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No One's Status Is Unknown (3/27/2020) by meta4s

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January 2nds

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9/24/2025 (On Lyrics and AI)

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There was an interesting study that was done a few years ago on the complexity of lyrics. But there’s a difference between those who write scientific papers about lyrics and those who actually write and sing them, which has an interesting connection with AI-generation of songs where the “singers” are just LLMs shuffling patterns to match riffs. When I work on a lyric, I’m focusing on how the quality of words to be used musically, especially at the rhythmic level. How syllables are mapped over note values is crucial. I think lyrics should be as economical as possible, which is the issue with translations from English because you’re “deracinating” the natural speech rhythms. With the Esperanto lyrics, the music sounds fine on its own with the vocals just being another instrument. If you don’t understand the words, then it’s essentially an instrumental. Most people don't tune into lyrics. The music is most important on first hearing, but lyrics can soak in over time.
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Figured Basses

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I have a penchant for re-arranging pieces originally written on a bass for string quartets or string ensembles. In fact one of my first classical pieces was written for two basses , then arranged for string quartet. This one was an etude I wrote in the 90s that is based on a compound time signature and cycles through 4 dominant 7th chords (or Mixolydian modes) a minor third apart: E7, C#7, Bb7, G7. Now I've re-arranged it again for the Songday series for an album of pieces that are a minute long, as Sum IV.1 (as "shortets"). Sum III are pieces an hour-long (like field recordings), Sum II are pieces that are about days, and Sum I was an album of songs per month (There are none (yet) for years). Shortet No. __ (Figured Basses) by meta4s The Score:  On the Rhythm By Addition album:
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