A visit to a friend’s website containing his photography yielded the CD design for Romantic Fiction 2. The music is near completion, so I’m aiming for getting it out in October. Three of the tracks are definite and there are a few more contenders. This week’s job will be to pick the best of these and finish them.
Last night’s gig at the Forest Cafe was a qualified success – I couldn’t manage seamless transitions from WaveForms to songs and back, so there were gaps; occasionally those present would fill the gaps with some spasmodic applause, but mainly I was fulfilling a background role. I learned that one of the challenges of this approach is that an audience doesn’t know whether you’re ‘performing’ – which includes eye contact, talking and generally projecting – or providing background music. Personally I was in non-projecting mode, simply because of the improvising nature of the music and the complexity of kicking the right pedals at the right time. When I moved to song mode it felt a little strange, and after 30 minutes of introverted noodling it wasn’t realistic to expect to take an audience’s attention the way I could if I were to get up there as ‘a singer’. So perhaps the organisation of the performance needs more experimentation. While I had thought that I was pretty much ignored, other than by friends Karen and the G, a few individuals were very complimentary about the music as I was leaving. I did four WaveForms pieces (one twice), a cover of John McLaughlin’s Lotus Feet and the songs A Forest Trail in Autumn, Roadblock, Nicole and Greenan Shore.