Drum like a Krogan

A bit of a Wile E. Coyote moment; I've been working so hard on building new instruments and learning existing ones I'm at a bit of a loss to find everything is more-or-less done.

And then I stumbled on the musical idea I want to do this week. This one actually seems relatively easy. And no new purchases!

I've been wanting to do some Jazz Noir for a while and it looks like Miracle of Sound's "Ballad of Commander Shepard" is a good fit. I've covered one of their pieces before, so I'm aware of the challenge of finding pitches to transcribe a spoke-sung vocal line. At least for this one, I've found guitar tabs.

Basic line-up is the Kala U-base with the metal strings that are currently on it, the Vorson electric uke with "surf guitar" processing (weirdly enough, it is the same basic sound for surf guitar, spaghetti western, and spy music), and my new bongos. Oh, didn't I mention those?

Put the Venova through a ring modulator and tried down-pitching it and it still makes a lousy sax, but I think I can work with that. One of these days I want to dump my tenor trombone, because alto would probably be more comfortable for me and it is a cheap bone anyhow (not even a tuning slide).

***

The big danger is I'll lose steam on the novel. I have one more scene to revise from Part II -- Natsumi is moving to the "Karate Kid" scene at Gingaku-ji and I'm having trouble motivating the bit where Penny almost breaks her necklace.

But those are all solvable problems. I'm focused more on the rest of the book now, and still fumbling a bit for what the flavor of the Tokyo section wants to be and how I can carry it off. The Hyatt stuff doesn't seem to blend with the Mario Karts and the Robot Restaurant, and I haven't figured out the best way to work with Yuki, either.

(Basically Penny is getting lessons on dress and deportment -- from an usual perspective -- as well as some brush-up on her acting skills, but I don't think I want or need to show any of that.)

Life is just too busy. I'm glad I'm on full-time now because it -- perversely -- makes me feel less guilty taking a sick day.