Cleaning Blues

Sudden insurance inspection -- ran around like a madman and lifted the top layer of dirt. Odd how much cleaner it feels with so (relatively) little work. Most times I set out to clean, I start by trying to figure out what to do with all the piles of semi-abandoned projects and scrap materials and reference books and so on and go directly to despair without passing go mop.



Just gave the trumpet a bath.  Also finally got around to fitting the "California" pre-amp into my Kala Ubass. The electronics part is next; have to separate and jumper the PC boards so it will fit, and switch out the coin cells for a LiPo left over from the Holocron project. As for practice, spent today fiddling (!) with the Bon Musica shoulder rest. I'm still tensing up with both shoulder and neck and I still press too hard when I fret. So still basically doing modified scales (with shifts, with no open strings, with arm vibrato; that sort of thing).

I need to jump on to the next recording project. No dithering around finding the perfect project, just get something else done and see what I learn from that. I can't help thinking I should do something that uses the trumpet and bass and leverages what few keyboard skills I have. I've sort of re-thought the idea of a "simple violin line." The violin isn't going to be suitable for even a section until I have decent vibrato.

I'm quite tempted by the thought of doing section stuff, though. Overdub the trumpet enough times for a section, the violin enough times for each chair. Thing is...there's other colors needed for a good symphonic picture. Violin is not 'cello, but that's not the worst of it. One brass does not a brass section make; no matter how many jokes there are about how to make a trumpet sound like a French Horn (stick your hand in the bell and play out of tune), you just can't reach those sounds. And then there's the wind section...

I'm already dithering over a next purchase because my ukulele really doesn't work for anything but a ukulele part -- and not even very well at that (it's a cheap uke and it is a soprano, which is a bit small for my fingers). Thing is I want them all; guitar tones, lute tones, electric guitar tones even. And if nothing else, that's a lot to learn. Heck, that's a lot just to clean and maintain!



Anyhow.

Top of the list right now is to attempt to cover "Still Alive" from Portal in a hootchy-koochy sort of thing with wah-wah trumpet. Or do it salsa. Or I might do something original.

Or rather, originally unoriginal. I'm rather leaning on cheating my way through a pseudo-orchestral thing with no real progression or melodic content but just some of the tried-and-true chord pairs and repetitive arpeggios of far too many dashed-off movie scores. And just to be really really obvious the Ominous Latin Chanting would be along the lines of "lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..."

In the longer range, I really want to sit down and figure out how to voice a proper "medieval" sound, with or without correct period polyphony.