It’s been a busy few weeks on the commission front since the start of the new year, mostly with customizing WordPress themes. Having worked on several such sites using templates from the Themeforest library I’ve come to realize what a big difference there is between the quality of the various premium listed templates. Good support and the inclusion of shortcodes can really speed up a project. I’ve been surprised to find thou, after purchasing and downloading a theme, that it had lazy implementation of flexible layouts and no shortcodes for columns. On the plus side it’s made me more thorough and careful when researching a potential theme – design and front end features are’nt enough.
I also had more time since x-mas to work on the arrangement of the few folk tunes (the same ones I’ve been slowly chipping away at since 2011). I’ve put alot more effort into the use of varying dynamics, mute notes, harmonics etc. and I’m much happier with the results. Occasionally thou the new mute notes have resulted in chromatic tones and I’ve found the vocal lines, at times, start being drawn toward an alternate key. Generally thou the improved dynamics and pauses have opened up the songs alot more. I still find the tempo tricky to nail down as a few of the songs have quite fast lyric line (something that’s a pain in the ass to note as 6pt text looks very small in Finale). That said with a bit more practice I’ll be ready to record one of the tracks and I have a rough idea of a live action music video for it. The other music video for this set of songs is going to be a cut out animation and I’ve had fun learning to animate my first walk cycles via Anime Pro and this excellent book.
