Odds On, Blogs Off

20th March 2019

What makes a good song? I’d say its about the time of day, the melody, lyrics, voice, arrangements and some warm, lo-fi production. Mostly though it’s the time of day, as the rest of it you’ll find deployed amongst the music that you already deem decent enough to bother with. And I’ll be honest, in terms of actually understanding music, past having some moves on the egg shakers I’m less than familiar with any instrument.

I have moved a lot of instruments around though, from my days working the concert hall. Good days. I once ran a spanking new Steinway over a live extension cable during performance time; hat’s off to those piano makers, once you get the vast weight of a grand piano moving, those tiny wheels work like greased lightning.

I got locked on the stage one night too. Having performed a faultless stage move, I was locked on the stage by a workmate. He laughed at me being stuck in there with eight hundred and more punters through his monitor. To be fair to the context of the situation, he did that because earlier in the day, about lunchtime, he’d discovered that I’d electric taped up his rucksack which contained his lunch, and thrown it into row H of the raised seating.

Continue reading “Odds On, Blogs Off”

Paradise Blogged

9th November 2017

Is ball-deep the term? It’s not one that I really ever choose to deploy so I might be misappropriating it here. Let’s just let me apologise and I’ll do my best to explain.

I’m ball deep into the second draft of The Brine in Me, and second drafts are funny company. Not that I’m keeping much company at the moment. There’s deadlines to meet, and that encroaching realisation that something inherently private in creation is going to be handed over to someone. An editor, which although still technically makes them a someone, they are so in an entirely different understanding of the word, enough to make you make sure that your novel makes sense on the page and not just in your head. That’s what a second draft is like, if like me you write the first draft wholesale without too much prior restraint. So far it would seem that it has made sense; if my explaining of that has also made sense, and ball-deep was the term, then well done me.

Let’s talk about melody. Continue reading “Paradise Blogged”

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