Lee Barry Composition Diary

Kind of a prog idea using a capo 5th fret on 2 of the parts. No Drums:

I realize I'm actually a collector, a gleaner of sequential things, a serial idea generator of things which might resolve, a maker of lists. If I were to frame any of them, there could be three images in the entire year that would make it to a wall. It's still my view that a photograph isn't finished until it has been printed and framed. It doesn't even have to be hung on a wall. View Gallery

The main riff, which uses mostly open strings is doubled and harmonized in another part using a capo on the 5th fret. It has a very heavy sound, but in this demo, sounds like RHCP. The detuning makes the low D kind of undefined and flabby, but gives the cello range a nice growl. It’s a nice bass/cello hybrid with a pair of strings tuned in 5ths, between pairs in 4ths.

The Chicago Panels is a series of minimalist works that Ellsworth Kelly did as a permanent installation at the Art Institute of Chicago for the new Rice Wing in 1988. They are some of the most ignored pieces in the museum, but seeing them in context with the Doric columns and Beaux Arts sculptures is an exciting juxtaposition, which I think makes it decidedly post-modernist. (The woman in the yellow sweater was a nice juxtaposition as well). [View Gallery] #minimalism #curves #yellow

Melange by Lee Barry

Video: Melange by Lee Barry

    2 against 3.An approximate notation:

(Sans Bridge) On my knees I pray for you One kiss and the wish comes true But one plus one plus one Will never equal two No matter what I do Your faith is what is true No matter what I say Your fate is what comes your way Surrender to the force of will It's a simple act of faith Surrender to the force of time Disintegration by design A million tiny raindrops Reflect a single star Here, there, everywhere Sometimes very far I'm blowing out the candles Snuffing out the time Knowing all the angles Connecting every line Surrender to the force of will It's a simple act of faith Surrender to the force of time Disintegration by design

It's interesting to hear how AI interprets your songs. My vocal and production are terrible, but I still like my chord changes .  The problem I have with AI is that it never gets the phrasing right. It works bottom up from riffs and beats and shoehorns the words into it.        On my knees I pray for you One kiss and the wish comes true But one plus one plus one Will never equal two No matter what I do Your faith is what is true No matter what I say Your fate is what comes your way Surrender to the force of will It's a simple act of faith Surrender to the force of time Disintegration by design A million tiny raindrops Reflect a single star Here, there, everywhere Sometimes very far I'm blowing out the candles Snuffing out the time Knowing all the angles Connecting every line Surrender to the force of will It's a simple act of faith Surrender to the force of time Disintegration by design

Melange by Lee Barry In golden glow Of whispered ruin A falcon's beak decries the moon Time so taut with tethered claws Pent freedom rubs the restless raw Yon yellow sun so wintered cold The polar bear debates his hold Spring wound tight with anxious breath The season smells the snowman's death The falcon The falcon flies The falcon The falcon cries When good times roll to silver spoon Will riches spoil defy the tune Time once sang while friendship grew By sacred trust the unmasked drew Each victor red with passion's blood The snowman's melt decides the flood Seeds now moist from winter's loss Will search for sun yet risk the frost (Chorus) Most stories white with heart sprung deeds The blackbird's search defines each seed Trust last laid in fertile soil Still seeks to spring dance rhythms' coil In golden glow Of whispered ruin A falcon's beak decries the moon Time so taut with tethered claws Pent fr...

How things just fall.  View the Series #2018 #metaphors

 

Is there a standard schema (yet) for chord symbols, whereby any voicing can be expressed alphanumerically and be machine readable? For example, I had an odd chord that I was using the other day, and it wasn't clear how to write it. Would it be written "F-6/9" (as in jazz) or "Fmin6 (add 9)"?  A standard symbol mask could be:  pitch_M/m_(extension1)_(extension2) Examples: D(2) D(6,9) Dm6 Dm(6,9) D(9) DM7 DM7(+11) Dm7 D7(+9) D7(-9) D7(+5,+9) D(-5) Diminished D(+5) Augmented Dm7(-5) D9 D11 D13

 Results (Google Search Art) (2012)   As neural networks become smarter, so will image search results. When I began the project in 2012, image search results weren't that smart: images that appeared in Results were associated with the subject matter only to the degree that they were in the source web page. Since that point, search has become more sophisticated, whereby a keyword wouldn't necessarily need to be in the text in order for it to appear in the Results. For example, it could have a notion of what constitutes "beauty".  Almost 10 years later, artists are using AI to generate things like "Averaged Faces" and grouping them in grids. *** System latency causes color placeholder images to appear in Google search results, extracted from common pixel information in the images. It is interesting from a conceptual standpoint, as the search terms produce a color range as a result: Algorithms abide by Universals as well.

