4/27/2025
Posts
0426
Behavior As A Structure April 26, 2001 Program on “blurred boundaries” between humans and animals, now that we know how similar we are, but yet so different. Interesting: Behavior as a structure. *** The centennial of the Guernica massacre Possible lyric: Behavior as a structure We know how similar we are The words become the structure Blurred boundaries between us and them Propaganda of lies Smoke and mirrors Imperious tendency for world domination Human universal of settling the score Memory of the past in the future *** Who you tellin'? I already know.
0425
A soul groove idea ( Wordrum ) AI-generated tracks, the first SF soul like a Tower of Power, the second more Fela Kuti: We're cooking the toast Butter later We're cooking the roast S'mother later We're making the most Somethin' greater We're cooking the toast
April 24ths
4/24/2006 AG Installation: 4/24/2016 What I liked about Prince’s guitar playing was economy: He used only a few guitar sounds, mostly clean and overdriven, with very clean playing, as opposed to the 60s blues-influenced players (Clapton, Hendrix, Page) that had more ‘slop’ in their technique. 4/24/2021 About five years ago I started a series that was called “15 Minutes”, a riff on Andy Warhol's 15 Minutes. It was supposed to be an album with 15 tracks on it with each one being one minute long. It's amazing how long it takes to write a piece of music that's just one minute long when you have to produce it and make a video, otherwise writing one minute of music perhaps doesn’t take a long time. A rule of thumb that I heard a long time ago was that you should write a minute’...
April 23rds
4/23/1999 Interesting program on WBEZ (“Odyssey”) about how recordings changed our perception of music. Steve Albini made the interesting point that digital sound will degrade over time, unlike vinyl recordings which last much longer. He liked the idea of having the recording as a physical object rather than having just the data on a hard drive, as a type of ‘time capsule’. It is also an interesting idea that we let culture mutate on its own in cyberspace—anathema to the idea that things are preserved [in a fixed form]. In this scenario, archived copies become relics. April 23, 2009: He must be using his I-told-you-so’s as vinyl (and even well preserved tape) is still the most durable medium. Digital media is already degrading and precipitously disappearing. The only thing perpetuating it is the fact that it is collaged into other works. [4/23/2025: This reminds me of a recent visit to my local record store to donate vinyl. It's interesting that in a record shop you're not thin...
0423
4/23/2046 (From Reset 2046 ) Session: “The I and the Me”, “Corner of You”and “Time Before Time. Drums for "Corner":
Deep and Cold
An example of going from prose to poetry to lyric. AI music generation is a challenge because you have to take so much out in order for it to work with the algorithms. It's an interesting process, but if I were to create a song manually, it certainly would not have this kind of simplistic harmony, but it does work as a finished recording. Seed: 4/21/2022 New idea inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s Field Guide For Getting Lost, particularly the “Blue Of Distance” bit. The prose sounded musical. The poem: The blue on the horizon Is a special place where light unfolds It is a deeper space; there's more sky to hold But it is deep and cold And in the deep and cold it rolls In the deep and cold it rose Touch the soil The soil, the land Touch the water Then touch the sand As you catch the sun And walk the beach Heard from on the cliffs An echo's reach
1116
11/16/2004 Went to Cultural Center. There was a guy playing delta blues on a dobro. (God I love that sound—I want a dobro. I wandered through the galleries. Interesting: Installation based on a journal, with newspaper clippings, diary entries, video. AI-Generated Track 11/16/2024
April 16ths
4/16/1966 (Beatles Studio Diary) “Eleven hours completing ‘Rain’”. Songday for today (a "rain refrain") 4/16/1998 Just discovered Jenni-Cam after hearing NPR interview. Interesting that now anyone can be their own TV show. There’s something so compelling about that. Jenni-cam now is so common on the Net that it now has a secondary meaning. [4/16/2026, 28 years later we have YouTube] Lyric idea: Once in the saddle he’s a changed man Dreaming of the gold in the emerald land Packing all his bags full of wanderlust Riding down the mountain in a cloud of dust The AI-generated version: 4/16/2012 Picked up plywood panels for paintings. While the staff was opening shipping crates in the back, two little stowaway cats emerged: 4/16/2021 When I first discovered ...
April 15ths
4/15/2005 We’re in the iPod Society. (I don’t have one yet) Instead of the LP we have the PL (Playlist). How is this different from just a newer version of a Walkman? (You have access to your whole music collection). The “Podcast” is the new broadcast (narrowcast) . What will replace radio? (wireless downloads) Who will (can) regulate? The good thing about 60s-era radio is that it made choices for you... [4/15/2025: 20 years on. I had thought that "pull" technology is better than "push" technology, because the choice is always ours. But obviously that isn't the case. Even if you wanted to pull information, algorithms are still pushing it at you. You could set up playlists that would sound like 60s radio, and podcasts were doing that at least by 2010. Immersive audio will always be niche.] 4/15/2021 There’s different ways of approaching a bass part. Bass parts aren’t always the focus but if you go on YouTube bass parts are the focus, including mine. But when it ...
