November 9ths

-

11/9/1999

Prediction: Computer programs will have their own OS, programs will be specially designed for specific purposes, then disposed of. The one-program-does-all will disappear. 

11/9/2009

20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In many ways, the breaking or crumbling of boundaries is an emergent property (or teleological condition) of its symbology but also assumes that even if the physical barriers are removed, the semiotics endure. "For many years after reunification, there still was talk in Germany of cultural differences between East and West Germans (colloquially Ossis and Wessis), sometimes described as Mauer im Kopf (The wall in the head)."

[Fall 1989: Ceausescu fell in Romania]

[11/9/2024: The 20th@15. In a modern world we should draw no lines, but our lives are framed in fear. In a peaceful world, there can be no war, but the enemies are always near.]

They’re restoring the WWI memorial in Scoville Park, and when the protective sheaths blow over the sculpture it clings in interesting ways. Also interesting how the ropes are bound at the ankles.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11/9/2013

At the compositional level, it is always more interesting to have a good set of bones to hang the music on. (This used to be known as a “lead sheet” but that term is now somewhat archaic, dying with paper). (I also like the idea of setting up a “situation”, which is a short set of instructions from which to improvise on.) This reductive approach to playing music can go a long way to produce consistent results that have an inherent cohesion or logic—that is sometimes referred to as “soul”, a kind of slang or shortcut around larger formal structures, like the Score.

It can also be satisfying to see how improvisations can spontaneously interpret a virtual or artificial manifestation of a song that was created in a studio. The “dry” version can seem shockingly flat and transparent, with all the effects removed—but the essence may still be found there. Good musicians know how to find those essences. 

***

I have been interested in the "music of language" ("speech melody") since hearing Steve Reich's Different Trains, which used audio of interviews given about the events pre and post World War II. 

11/9/2014

A photograph in commemoration of the 25th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, and a send-up of Taylor Swift's album "1989".


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11/9/2024 

It’s interesting to hear how AI interprets your songs. I tried it on Force of Will. My singing voice and production is bad, but I still like my demo. The problem I have with AI is that it never gets the music in the language right. Very annoying. It’s interesting how it changes the word “angle” to “angel”. I think it might have to do with the style, which I chose as “mystical”. It’s kind of a happy accident, but not one I would accept at the time I was writing it. The other happy accident is the abrupt ending of the song on “blowing out the candles”. AI has interesting arrangement ideas, but artistically they’re clunky as if made by a bad producer. 

The way I view the writing of the lyric is that it has to be comfortably singable by the singer, and all singers are different in the way they interpret the rhythms in language. I think AI over-syncopates everything, but we naturally speak in syncopations; there are no bar lines in language. Bar lines in lyrics started to fade with rap. Todd Rundgren, even though he rapped on some of his songs, called it “a bunch of talkin’”. 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 AI Rap Treatment: 

 11/9/2025

Invariably, the things I don’t like other people like–and you’ll find that with many artists and musicians. Billy Joel didn’t like many of the songs that became hits, Bruce Springsteen didn’t like Born In the USA (initially), Robert Plant doesn’t like Stairway to Heaven. Relatability is a combination of saturation and the context of one’s personal mindset and a collective mindset, and in each there are various good and bad trigger points. In current times there are trigger points everywhere. An artist in these times is more of a button-pusher in the sense that you have to think of which buttons to push, and has to be finely finessed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

30000 Years

-
Image
A remix of diary entries from my 11/10 diary 1998-current transformed into a lyric using a text randomizer. This isn't AI, but it's like AI in the sense that you are using an algorithm. But instead of using a pre-made one you make one of your own, which is ultimately more fun and interesting. You can use the constraints but you can change them as well. This is essentially a cut-up technique. Using the natural rhythms in the words, "get the thing" created the main motif.       The main chorus riff is 30000 Year s, with this rhythmic motif:        Get the thing Everything Rapidly Love the thing Started abandoning Hoping it was the thing 
Read more

1110

-
Image
Lines from a Paul Cezanne letter (~1930), with other random lines from 2024. Played on acoustic guitar and demo'd by AI.    Listen on Suno
Read more

On Speech Rhythms

-
Image
  In terms of the connection between language and music, there is a finite number of rhythms that can be extracted from poetry and prose—probably in any language. If you read a passage in a book out loud, sometimes you will come upon phrases that are inherently musical.  The musicality of language (prosody) arises from the stresses on syllables, which have to be either on an upbeat or a downbeat in order for them to be coherent. In musical contexts, you can shape language however you want, and make things wrong for the sake of making them wrong for artistic effect, or emphasizing particular vowels when singing them. Ignoring strict meter and using a roving bar line is a cool way of approaching language in different ways in a musical context. Rhythmic displacement is one of the main tools for improvisation. For example, starting a phrase on an upbeat sounds less square than starting on a downbeat. Bass players are known to do this as well leaving the first eighth or quarter not...
Read more

1111

-
Image
0034. 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?  *** Listen on Suno
Read more

Conundra

-
Image
Every so often I'll compose etudes for myself based on repeating cycles. It can be practiced on any instrument and consists playing over a pair of chord changes a tritone apart, then proceeding up in fourths (or down in fifths). Each chord has a set of chord scales that can be played over them, and you can play one type across then all, e.g. the Phrygian mode going down in major thirds, or simply playing arpeggios, or mixing it up in different ways. 
Read more

November 11ths

-
Image
      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 Edge interview with Doug Rushkoff. This is what I call useful cynicism about the Net:  What is our intent and what are we going to do with it?  2026: What the internet might have done is make us more emotionally reflexive, that social media turned up to 11 "...we're supposed to know how we feel before we've ha...
Read more

September 30ths

-
Image
9/30/1997             Roy Lichtenstein died. His use of ads, cartoons, etc. is similar to using samples in music. Music is really mimicking what happens in the art world, but with a long lag time.     9/30/1998             Surfed the Net on collaborative information filtering idea. Lots of great links: The Game of Life, the “Serendip” page. Must revisit.  [9/30/2024: This was the beginning of what we now know as simply an “algorithm”—the black box that defines the world we experience online, and now in life in general because it is recommending our relationships and how we navigate them. It has not been good for society or democracy because it is about collectivism as opposed to community. Viktor Frankl: “Only the community can ensure the meaning of individuality for the individuals…only the safeguarding of individuality for the individuals can ensure the meaning of community. This is what distingu...
Read more

On Instrument/Art Collecting

-
Image
  Picasso, Guitar (1924).  On wants versus needs in terms of musical instruments:  It's been several years since I've bought a new instrument. I don't focus on that anymore, yet I see a lot of bassists collecting them–some with hundreds. It must consume your entire day–shopping around for them online, having them delivered, reviewing them on YouTube, and so on. Instruments can make a difference in production, but they don’t make a difference in composition most of the time. Instruments are different and unique and can create unique ideas, but once you take the idea and separate it from the instrument, it obviates the instrument. So you buy an 8-string or 12-string: They have a unique sound but once you start to track up a song and compose the song itself, and reduce it to chords and melody–something that you could play on a guitar or a piano, that bass doesn't mean anything. You could use a stock Fender Precision if you're just playing a simple supporting bass part,...
Read more