November 11ths

Antipode: May 11ths

11/11/1914

Wittgenstein: Letter to David Hume, who he thinks a lot about and wonders if it's mutual. Cannon fire heard from the workshop. 

This could be a score to this “scene”:

11/11/1965          

(Beatles Recording Sessions)            

The other new song, John’s ‘Girl’, was further proof that Lennon wrote some of his best songs under the pressure of deadlines. It was a fine song, if perhaps a little naughty. (John later revealed that the scat backing vocal by Paul and George was in fact the word “tit” sung over and over again.  

11/11/1999

Japanese blues pianist on TV: "I didn't know what I was singing about, but I liked the sound." (a testament that American pop music is primarily about sound). 

[11/11/2024. Pop music, as opposed to classical, is all about tone and timbre, which is all about production. If you transcribed it into notation, it would be almost nothing. You probably couldn’t play it unplugged. It is nowhere near how the Beatles wrote songs. AI music is a music that comes from a speaker, having never been touched by a human. In this sense, in a strange way, is an “immaculate” music.] 

11/11/2004

The camera lies, or the camera finds the truth hiding behind the lies, sometimes the camera see better than the eye because it slows it down. In the end, will the camera lie or will the camera tell the truth? 

11/11/2022

I don’t think it’s necessary to know how to read notation. What is necessary in music (or any art) is how to finesse it. This is mostly a postmodern idea where anything goes, but what you’re playing has to make the music work, whether it be a good drum part, a good guitar sound, or anything that is uniquely expressed. Also, once you’ve gotten comfortable with playing something written it’s easier to entertain the idea that you have the ability to actually read notation. 

11/11/2024

Every day, artists and musicians should be the champions against AI. Don’t decide to churn something out with an app instead of working yourself. It can be alluring because the production is done, but for me, it’s never the production I want. AI is an art of just-ok compromises, another version of Garage Band.

[11/11/2025: Unfortunately, words for breakfast. I can accept whatever production is generated, although if you listen closely every “producer” that ever existed in the AI world wasn’t very creative. They are “staff” producers working from guidelines.]