Posts

Prior Posts

September 11ths

-
Image
9/11/1906  William James letter to H.G. Wells: Dear Mr. Wells,—I’ve read your “Two Studies in Disappointment” in “Harper’s Weekly,” and must thank you from the bottom of my heart. Rem acu tetegisti! Exactly that callousness to abstract justice is the sinister feature and, to me as well as to you, the incomprehensible feature, of our U. S. civilization....”Scoundrelly, as you say,”but understandable, “from the point of view of parties interested”—but understandable in onlooking citizens only as a symptom of the moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess Success. That—with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success—is our national disease...”  9/11/1968           John’s song for those despised people who dissected his lyrics for hidden - but almost always unintended - revelations and conundrums. One of two songs on The Beatles to give mention in its lyric to another Beatles song title (“Savoy Truffle” mentioned ...
Post a Comment
Read more

0911 Riffs

-
Image
 It's amazing what you can do with just a rap into a phone with just a scribbled idea.                                        
Post a Comment
Read more

Curio No. 48

-
Image
The Babylonian Marriage Market -- Edwin Long + Still from the Babylon film   Seed:   
Post a Comment
Read more

0909 Sacred Ground

-
Image
 
Post a Comment
Read more

Figured Basses (AI Version)

-
Image
  A cheesy cutout album you found for 50 cents recorded circa 1973. Amazing that a drummer finally was able to play it.  
Post a Comment
Read more

Shafts

-
Image
 
Post a Comment
Read more

Chord Tones For the Bird Bones

-
Image
 AI-generated.    
Post a Comment
Read more

Expecting the Call (AI Jazz)

-
A "Mingused" blues, harmonizing a blues scale with extended chords. Amazing how good the AI spins are, even with the free model. It has a hard time sussing the chords, but then learns them.  
Post a Comment
Read more

Universal Speech Rhythms

-
Image
    The rhythmic grouping of eighth-quarter-eighth (or quarter-eighth-eighth or eighth-eighth-quarter) beginning on a downbeat is one of the most common speech rhythms, probably in any language. Displacing them an eighth note in either direction makes the words unintelligible ("ships arrive" becomes "ships A-rrive", "jumbo jet" becomes "jumBO jet"), but there are other words that could be mapped to that rhythm, e.g. "container". Obviously it doesn't matter in instrumental music, but speech rhythms can become rhythmic building blocks. Some words with the 8-4-8 (or 8-8-4) schema: Ships arrive Walk the streets In my youth Got around Thinking that Better than Still alive
Post a Comment
Read more

Curio No. 103

-
Image
  Slippery Slope , based on Dynaxiom 2878. The vibe is Barrett-era Floyd with the characteristic descending chromatic lines. *** How Suno spins it:    
Post a Comment
Read more

Creative Evolution

-
I have always worked combinatorially, i.e., each creative act is somehow connected to others, either spontaneously (when I am aware of them) or later when I associate them with existing works. This works the same for my music as well as art projects. I also have always kept lists of ideas, titles, strategies, and so on, which I go back to very often. Electronic notebooks, such as Evernote have made this easier (perhaps too easy), but I used to keep paper journals and sketchbooks. There are two basic ways to add cohesion to creativity: 1) create the work then serialize; 2) create similar pieces in an existing series. This also works in music where you can compose first, then add to a collection (album) or define the framework for the album and fill it in accordingly. I don’t think there’s anything that I do, either through design methodologies, or through improvisation that doesn’t fit with something I’ve done before. I know there are some artists who like to make something they’ve neve...
Post a Comment
Read more