April 21sts

A poem from abstractions of today pulled from the Beatles' Studio Diary and other snips from 4/21. What I'm realizing is that this whole process of using an existing "data set"  is finding signal in the "noise", not unlike seeing a dalmatian in a random array of spots. (A new title for the series might be Abstractions Of Today instead of Songdays). Also, working from prose to poetry to lyric ultimately requires radical reductions, which brings in more musical signal while keeping the central idea--which is the idea of a "hidden track", most recently used in CDs, but back in 1960s, they would put them in the concentric space on the vinyl disc.

The effect is similar to sine-wave speech, where first it sounds incoherent, then begins to make sense, although in poetry or lyrics you want to retain the ambiguity for effect.

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The Hidden Track

If there was a silence after the final chord
Or noise in the concentric
The sound of clattering iron...

David Whyte once said, "Hiding is the radical independence necessary for our emergence into the light of a proper human future." It's a Field Guide for getting lost in the blue of distance.

We fill in the blanks in the novels we haven't read...

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4/21/1967, Friday

"How does an artist know when or how to apply the final brush stroke to a masterpiece? With 'A Day In The Life', Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was already set to end with that tremendous, crashing piano chord lasting more than 40 seconds. But as no silence had been left between each song it would be a pity, the Beatles thought, if there was silence after the final chord. Why not put something in the concentric run-out groove? People with automatic players would hear a quick burst of it before their pick-up arm returned to base, people without such luxurious equipment would find the noise in the concentric playing on and on ad infinitum, or at least until the arm was manually lifted off." 

4/21/2012, Saturday

The sound of clattering iron road plates out the window. How can I use this as ambience in a piece of music? 

4/21/2016

I was reading that Prince had not touched his guitar for some time and was devoting all his time to playing the piano. This is probably a strategy taken so as to not corrupt how one approaches an instrument, by putting yourself in isolation to achieve maximum focus through self-imposed limitations. Perhaps the hope is that by hermetically sealing yourself off from other influences, new influences will flow back in once the gates are open again. This seems like a smart move, to kind of trick yourself into another mode of thinking. For me it causes a terrible nostalgia for the things I’m avoiding. Bjork said it felt like she was having an affair when she did something other than music.