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August 5ths

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February 5ths 8/5/2000  Film at 3-Penny Cinema: Time Regained . Visually stunning. Loved the scene at the recital where the audience seems to be gliding on a platform of some kind, which moved while the camera panned, causing the illusion that background objects moved faster than the camera.  8/5/2019               I recall watching an interview with Andre Segovia where he criticized composers for not fully understanding the guitar. Ideally, composers should defer to players’ creative input and revise accordingly.                     My personal opinion is that putting musicians in a position to play it strictly as written in fact does stifle creativity. Maybe they prefer to play it that way. [8/5/2025: If I am scoring something to be a recording only-and not to be performed, I won’t bother putting in any articulations that don’t affect the sound–which goes back to the idea that all ...

Curio No. 102

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  Seed is the phrase " hunting ghosts in broad daylight", from this AI-generated diary entry by Thomas Sullivan, a fictitious character living in Chicago in 1886. So it goes from AI to human back to AI in the AI versions.   8/5/1886 I find myself hunting ghosts in broad daylight. Yesterday, wandering near where Miller’s store once stood, I searched for some trace of the black bunting from Lincoln’s mourning. Nothing. Glass and granite have consumed every landmark of my younger self. Time moves differently now—not the urgent acceleration I felt in ‘75, but a strange compression. Decades telescope into moments. I remember the weight of thirty years like yesterday’s coat, yet cannot recall what I ate for breakfast. AI Versions:

Prog AI

I still think AI music is in its talking head stage; we really don’t know what to do with it. It usually takes about 10 years for a new technology to get its sea legs. Eventually, lots of people will be using it legitimately, unless the courts decide otherwise. In the meantime, there's going to be a lot of smaller shifts that will increase the options, such as choosing keys and meters. If there was an option to create a song in 5/8 or 7/8 it would be interesting to see what it does with language. Would people generate prog? Perhaps. Would you subscribe to Rush AI for $50 a month?

Hold Music

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  Cindy Sherman--Untitled #90 AI music gives you many options on what you can do with language. You'd never get a singer who would be willing to sing a lyric that was just a hold menu, and do it in 6 languages, including Esperanto.  Now that so many people are using AI-generators, the possibility of the same music accompanying different lyrics is more probable. So you have to attempt something different.  (The second verses switch languages: English in Spanish, Spanish in French, French in German, German in Italian, Italian in Esperanto)

7/25/2026

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On the Other Side of the Year

It's at this time of year that you begin noticing a change in the light. In the Northern Hemisphere, the mornings are darkening and twilight comes earlier. Summer is a "plain" or "plateau" of anticipation: everything is in full bloom, and the leaves won't be changing for another 2 months, the days begin to get perceptibly shorter towards the end of July. But in March, there's an anticipation of Spring, and by the end of May, the anticipation of summer. September is a feeling of heading back down the hill.   Changing of Light, Sun, and Moon 0179: Compares poetry to the moon rather than the sun , as it " reflects light rather than shines directly " . 0352: States that " Light never ages; it just travels farther " . 0522: Reflects on the " earthrise " captured during the 1969 moon landing as a compelling moment of perspective . 0570: Observes that looking at the sun makes one realize it is the force that " created yo...

Songs With Bridges

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  Sunken Bridge by RO&AD Worth re-posting. I haven't tested the links so some may be dead.   7/30/2011 At the theoretical level, song hooks are imbued with clever twists like harmonic modulations, chord 'borrowing' and turnarounds. Now these devices have devolved from the songwriter's toolkit in much the same way Cole Porter Moon-June rhyming schemes became obsolete by the 1960s in favor of new compositional devices that made them frumpy and old hat. The classic bridge is now in this category. Nonetheless I still love to put them in songs. Bridges (sometimes used synonymously with middle-eight ) are difficult to do well because not any musical transition can qualify as a bridge device. They typically appear only once in a composition: If a section is repeated, it technically is not a bridge. Some regard the "life is very short..." phrase in the Beatles' "We Can Work It Out" or the "why she had to go..." phrase in "Yesterday...

Curio No. 100

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Life of a Song

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It's interesting to trace the evolution of a piece of music born 32 years ago, from the acoustic version to an AI  interpretation in 2026.  ***  In the eyes of a child The reflection of a mother's care Father so silent Yet so heartfully there A country's border There to keep out the danger There to cast out the strangers That storm the gates of heaven When there comes a time A babe needs your hand Open your arms and then Give them your land When they've come to conquer Your fortress so lame Infants will scream louder 'Til the bedside she came A light shines from her window Silhouette dance with impassioned grace We all seek the comfort In the bosom of her border Like war-weary men Their desire like the battlefield Are drawn into her light The salve to soothe their pain *** Ladies full-throttled Packaged and bottled For love we coddle In the babe's lonesome room Sweet handmaiden waddle Nightingale Street toddle Bedside manner lens Its eyes never staid Visions an...

Curio No. 99

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    A string shortet based on an AI version of Hot New Earth . It's an interesting evolution: Original pop song>AI treatment>transcription>AI treatments. The string quartets have nothing to do with the original song but is its parentage. An AI versions of the AI version.  No. 1:   No. 2:

Hot New Earth (2026)

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  It's interesting to re-imagine old lyrics with AI with fake band names. Feel free to use the names, but you'll have the same band playing different music, which might be interesting in the AI realm. [Hot New Earth 1997]  Visionary art  Culture create Useful technology  What cannot be made? Weaving the cloth That keeps us warm Leaving the land So trashed and worn The balance of soul To the roots in the land To the gothic cathedrals Where the masses band The song and the dance Of the social norm Is now the slam dunk Of the antisocial porn  In a hot new earth In a cold cold sweat Hot new earth Meets a cold cold death Force times velocity Will give us power In a hot new...  Earth Overrated human The master of slaves Never the spiritual Just material craves A culture to integrate The math with the art The choice (joy) to be ignorant And not to be smart The removal of skin The raising of the sea Take away the trees The means for recovery Poison pills For a feve...