On Music

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In progress: 35 years of musing on music in a slim 100-page volume. Images are the series of 12 from Chromatic Windows

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Composition Strategies Game

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Strategy Deck Songwriting Strategy Deck Twelve Cards, One Draw A fresh set of constraints pulled from thirteen suits — abstraction, arrangement, harmony, rhythm and more. Deal a new hand any time. Regenerate Save Draw #1 13 suits · one strategy per card · one suit sits out each round to keep the hand fresh " >
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January 2nds

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1/2/2005 They’re razing the old Sun-Times building in the Loop, and when I pass by it I always tune into the sound of jackhammers echoing through the empty space. [Now site of Trump Tower]                Ambient Audio: [1/2/2025: Little did we know how that eponymous tower would represent the end of American democracy as we knew it. Perhaps it was always fragile and we naively thought, even after 9/11, that it would be razed].      1/2/2007 Projects for 2007: Music For Places, Highway Cinema.  [1/2/2026: Resolutions actually do work, but it can take sometimes a decade to see the results. What's important are "seeds"]  1/2/2012             James Howard Kunstler’s prediction/forecast:             “Vlad Putin has held things together there impressively after the meltdown of the 1990s, but apparently the tranquil veneer is thin. Except for two big citie...
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September 30ths

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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...
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A New Look at the Chicago Panels

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The Chicago Panels is a series of minimalist works that Ellsworth Kelly did as a permanent installation at the Art Institute of Chicago for the new Rice Wing in 1988. They are some of the most ignored pieces in the museum, but seeing them in context with the Doric columns and Beaux Arts sculptures is an exciting juxtaposition, which I think makes it decidedly post-modernist. (The woman in the yellow sweater was a nice juxtaposition as well). [View Gallery] #minimalism #curves #yellow
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Isomelody and Isorhythm

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An interesting exercise is to take an existing melody (as I did with the Bach cello suite) and map it over another rhythm. You can compose your own or use an existing one. With Be Bach I used the sequence of notes in the Suite and mapped it over a bop rhythm that I composed. After the melody was done I added chord changes. (Someone should write a program that will do this automatically.) Here is the source Bach cello Suite:      A more recent video:   Using isorhythm in a bass line:   
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Hot New Earth (2026)

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  It's interesting to re-imagine old lyrics with AI with fake band names. Feel free to use the names, but you'll have the same band playing different music, which might be interesting in the AI realm. [Hot New Earth 1997]  Visionary art  Culture create Useful technology  What cannot be made? Weaving the cloth That keeps us warm Leaving the land So trashed and worn The balance of soul To the roots in the land To the gothic cathedrals Where the masses band The song and the dance Of the social norm Is now the slam dunk Of the antisocial porn  In a hot new earth In a cold cold sweat Hot new earth Meets a cold cold death Force times velocity Will give us power In a hot new...  Earth Overrated human The master of slaves Never the spiritual Just material craves A culture to integrate The math with the art The choice (joy) to be ignorant And not to be smart The removal of skin The raising of the sea Take away the trees The means for recovery Poison pills For a feve...
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August 4ths

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8/4/2000 Can you imagine, David Bowie becoming an architect?! It’s an interesting notion that aging rock stars can cross disciplinary boundaries. One might not think that Bowie belongs in something so Apollonian, but he’d infuse a Dionysian element.  8/4/2010             Listened to Fresh Air interview with Brian May. Interesting: The guitar riff repeats on We Will Rock You are actually tape splices.  AI Treatment:   8/4/2012 Saddle Man                         [Through the window of a local pool hall that had been closed for some time. There was a figurine of a cowboy in the window that had a "shadowy" vibe]. 8/4/2017 The proof of the effect of music on the mind and body is if it is compelling enough to dance to, or is otherwise rhythmically kinetic. Shifting tempos and meters can have subtle effects on emotion, combined with tension and release in the melody and harmony. The o...
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Curio No. 4 (Extended)

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Art Used:  Left: Japanese Warrior Woodblock Print by Kuniyoshi (mid-1800s) Center: Hercules At His Funeral Pyre over clip from Peter Greenaway's Belly of an Architect,   Anthropomotries -- Yves Klein Right: Antiquity (Ariadne Titian Bacchus Popcorn)- -Jeff Koons Frame: The Donne Triptych by Hans Memling
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