One Step Ahead of the Moon (1997) Virtually keyless.  

PURCHASE AT AMAZON This book is a literal continuation of other extant material:  Continua (Ordering as a Cognitive Pattern), Dynaxiom, Exforma , as well as the Composition Strategies , designed to be a flip-book for serendipity, not for linear reading, although I have included an appendix at the back of the book (as a continuation), which includes selected essays from Exforma . I have also included a list of human universals at recto upper-left and verso lower-right of each page spread  (as delineated in the book Human Universals by Donald Brown), also for the purpose of fortuitous discovery. The book will also continue on in future editions, each with a different spine color following “ROYGBIV”, the sequence of the light spectrum colors from low to high: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, with perhaps black and white to “bookend” the set. As of this first edition, it is undetermined what format the future editions might include. The number...

Ship of Theseus 24x36 inches, oil on canvas Ship of Theseus is an ancient Greek myth that a replica or copy of an object may or may not contain the essences of the original. I was attempting to portray the idea of something broken in pieces, but still faintly visible. (Influences: Chuck Close, Paul Klee, Gerard Richter, Francis Bacon.) Even if you built out the past to look exactly like the present, would the future repeat it exactly? .1 BTC #2009 #grids #65

You Have to Take a Picture of SOMETHING (2015) I have always been a proponent of the idea of staying in motion creatively, which is counter to some other philosophies (such as wu wei), where we strive for simultaneity. Puns are interesting because they easily merge language with the visual arts, in this case photography. These are photographs of used stencils, and the title is a pun, word-play, self-reference, and axiom all at the same time. As Charles Mingus once said, "You have to improvise from something--you can't improvise from nothing."    Axioms: 0493 . If you don't know what you should be doing, do something . Your time wouldn't have been wasted anymore than if you did nothing. 0535. When you tell someone how something was made, you tell them why something was made. The how is the why. 0569. It's nice if sculpture looks like something you already know. 0706. In photography it is important to make the distinction whether something is a good ph...

Spiritual Storm (Animation) 1920 x 1080 Duration: 10:00 An animation using the three primary snapshots of the color projections through a stained-glass window. Let it run in the background while you are doing something else, and each time you glance at it a different "painting" appears. It is interesting that two human figures have appeared as they weren’t in the original images, or in the window. Also visible are the lines between the marble tiles. Let me know if you want a copy of the .mp4 file (max 10). This way you can run it on a continuous reverse loop on your own computer or TV. Feel free to take screenshots and share them. #2018

Spiritual Storm 30x30 inches inkjet on canvas A collage of light projections from a stained glass window, with colors inverted.  30x30 on Artisan Archival Canvas Spiritual Storm (12 Frames) 12 selected frames from an animation based on the main image, inverted vertically. 20x4 inches archival print, matted in black gallery frame . (Original Images) #2018 #yellow #orange #blue #abstract

Old Cameras Taken with the Sepia Camera app in 2009. The store is still there as of 2018. #antique #phonography

Winter Beach (5 multiple exposures taken with Holga camera) View more here . #2007 #continua #black&white

Macrophage 4 (Recovery) 28 x 7.75 inches, acrylic, hardware, seam tape, twine on plywood. $444 Fourth in the series: Macrophage 1 and 2 Macrophage 3 #2018 #layered

A song I wrote, using the poem " Lochanilaun " by the English poet Francis Brett Young (with a few tweaks). Young also wrote the poem " Dust ", which Danny Kirwan of Fleetwood Mac adapted on the album "Bare Trees." I've always loved that song for its harmonic and structural angularity, and only used just part of the poem. Very often poetry veers too far away from lyrics and shifts into art-song form, which I don't want. This is the image of my last content: My soul shall be a little lonely lake, So hidden that no shadow of man may break The folding of its mountain battlement; Only the beautiful and innocent Whiteness of sea-born cloud drooping [falling] to shake Cool rain upon the reed-beds, or the wake Of churned cloud [of a churning cloud] in a howling wind's descent.  For there shall be no terror in the night When stars that I have loved are born in me, And cloudy darkness I will hold most fair; But this shall be the end of my delight Th...