April 12ths
4/12/1999 Segment on NPR about Chinese songwriter. The music sounds like a bad rendition of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, but the lyrics had such power to collectivize the thoughts of the Chinese people. This is an instance where the lyric is important, the exact opposite of the role of the lyric in pop music, where the sound itself conveys more of the meaning. [4/12/2026: As I've used AI to generate songs, people still don't listen to the lyrics, even though you can clearly hear them. Elton John once said that it's the music that grabs people first. I don't know what Bernie Taupin's response was --if any. With AI music the lyrics are everything because I'm not writing the music, but they could be imperceptible to others. Sometimes it takes years to hear a lyric]. 4/12/2011 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. 4/12/2021 What do we want from AI in music? [4/12/2026: As AI music becomes more sophisticated it might make it more playable with instruments. R...
April 11ths
4/11/2020 My version of April from Brand X Product (in D, not F) 4/11/2025 Every once in awhile I'll re-tune one of the basses and noodle around on it for ideas. The current tuning is “Drop 31” (E-G#-D-F#). I discovered that you can play wave-like patterns across the fingerboard resulting in 4ths, 5ths, and octaves and makes for an interesting mysterious harmonic progression. AI is also in the mix because I asked a large language model to create a haiku about waves and I used some of the results for lyrics. The tunings are unique in that you come up with things you wouldn't arrive at in standard tuning because you reject things out of hand as being "wrong". The title is borrowed from Rebecca Solnit's book, and was in the LLM results from "create a haiku about waves". All the tunings have unique characteristics but you have to explore them. You can retune a guitar similarly and leave the top two strings as they are. It's essentially an E7 tuning. ...
April 9ths
4/9/2025 Demo for next album: A possible image: "America had its own idea for the Golden Age and Robert Indiana was the one, who gave it a pictorial face. Representing the mocking tone of the creator for America’s future vision, the painting has defined political aura to convey. Robert Indiana also incorporated a phrase with the painting, written by Benjamin Franklin, “In free governments, the rulers are servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns.” This depicts that when you are a country, the power lies with the people of the land and not the rulers." [ More ]
Tribalries (Drop 31 Tuning)
E-G#-D-F#, played only on strings 2 and 3. The octaves stay the same between 4 and 2 and 3 and 1, so it's similar to standard tuning in that way. If you want an angular sound, this is the the tuning. From bass to strings:
Figured Basses (Drop 31 Tuning)
"Drop 31" is the short name for E-G#-D-F#, where the third and fist strings are dropped a half-step. I've left blank bars for repeats or the player can improvise in them. In the original version the pattern moves up in minor thirds.
April 8ths
4/8/2024 Gorgeous clear day, 72 degrees. A beautiful sunrise to be later eclipsed. You know you’re capable of being a Pink Floyd fan if you get excited about eclipses. An idea generated with the E-G#-D-F# tuning: Idea with the Drop 31 tuning (E-G#-D-F#) A prog idea for the eclipse (E-G#-D-F# tuning): 4/8/2026 I have over 100 songs that I've generated with AI. I see AI songwriting as a new form of prose writing reduced to poetry that can be set to music relatively easily. This allows anyone with an idea for lyric to try their hand at writing them, or have AI generate some slop. Like any new technology, it opens Pandora's Box, as did TV, the internet, and social media--and to some degree radio, which is now the podcast.
April 7ths
AI Chartjunk on 4/7 4/7/2013 As a musician, I am always ready to move on in terms of the instruments that we use to make our art, and I am an ardent fan of lots of new music that has parted ways with the traditional piano. I am forever conjoined with physical instruments but have no emotional or nostalgic feeling for them (at least as of yet). I can move on to electronic music and come back to them anew and feel their unique power. [4/7/2025: This is what I've been doing with AI music in combination with manual playing and writing. I find both are interesting in their own ways And they can cross pollinate with one another. For example, I'll generate a song based on my lyrics, and then transcribe the song into a lead sheet]. 4/7/2017 To the extent that one includes all sound as being potentially musical, then background music is ubiquitous. The only place devoi...
