Lee Barry Composition Diary

  July is E Lydian Month. Craton Crossing , from Rifts . July 1, 1969 was the start of a new recording era post-miserable Let It B e, while on July 1, 1997, Hong Kong started its new era with it reversion to China. On July 7, 1969, George Harrison comes up with the idea for Here Comes the Sun in Clapton’s sunny garden. On July 7, 1997, I have song title ideas on a beautiful 72-degree summer day, “Then and There”, “Right Here and Now”. On July 7, 2010, I had a dream about Eric Clapton performing at Orchestra Hall in Chicago. On July 9, 1987, Keith Haring is in Paris, and 10 years later on July 9, 1997, I journaled, “Keith Haring art in N.Y. subways, “Pop Shop” sells souvenirs. Keith died of AIDS 10 years ago [2/16/1990]. His estate is worth $25 million! He’s now in the Whitney Museum and has had his journals published.” On July 12, 2021, I did a podcast episode titled, Does music have anything to do with climate change? , and on July 12, 2022, I was commenting about Roger Wat...

December 28ths  6/28/2001                       The digital world is immersed in an analog world. Software is not philosophically important. The most important questions are human questions, old fashioned art and science are just as important as computers. Analog is more powerful than digital and was proven 20 years ago. [6/28/2025: It could be that it’s now reversed: analog is immersed (scraped) into a digital world. I don’t know what I meant by “Analog is more powerful than digital and was proven 20 years ago.” Now it’s more of a matter of defining metamodernism and working within that space].      6/28/2008 David Smith and Henry Moore sculptures, Art Institute North Garden. The telephoto puts them side-by-side, when they are perhaps 20-30 feet apart.                                      6/28/2011 Favorite spot, ...

Augury (Trump Tower in fog)  

6/20/2004 Technology frees us from the physical, tactile senses, such that it is no longer necessary to play a musical instrument to make music. It also frees us from having to remember things, as they are relegated to stored data rather than encoded memory in the brain. Software will obviate our natural abilities and will devolve from the species.  [6/20/2025: AI will certainly do this. 16-year-olds aren’t buying instruments because the fascination isn’t there. AI is the new rock ‘n’ roll].  6/20/2014  Big data and music haven’t hooked up yet but they’ve been checking each other out. David Cope saw this coming in 1980. If music is essentially a binary phenomenon, then it can be treated like all other binary data. Just as an image can be condensed into 128 pixels and still be identifiable, perhaps it can work the same for music. It might be possible to break musical syntax into small chunks and reassemble them so that they sort of sound like the original. It’s like the p...

December 19ths   6/19/1886 Quinn Chapel for freedom commemoration, freedom to gather. Then a bit of fishing on the breakwater—pulled in six before the sun touched the horizon. Something about the rhythm of casting and waiting settles the mind. Old timer at the pier claimed he'd seen Buffalo Bill's show. "Real cowboys," he said, "not like these city folk pretending. [ More ]  Song idea abstracted from this entry:         From the June 19, 1930 entry by Edward Weston in his Daybooks: Fog has lifted—brilliant sun . This provides the happy accident of shadows cast upon the work. After a walk on the beach , he begins a new series of photographs...   Short Strings:  Eventually became a Shortet. It's interesting how you go from a foggy Carmel California to a tornado in Kansas just by contextualizing it with an image. _  6/19/1998 Sitting by Turning Basin by river and lake, my favorite spot, soaking in the maximum sun on the eve...

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December 16ths  Songdays 16ths   6/16/1886 [ Source ]  These generations are often inaccurate but I'm using them to weave a fictional narrative based on some of the provable facts, mostly those following the Haymarket riot, from the perspective of a fictional character, Tom Sullivan.  6/16/1998 It always looks like it’s going to rain, but it never does.                            [6/2026: An AI-Generated Demo]         6/16/2003 “What makes it art is that the artist went further than others had gone before.”  [Attribution unknown]  6/16/2011 Thoughts on Alim Qasimov Ensemble: Music arises from devotional stories, not musicianship; call and response; bent seconds and other unique ornaments; notes that pull down; Non-western—music floats over drone but not the tonic.  6/16/2024  This letter perfectly works as poetry, and perhaps a lyric, perhaps perfectly for Fa...

