And So the Fish Gave Away the Hook

A brief synopsis of how I approached this project as written documentation is absolutely key for remembering creative endeavours in later life; the game of drink is the chief corruptor of all things memory related.

     So, as it has become custom now – well, at least in 2016 anyway – that any period of time longer than a few days spent away from work is utilised within in a recording studio; the 13^th – 23^rd of August was no different.

     The basic premise – which as always, was devised a short while before actually heading in to start tracking – was to write four songs loosely based on Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and The Sea and also scribe and record an original poem to go along with it.

     To add to the randomness of this project, I asked the four lads from Fife band, Moonlight Zoo to each pick a page from The Old Man and The Sea, as it would be these pages from where I would draw inspiration from for each song.

     From there, I decided that each song would be titled – to some extent anyway – after a fish and that each song would have its own tuning.  To challenge myself, I created a brand new tuning – well, brand new to anything I’ve tried before – and gave each tuning the same title.  This led to the following:

Albacore – Eb F C Eb Bb F

Crushed Dolphin – E B D C A E

Dentuso – F F F F F F

Dead Mako part 1 – D D D E A D

Dead Mako part 2 – D E A D D D

NB:  The reason there are two parts for Dead Mako is that the full song itself is in two parts, thus two tunings…plus, as above, there are at least two ways to get the word DEAD in a tuning and these two instantly worked; Dead Mako part 3 is still up for grabs to anyone reading this.

     Finally, to bring the overall piece into context with the title, I decided that each of the songs main hooks would then feature in between each track to provide the ambient vibes for me to recite a stanza of the poem over.  For everything to work as I wanted, I bastardised the poetry form of Chaucerian Roundel, i.e. instead of reading Abb abA abbA, it’s abb aba abba.

Tomas Bird