April 6ths (Equality of Vision)
4/6/1966 (Beatles Studio Diary) “The first session for what was to become the significant album Revolver . Here was a set of recordings destined to rock the rock world, and change the course of popular music. And its momentous closing song ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was the first to be taped. What a start!...” 4/6/1999 Story on radio about rock concert in Serbia where they were protesting against NATO, asking for peace. No one protested against Milosevic, because if they did they would be dead. I thought rock ‘n’ roll was anti-oppression? Listened to interview with Mary Schmich, the Tribune columnist, whose graduation speech column was used as a lyric for a techno groove. I like the idea that anything can be used as a lyric. Obviously someone is using the old Lennon technique of getting ideas from a newspaper. [4/6/2025: And I’m still at it…] 4/6/2016 Another 80s watershed: Sting’s Dream of the Blue Turtles (1985), the other “Revolution in the Head”, from poppy Police to sullen...
April 5ths
4/5/2024 Dream: I was at a restaurant dining with a stranger who apparently was a historian, but who suddenly disappeared. A possible orchestral treatment: Second iteration: 4/5/2025 A possible protest chant to be used as a Songday riff, perhaps for other things. Chant rhythms are powerful riffs.
0405
4/5/2024 Dream: I was at a restaurant dining with a stranger who apparently was a historian, but who suddenly disappeared. Expansion of this idea to orchestra, perhaps to be developed further.
April 4ths
4/4/2024 Score for Tableau Vivant *** 4/4/2022 Algorithms now define the trends. Spotify artists and YouTubers tend to abide by them by producing content that trends, which creates a feedback loop favoring both the artist and platform at the expense of deeper creativity. Even though there are no longer duration constraints as there were in vinyl and tape, the constraints prevail because of shortened attention spans, now reduced to a few seconds—which incidentally machines can use to see trends. Alas, it’s unlikely that we’ll sit through a whole side of an LP. (There’s a tenuous correlation between what algorithms define as being popular and what people actually find interesting. Popularity has become more of a false positive by manipulating the data to show that false positive). 4/4/2026 Ai music is ordering some grub at the counter and playing a few songs on the jukebox while you wait.
April 3rds
4/3/1998, Friday Reading Internet Dreams . Are brain structures and neural networks actually shaped by the environment? The fact that we have fast communication and access to lots of information is a product of how brains have developed, which sets the stage for how they will continue to develop. The brains of the ancient Egyptians evolved to allow them to do what they did, and then lost when the civilization perished. That’s why we can’t completely solve the mystery of that culture. [4/3/2025: I recall making a comment recently about ironically not being able to find things on the internet, when we think we can have access to anything. There’s an electronic version online, which is very hard to read and isn’t downloadable. An interesting idea would be to have AI go through my diaries and gather all the old books. I’ll bet lots of these 90s books are already inaccessible. I think the better way in a digital age is to just digest the information that you have in front ...
New North
4/2/2023 Dream: I witnessed a plane crash into a body of water in a cold northern region. The bearded pilot survived and swam to the shore. His doppelganger, who looked exactly like him, swam to save him. A phone rang and I answered it. He said, “New North”.
Andy Warhol Meets the Pope
4/2/1980 Andy Warhol meets Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square. [I'm intentionally leaving the bass tab as standard so that it sounds "confused"] Modal Confusion (4/2/1980) by meta4s
April 2nds
4/2/1980 Andy Warhol meets Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square. [Uses the E-G#-D-F# tuning] 4/2/2005 Pope John Paul II dies. Massive pilgrimage to Rome. His death now eclipses the Terri Schiavo case. (Terri who?) Dynaxiom: When you see the long view, it helps you decide whether you believe in God or not. 4/2/2019 When I was in music school we'd ask each other what part of music we liked most--melody, harmony or rhythm. I always loved harmony, but came to use all of them. Over the years I came to like another one above the others and that was the conceptual, or art driven by ideas. More than anything, my work is driven by ideas, in which any or other elements can serve as tools to resolve the ideas. None are more important. To elevate one element makes the work inert in a “spiritual” sense. For example in music, if something is too harmonic, melody or rhythm may be overlooked. Important elements arise in hindsight when you discover the thing that makes...
April 1sts
Antipode: October 1sts 4/1/2020 It used to be that we assuaged our fears by looking forward to the next election. A musical idea based on the idea of a return to "norrnal" post-COVID, when the loneliness might linger on. What happens when the old Normal returns and we don't recognize it? 4/1/2021 One aspect of art making that's evolved over the past 5-10 years is the use of "artificial intelligence" or some kind of a coding framework for creativity. I remember generative art and music from 25 years ago that in itself was also based on something 20 or 25 years prior. So the idea that there's a new platform that's going to create a zeitgeist in art is unconvincing to me. What artists should be doing is simply working from ideas and shaping them with materials that are informed by the ideas or are in some metaphorical context in surprising ways, such as atmospheric ideas resulting in things made of corten steel for example. Not all ideas require ...
