“Human beings like to create and
construct roads-this is unarguable. But why, then, do they also love
destruction and chaos with such passion? Just tell me that! About this I want
to say a few words.
Perhaps the reason men so love
destruction and chaos (and it is obvious that sometimes they love them very
much indeed, that’s a fact) is that they themselves are instinctively afraid of
reaching their goal and completing the edifice they are building. How do you
know? Perhaps they only like an edifice from afar. And not at all from close
up. Perhaps they only like creating it rather than living in it…”
-Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes
From Underground.
There’s a blaze of light in every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holly, or the broken,
Hallelujah is, perhaps, Leonard
Cohen’s most famous song, made infamous by John Cale, Rufus Wainright, and Jeff
Buckley’s interpretations of it. In my case the feeling towards the song is one
of relief: ‘Hallelujah. It works.’ After a long time coming, I have managed to
secure some recording gear that works.
Recording has been an aspiration of
mine for years, one prolonged by technical failure and ‘writer’s block’. This
first started many years ago when I tried to record with Cubase. Cubase is a top
of the line, industry respected, music software suite. I had acquired a ‘light
edition’ of the program for free with a guitar pedal. The program had so much
copy write and licensing software that it corrupted and corroded my previous
laptop. After Cubase, I tried Audacity, the free alternative that was better
than Cubase, but still not quite right. Now I have acquired a Tascam multitrack
recorder that is the least hassle of them all. It is not perfect but, on my
budget, it will do. As the saying goes, a ‘bad workman blames his tools’ and it
is a relief to now have tools that undeniably work.
I have recorded this simple ‘one
track’ based on Buckley’s interpretation to ‘test the waters’, so to speak. The
song has been covered so many times that it has reached the point where another
interpretation will not hurt. As for Cohen’s original, he is said to have
composed over eighty verses before whittling it down to the final seven, and
even then made two versions of the song. It is an apt example of how an artist
can wrestle with a piece. It demonstrates the process of time and sedimentation,
and the consequent sharpening, of ideas needed for a piece of work to work. Here lies the worst form of
writers block. There is no such thing as ‘not being able to write’, but there
is developing an idea and realizing the approach needs to be adapted or changed,
and being weary of that change. There are, also, little problems that arise
after pressing the record button which could not have been seen beforehand.
Parts that should weave in harmony do not. What was played with ease before becomes
self-conscious and rigid. Taking a deep breath to relax and counter this then
produces the sound of a deep breath on the recording. Practice makes perfect,
but practice a piece too much, and play it too well, and it becomes sterile. Even
on this simple track these considerations came into account.
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