November 8ths

11/8/2005

On strategies: If you set the constraint "duration 3 minutes or less", and tell a musician their song will not be played even if it's 3:01, invariably what you'll get are songs 2;30, 2:45. Then you'll get an iconoclast that will write one 6:00, and start a whole new style. (The moral: sometimes taking a risk to break a rule can really pay off).

[11/8/2024: Interesting: The idea of "rule drift: It's probably best that we use rule drift because you don't want to get too locked into rules. At some level being locked into rules as a stricture is probably a good idea if you're trying to do something that's minimal, for example, using only three colors, or in music using certain note values. When I was studying composition with jazz arranger Bill Russo in the 80s, one of his rules was that you couldn't use dots or ties in your rhythms. It was frustratingly restrictive but at some level that's probably a good idea because if you don't have any rules, or if you're always drifting the rules. then you might as well not have any rules at all.]

11/8/2017

A sense of spirituality is an embedded attribute of jazz, even if it doesn't show it. The spirituality really comes from improvisation, where you surf on serendipity. It sings its own praise, even without thinking about it (although Coltrane did start to think about it when he started to compose)...

11/8/2020

Did a bass video–A 70s-ish funk groove in C Dorian. It's a piece on a new album I'm working on. I'm improvising over a rough mix with two bass parts, one "bass bass" and another "guitar bass" with echo and reverb on it. The part I'm playing live is another "guitar part". I like how the fingerboard reflects the blue from my jeans. (A totally blue bass would be cool). 

 

11/8/2021

Per the Libet Experiment, the neural mechanism for your moving your hand has already fired before you make the actual motion. In terms of flow in improvisation, there is a microsecond delay from when the player’s neurons fire and when they play over some changes. For the performer, there is also a flow between the “planning” and the execution. If you’re soloing over several minutes on the same changes, you’re thinking ahead on phrasing, reacting in real time to what the other players are doing. Over time it creates habits, or what Rupert Sheldrake calls Morphic Resonance. If that’s true, musical ability emerges from that field. It might be what allows neurons to regrow after a brain injury. 

11/8/2022

Election Day to save democracy. I never thought I'd be typing this in all the decades I've been keeping this diary.

11/8/2023 
            
NYT: Abortion rights fuel big Democratic wins, and hopes for 2024 (Huh...)

Black Friday is “Modus Shoparoundi” 

11/8/2024

 

 

 

 

 

To Art Institute for a soul refresh. Nice to be in physical proximity to work, and not have look at AI-generated crap. Wanted to start the "Just The Black" series, but too difficult to get proper exposure for low-light black. 

As much as I revere Old Master work, I tire of it, and find my way back to 20th century work. TIL: Corbu's early painting from a century ago: Still Life Filled With Space (1924), Takashi Murakami, "Mr. Pointy" ("superflat" work, juxtaposing high and low, combining religious and spiritual pre-Columbian work with the contemporary. Chilling to look at the Max Beckman self-portrait right before he fled Germany, going from most-honored to being called degenerate, all the while thinking it might be happening in the US.

The Brancusi Family