Good evening everyone and welcome to the Secret Green blog. I shall do my best to keep you up to speed with how Far and Forgot is progressing and see if I can give some insight into the process of making an album like this.
As I write, pretty well all of the orchestral parts are written. I tend to write for orchestra rather than for piano or guitar as I find often things get lost or muddied or otherwise discombobulated in the transition. So the orchestra forms the foundation of the whole album. I'm aiming to have five tracks  
on the album, laid out in some sort of symphonic form. A big and bold first movement, a more introspective second, a scherzo, a sort of intermezzo movement and a long last movement. The track titles that follow that scheme are:


Brides of the Wind


The Shining Hour


The Man Who Sold Magic


Seeds of the Sun


The Disenchanting

1. Willow Hill
2. Lyonesse
3. Broceliande
4. The Faerie's Funeral

And that is the basic structure. There is still much to do. Today I've been writing a Cor Anglais solo for the last movement. It's great knowing that Tony will be playing a real Cor Anglais on the album proper. 


I have also been fretting about the sound of the string samples. I'm afraid that the strings on To Wake the King sounded pretty scratchy and artificial. I'm experimenting with layering different articulations to create a more organic sound but it's still not right. My dilemma is whether to bite the bullet and fork out for another string library, to use in conjunction with the one I have, not instead of, or to just make do. The strings are, however so important that I don't want to compromise too much. What do you think?
Guitar parts are another issue! I seem to write guitar lines that are very difficult to play. Because I write orchestrally, the guitars very often have to play quite uncharacteristic lines. This leads Mr Beedle to curse me. I don't blame him.


As I have mentioned elsewhere, there is a story, or a concept if you like, to this album and it follows on from the last. It isn't an analogy and although it has a very particular meaning for me, I don't want to shove that meaning on to anyone else. I'd rather that the piece as a whole has a certain individual applicability and be open to anyone's interpretation or not.
Having said that, I suppose the titles are quite specific.



Any feedback, comment, suggestion or piece of advise that anyone would like to contribute would be most warmly welcome.


Speak again soon.


Francis xxx