December 7ths

 

12/7/1997

Poetry “cracks the code” of language. It expands the boundaries of understanding in the mind. Poetry is also “vertical time” as opposed to the “horizontal time” of prose.

"All composers are fundamentally viewed as writers, distinguished mainly by their intimate understanding of the melody and rhythms of language. The creation of music and prose are considered parallel temporal art forms, both relying on the synchronization of an idea's unfolding and its eventual comprehension." 

"Discuss poetry, prose, and lyrics" 

12/7/2000

Gwendolyn Brooks died. I wonder if current times will produce a great poet, as no one would care about that sort of thing–although I'm sure rap and hip hop will be a venerated art form in 25 years.

12/7/2002

Lyric idea:

Somwhere there's a fate
Eyes without a face
Spies without a faith...

12/7/2004

Film: Naked States, where a photographer shot public nudes in all 48 states. Interesting: people want to be included in art and performances—show ME! Use ME! Show the world I can also be a celebrity! 

Sometimes bad publicity is good, as people want to see how bad it is, and in the process, find what’s good

[12/7/2024: It’s not really any one technology that enables the seeking of attention. We like to single out TV, the internet, and social media, but people will do anything to get it, such as public nudity. What’s really at play is the idea of being “enabled”, in this case a filmmaker making it comfortable and fun, like being an extra in a film. It’s the brush with celebrity as an escape from the humdrum].

 

 

 

 

 

 

The AI version:

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12/7/2021

Pearl Harbor @80. Browsing the book The Best Presidential Writing, I stumbled on Roosevelt’s Address of Pearl Harbor. It was like Bush’s (scripted) address after 9/11. So much of our history arises from what was carefully written, and we hang on to the prosody of a speech and the personality of the speaker more than anything. They all have that “Mission Accomplished” cadence to them. It’s a “soundtrack” of a supposed victory. 

[12/7/2024: Mellifluous public speeches can be very close to singing because more air is being pushed, and makes the voice more melodic. The reason people think they can’t sing is because they use the speaking voice].

"The brain's conscious working memory is highly limited, capable of holding only a few chunks (about 10–20 words) for approximately 10 to 20 seconds before attention wanders. "

"Discuss speech rhythms and prosody, specifically in public speaking"  

12/7/2023

I had the idea of doing an album of songs where the lyrics are spoken not by me but by text-to-speech voices. What would happen is that there would be a collaboration with lyricists and poets where they would submit their work and I would ask them to speak the poetry or the lyrics and then find the music in that and either use their voice or the robot voices and it would be a form of singing. I'd call it Text To Song. I've been continuing to write songs but I haven't sung them because I'm in a place where I really can't sing in full voice. The spoken word is quite close to singing as the "music of language". Prose tends to be mostly unmusical but sometimes if you speak it you can find the music in it and it can be a form of lyric. This might be the next album as "Sum II".
 

[12/7/2025: TTS has improved exponentially in only 2 years. I like that I can make “demos” without hiring singers, but there is no collaboration in real-time, so you have little control how phrases are sung and the changing of words–or anything for that matter. AI-music will always be just-ok because of this bottleneck. It sounds like a completed song, and it is to some degree, but I’m always hearing things I would change, especially the phrasing].

 

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12/7/2025, Sunday