. A
Anyway, here's yesterday's song:
Boats Have Bones {later edit--mp3 is now here}
lyrics and melody by Catherine Faber 2011
Boats have bones, did you know?
They last forever, even though
They're gone before the building ends...
Every wood strip twists and bends.
Boats have bones; take good care
Keels be straight and curves be fair--
As we start, we gauge our ends;
Every wood strip twists and bends.
Boats have bones; no mistake
Can be hidden from the lake
Hull and water must be friends
Every wood strip twists and bends
Boats have bones; these are mine,
From design and re-design
Miscalculations, and amdends...
Every wood strip twists, and bends.
Boats have bones; through this lens
Gauge the time your setup spends,
From perfection, practice tends;
Every wood strip twists and bends.
I'm also trying to spend part of every day working on the canoe. As is probably obvious from yesterday's song,this is actually much on my mind. Today this was as simple (or unsimple) as drawing new end stations. The one for the stern only needed to be taller so the sheer didn't curve as sharply there. The one for the bow needed to be wider, to get rid of that concave curve I told you about. To determine how much wider, I hot glued some cedar blocks to the faces of the three stations nearest the end (to give me something to clamp a strip to) then took a scrap of cedar strip, clamped it to the stations, and bent it smoothly to the stem with my hand, then tried to measure how far out from the (too small) station it was with a ruler in the other hand. I did this at the gunwale, and at the waterline (what will be the waterline).
Then I went inside, laid a fresh sheet of tracing paper over the existing drawings of Binturong's stations, and laid out the centerline, the waterline, the baseline and those two new points on the tracing paper, then got the French curve out and tried to lay out a curve that passed through those two new points but was otherwise about the same as the old curve for that station. It was a bit tricky but I think I've got it. I then took the new station outline, traced it onto cardboard, cut it out and propped it up in place of the old station and checked to see if it seemed the right size by clamping the strip again. It looks okay.
So the next step will be tracing it onto plywood and cutting it out and setting it up. I'm putting that off until tomorrow, though.
And that was my day. I didn't get my walk in, though, or do my strength training. Bad cat :-(
I suppose it's just being around the music more, but I've been writing a lot more too. Yesterday I got an idea for a song--Boats Have Bones, and wrote about half of it, and today I cleaned it up and finished it (pro tem) and set chords to it. And then I got part of an idea for another song that is following me around and tugging on my pants leg and looking appealing and I don't know what it wants. I mean, it wants to be finished but I don't know what it wants to be about. But it's a great frame, whatever it's going to be.
I have also been working on arranging, since I'm a bit concerned that all my songs will sound alike. I am definitely making progress on crosspicking, plus I can switch back and forth between crosspicking and strum when the chord changes get too fast for crosspicking which sounds kind of neat if I do say so myself. I have written a countermelody for You Stand Alone, though I'm still tweaking it, and discovered that if I just capo two, the chords for The King's Lute become easy instead of really really challenging. A
Anyway, here's yesterday's song:
Boats Have Bones {later edit--mp3 is now here}
lyrics and melody by Catherine Faber 2011
Boats have bones, did you know?
They last forever, even though
They're gone before the building ends...
Every wood strip twists and bends.
Boats have bones; take good care
Keels be straight and curves be fair--
As we start, we gauge our ends;
Every wood strip twists and bends.
Boats have bones; no mistake
Can be hidden from the lake
Hull and water must be friends
Every wood strip twists and bends
Boats have bones; these are mine,
From design and re-design
Miscalculations, and amdends...
Every wood strip twists, and bends.
Boats have bones; through this lens
Gauge the time your setup spends,
From perfection, practice tends;
Every wood strip twists and bends.
I'm also trying to spend part of every day working on the canoe. As is probably obvious from yesterday's song,this is actually much on my mind. Today this was as simple (or unsimple) as drawing new end stations. The one for the stern only needed to be taller so the sheer didn't curve as sharply there. The one for the bow needed to be wider, to get rid of that concave curve I told you about. To determine how much wider, I hot glued some cedar blocks to the faces of the three stations nearest the end (to give me something to clamp a strip to) then took a scrap of cedar strip, clamped it to the stations, and bent it smoothly to the stem with my hand, then tried to measure how far out from the (too small) station it was with a ruler in the other hand. I did this at the gunwale, and at the waterline (what will be the waterline).
Then I went inside, laid a fresh sheet of tracing paper over the existing drawings of Binturong's stations, and laid out the centerline, the waterline, the baseline and those two new points on the tracing paper, then got the French curve out and tried to lay out a curve that passed through those two new points but was otherwise about the same as the old curve for that station. It was a bit tricky but I think I've got it. I then took the new station outline, traced it onto cardboard, cut it out and propped it up in place of the old station and checked to see if it seemed the right size by clamping the strip again. It looks okay.
So the next step will be tracing it onto plywood and cutting it out and setting it up. I'm putting that off until tomorrow, though.
And that was my day. I didn't get my walk in, though, or do my strength training. Bad cat :-(