 

 

December 15ths  6/15/1886 (Thomas Sullivan) Silence becomes survival. English words carry less risk than native tongues amid demonization.     6/15/2019 Aerial:                                        6/15/2021 One of the problems I have with using too much programming in music is that I tend to get bogged down in things that aren’t of a musical nature. We have to decide where we want to focus our problem solving so that it’s not interfering with creativity. They can’t be co-mingled as they’re in conflict more than they are in having similarities. That’s the problem I have with using too much AI in music: we’re too focused on the data and programming. [6/15/2025: Programming is no longer an issue–it’s the writing of prompts, which I find kind of strange in music, e.g. "Begin with a soft ambient intro, gradually layer in warm bass tones, and introduce a soaring lead melo...

Cleaning Piece II - Yoko Ono Make a numbered list of happiness in your life Pile up stones corresponding to those numbers Add a stone each time there is happiness Compare the mound of stones to the ones of sadness This fits perfectly with Gathering Stones   Acorns (6-7-2021) by meta4s

6/6/1886  (Sullivan Diary)  Jury selection continues. Each candidate questioned about anarchist sympathies, labor opinions, newspaper preferences. Mrs. O’Brien refuses to shop at Kowalski’s store—claims he harbors radical sympathies. Evidence: he hired a German who attended union meetings. Democracy’s fragile…how quickly neighbors become suspects, workers become threats.  6/6/1907 (Paris)  (Kessler Diary)  Lunch with Rodin who reminisced about the late ‘70s, early ‘80s monthly “Dinner of the Cossacks”.  6/6/1944 (Diary of Anne Frank) “This is D Day,” the BBC announced at twelve. “This is the day.” The invasion has begun!...BBC broadcast in English: “This is 0 Day.” General Eisenhower said to the French people: “Stiff fighting will come now, but after this the victory. The year 1944 is the year of complete victory. Good luck!””   [18 years in the future in a postwar zeitgeist teens are playing amplified guitars in a new form of music based on a mel...

Absolutely gorgeous day. Annual Day In Our Village. Did a 60 Minutes recording: FL Wright Home and Studio, church bells,  bell tower at Grace Episcopal church, Scoville Park, resale shop, more bells, organ.

Day In Our Village festival in Oak Park. Gorgeous day, markedly different from the torrid temps of yesterday. Looking up from the park bench in Austin Gardens. Sound of Shakespeare Theatre troupe in background.

Fur Elise Ice Cream Truck

Song idea from extracted (abstracted) words from 6/4 entries: 6/4/1968 (Beatles Studio Diary) A day of curious overdubs on “Revolution I”. John recorded his vocal lying flat on the floor . He was having hissy fits, claiming that the tape machine was always breaking down, and later apologized. Paul and George did background voices consisting of just the words “mama” and “dada”. 6/4/1995 (Eno Diary) “It’s hard working when Sunday-afternoon light is streaming in through the windows...beautiful sunset on the sea.” 6/4/1998 Sitting at kitchen table with morning sun beaming gloriously through window. I love this time of year, in stark contrast to December, when I shiver in this very spot. Lying flat on the floor Sunday afternoon light through the window Beautiful sunset on the sea On the cusp of illusion and reality   Possible image: Edward Hopper's Rooms By the Sea   

  First drafts and mixes, plus a string arrangement. The piece is derived from the rhythm of "gathering stones" and is the opening riff.  I  never thought synchronicity was possible on social networks, but seeing  a random post I suppose could be a trigger of some kind. We're all in a  web of simultaneity, regardless of where it is encountered. Sometimes  the coincidences aren't appreciated until later. I was  noodling around on a guitar and found a nice chord change. Then I read  Eno's 5/28/1995 post about collecting stones on a Beach, and  it gave meaning to the riff. Gathering Stones (Strings) by meta4s

Cicadas swarming the tree outside my window.  The decibel level has increased significantly. I would imagine this is not good for your high frequency sensitivity. Took a short soundwalk to record them. There are two "notes" that you hear and you can see them in the frequency analysis. There is one lower note between 1 and 2.5K and one more shrill between 3  and 6K. If you are subjected to this for hours it must have an impact on that frequency band. As you can see it goes up to 20K in the "mosquito" range and younger ears can probably hear that. It must be painful.