The New Aesthetic     The Google definition of New Aesthetic is: "The New Aesthetic is a term, coined by James Bridle, used to refer to the increasing appearance of the visual language of digital technology and the Internet in the physical world, and the blending of virtual and physical." Like the Pictures Generation , The New Aesthetic is a form of "meta-photography" (photographs of photographs, or photographs of TVs or monitors.) The photographer is essentially looking through another camera, in this case, as a form of street photography, looking through the Lidar camera instead of an SLR. New Aesthetic Images

                                        [3/2026: I have imported them into an LLM , and you can now use prompts to get song "recipes", to wit, Prompt: Create a strategy for a song using an entry form each of the categories and create a list. Abstraction : Turn on a radio stream and integrate something you heard into the work (such as news, a commercial, or music). Arrangement : Start with a title before beginning the composition. Dynamics : Use a Soft to Loud progression throughout the piece. Harmony : Use no thirds in your chord structures. Key : Set the song in G major/E minor . Melody : Compose a melody using 5 notes . Meter : Use a 6/8 time signature. Mood : Incorporate expansive strings to define the atmosphere. Rhythm : Ensure the bass never plays the downbeat . Style : Produce the track in an Ambient style. Tempo : Set the pace to Medium: 80-128 BPM. Topic : Focus the ly...

Soundwalk: DuSable Harbor (2010) June 17, 2010: Weather gorgeous! Sound walks: Michigan Avenue AI to River, Riverwalk, Harbor Walk Turning basin: The Turning Basin is the point where the Chicago River meets the Locks to Lake Michigan. I sat on a bench overlooking the small harbor towards the harbor house, then walked south on the promenade, with DuSable Harbor on my left. Harbor Walk: Continued walk past DuSable harbor towards the Abegweit. There was a blues band playing on deck which you can hear in the background. A passerby says 'Party Boat!'. The strong breezes make for very clanky boat masts. As I walked south along the curved shore along came several hundred joggers running past me. A guy on a rickshaw shouts 'This ride is better than an American Eagle'. Continued path past yacht club and into Monroe Harbor area, traffic noise from LSD on right, end at Balbo Drive. Listen to audio of walk here:  https://archive.org/deta...

Just the Clouds From a J.M.W. Turner Painting (2017) Photo collage (48x12 inches) License this image Source: Valley of Aosta: Snowstorm, Avalanche, and Thunderstorm , 1836/37 The "Just" Series: Just the Clouds in Dutch Painting Just the Red Garments Just the Clouds in a Turner Painting #texture #tan #atmosphere

In Black | In White | In Red (2014) Duration: 6:40 A short looping video of words paired with their background, set against three "shades" of noise, in context with the Black White and Red series.

Light Bass 11x14 Print Light rays through a grating, as a metaphor for a 4-string bass. Prints Available #2014 #angles #black&whitephotography

Curvilinea (2006) 15-minute kaleidoscopic collage made from a series of transformed photographs, authored to DVD-Video with three soundtrack options: 1. Asiza 2. Copaxa 3. Psyop’s Mirror Curvilinea by Lee Barry #illusions #patternicity #popart #curves

Mnemonic Walks (2014) A conceptual series that fuses place with poetry by linking each line in a poem to a specific geolocation, for purposes of memorizing the poem. Once memorized, both place and poem have a circularity in memory. It's not about the technology per se, but rather what the technology allows us to do manually with memory. (Technologies are extension points for the brain.) Mnemonic Walk, No. 1 North on Michigan Avenue from Roosevelt: Beachhead, first walk on land Legs walking in a square Memories of aquatic breathing--inspired without air Mother bought them warm garments--Montgomery Ward wares For equestrian events on holidays--riding on the mares 8th Cavalry riding--rhythms over black stone squares Reached its destination--as the Congress took its share The artist begins to sketch--as cats on the prowl will dare Standing in an attitude of defiance--with tourists there to stare Towers twin now air--Parallel lines, a...

  Zones 11x14 acrylic on cardboard, mounted on panel in 16x20 frame $450 An homage to neoplasticism ("De Stijl") for its centennial. Like many of my pieces, they begin and end in different places. The original idea was off the working title "Compartments" or "compartmentalization" as a borrowed metaphor from psychology. The original painting was cut into sections, then reassembled. The white stripes were a way to resolve the metaphor of "compartments", but later I realized that the band The White Stripes were deeply into De Stijl, and titled an album after it. This geometric style is something that I believe is "me", a style that I recall doing in childhood and has remained with me since.

2046 by Lee Barry Chord changes are major and minor versions of chords a tritone apart: C#/G/C#min/Gmin. Possible dark scoring , with low strings and tuba:

Achtung (2009) 11x14 gouache on paper $350 A visual riff on punctuation, similar to what Richard Artschwager did with the 'blips'.  Initial sketch from my journal:  

Miro-Mondrian 11"x14" acrylic on wool fabric The vertical and horizontal superimposed over the curvilinearity of Miro. #2013 #curves #texture #layered

        Hundreds of Arbitrary Decisions Made By Design  24" x 36" oil on canvas (unframed) (2009) $500 OBO Created in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Burnham Plan For Chicago , the grid-based process is in self-reference to the grid-based street layout of the city. A collectible work that may ultimately have increasing value at each future commemorative milestone:  2034 (125th), 2059 (150th), 2109 (200th). The intentional pixelization of the map to create "the grid", as well as colors used for land and water. From Dream cities: seven urban ideas that shape the world : Burnham went on to the biggest plan of his career: a regional city plan for his hometown, Chicago, completed in 1909, with Edward Bennett. As depicted in impressive watercolor renderings commissioned from the artist Jules Guerin, the city would be centered on a huge plaza, lined with white colonnaded buildings, all focused on a circular city hall topped wi...

Alpha States (2011) Inversions of intentional over-exposures.

    Timeline of Musical Influences (1966-2008) A timeline of my musical influences using a geological metaphor. The X-axis are the artists, the Y-axis the duration of the influences. The blue stars are the biggest influences. The intention would be to continue on past 2008, but interestingly, my musical influences have become less influential as my art influences have become more influential. [11/7/2025: Everything in modern life has gradually eroded since 1999, just when the oldest Millennials were my age when I first started playing music in 1977. And now those people are in their mid-40s. I still love music for the benefit of my mind and soul. So that’s what the Millennials will have to find at some point. I wonder what that is?  It was whatever they’re nostalgic for from 1988, 1997, 2008…Our nostalgias are different: I’m not particularly nostalgic for 2008 or after, which is perhaps why this ends at 2008].

                                    Color of Sound The prime objective of Color of Sound was to explore the boundary between music and the visual arts and to create works based on the color palettes. I had already devised several palettes, some of them inspired by the interpretations of composers such as Scriabin and Schoenberg, as well as the spatial representations of painters such as Kandinsky. One of the challenges of relating color to pitch is that both are highly subjective, and rely largely on metaphor, memory, and mnemonic devices. This music theory chart uses the metaphor of temperature (a range of blues for the sharp keys on the circle of fifths as "cool") and orange "warm" for the flat keys on the circle of fourths. It is an attempt to codify sound using this simple metaphor, but it is probably not what is experienced by synesthetics. Charles Lucy, a musician in England has expl...

Purchase at Amazon   The book has been updated to 3320 (Edition 23.2). It should refresh in the Kindle reader. If it hasn't, let me know.  Listen to the video for this range.  3311 has a music in it:   FYI starting January 20, 2026, Amazon will also offer EPUB and PDF formats in addition to the Kindle version.   *** All Analyses: Dynaxiom Shorts: