Lee Barry Composition Diary

 

December 29ths   6/29/1989 (Keith Haring Journal)  “...The computer has totally changed the whole concept of what composes and defines a “picture space.” The whole relation between the creator and the viewer has changed. The relationship between the physical gesture of drawing and the resultant image has changed....”  [6/2025: Now you can swap out the word “computer” with “AI”. But new technologies don’t really change an artist’s practice. Warhol made one of the first computer artworks in 1986, and it didn’t change his work, nor did it change Haring’s. There have always been new advancements in tools and implements, but they don’t undermine what an artist is already doing].  6/29/1999 No Exit Cafe closes after 40 years. 6/29/2018 In previous eras, it was talent. Now it involves skill with using software, which also makes it easier to remix and recycle. Some people might be more talented in creating hooks, or catchy fragments that can evolve into full pieces. Personal...

Undersong (6/28/2025) by meta4s

 December 27ths 6/27/1943, Sunday My father with Army bud, Buckroe Beach    [6/27/2025: What would he have thought if someone from the future told him that the US might become a dictatorship in the 2020s?] 6/27/1944 (Diary of Anne Frank) “...In the three weeks since D Day there hasn’t been a day without rain and storms, neither here nor in France, but this bad luck hasn’t kept the British and the Americans from displaying their might....Finland turned down a peace offer some time ago, and now the negotiations have been broken off again. A short ditty for the entry:           6/27/2016 A philosophy of bass: A bass part can be “skeletal” in nature. Some songs don’t need a bass part per se, and rather can be contrapuntal and melodic in nature, rather than simply doubling the lower octave. How supportive the bass line or voice is really depends on the skill of the writer and/or performer, and the style of the music: In pop, a supportive bass part is...

December 26ths  6/26/1998 Some people are averse to art which is done by mechanical means, but to work mechanically is not to worry about what you’re going to do next, or to wonder if the news is going to be in a good mood. (Thoughts after reading a critique of Chuck Close’s photorealism, in defense of working by “mechanical” means).  [6/2024: At recent art fairs I’ve noticed a lot of grid-based work—which I like. I consider myself a grid artist, primarily rising from music. Chuck Close often used the music score metaphor where notes are placed on a staff (grid). But the grid influence today may be coming from AI as that mechanical means].   6/26/2011 The old Village Theater at Clark and North. Terrible sight lines and lumpy seats. Now showing "O". Saw Peter Greenaway films there. The only art house that typically ran them. Also, Jackie Brown.                                   ...

December 25ths  6/25/1886 (Tom Sullivan Diary--AI-generated with edits) We are no longer becoming. We have become.  The lesson of the flightless cormorant: Humans are also in the process of becoming something totally different. We lose abilities and gain others. At the tavern O'Malley spoke of organizing again. "They can't kill an idea." [ Source ]  6/25/1998 Chicago teacher/singer-songwriter uses songs to teach math. This is not a new concept; novelty songs and nursery rhymes have been used for ages as learning tools. Interesting thing about it is that it’s music used as a utility, stripped of its cultural function, which is useful in that it indicates that music is not just something we can just discard after we’ve “read” it. It’s nice that there is a use for music other than for entertainment or an emotional outlet. [6/25/2025: Relates to my idea about a history class that was about learning history through writing songs ]  Interesting documentary on PBS on Rod Se...

December 23rds  6/23/1998  “Soul” is defined by that which is controlled by the muscles, the breath, the way the mind works, which observe these processes and make adjustments accordingly, all the while being consumed by the spirit of the moment. [6/23/2025: A pretty good definition. (See: Do LLMs Have Soul? ]  Classical music is hard to position in culture because it’s so hard to match with other pieces of culture. It’s like furniture: you have an armoire in the rococo style that was built by the finest craftsmen, took two years to make, but it is difficult to fit with the exercise equipment and the green Naugahyde chair that your mother gave you when you left home at 21. [6/23/2025: The solution to the stresses of The New is to adapt. In art, this adaptation can come in the form of juxtaposing the old and new. In the 90s and 00s retro design was popular–in car design for example, where a new Thunderbird borrowed elements from older models. AI might be a way to do this]....

December 22nds  6/22/1886 Always interesting to run the century scenarios. 1986: harmony between worker and owner, or deeper divisions? 2086?  My cousin Louis speaks of form following function. His philosophy, applied across decades, might reshape buildings and the character of urban life. Perhaps every street will have tracks.  [ More ] 6/22/1999 Idea: Music released like software, where you can “upgrade” albums or collections, a series of songs that continually develops and unfolds... [6/22/2025: The Songday series is essentially like this].  6/22/2002, Saturday  Damen El Stop:  6/22/2019 Black Marubozu , 20 X 10.75 inches, acrylic and pen on lotka paper. Third in the series inspired by candlestick charts.   6/22/2024 Interesting in passing: George Harrison: “You know what irritates me about modern music, it’s all based on ego. Look at a group like U2. Bono and his band are so egocentric. The more you jump around, the bigger your hat is, the ...

Another album in the Songday series created with AI, using the same lyrics for each of the five songs.  The lyrics are based on Dynaxiom 0408, “Beauty finds itself and its beholder”. The original idea was a piece of music titled The Frequency Holder. A “frequency holder”  is a term coined by Eckhart Tolle as “someone who embodies and emanates a high vibrational frequency, often associated with presence, awareness, and peace, contributing to the collective consciousness”. .It's ironic that this music is pretty hard-edged vis-a-vis its spiritual nature.  I called this music “Concrete Metal” based on my visual vibe of Brutalist architecture. Some of the buildings are actually quite beautiful (to me), So there can be a “brutal beauty”, something “Butalist”, a play on “Brutalist”.  Writing music with AI is a different animal because the words are squeezed into riffs, and so it’s a top-down control. When you write music manually with just a guitar or piano, the melodic and...

December 18ths  6/18/1997  Interesting that linguists have reduced all the languages in the world to just three, plus the Basque language, which is totally unique. It’s also ironic that changes in language take one or two generations. But the roots of certain words have remained intact for thousands of years.           6/18/1998 The reason that lyrics sometimes go unnoticed in a piece of music is that the music is so seductive but that doesn’t mean that the importance of the lyric together with the music is any less important. [6/18/2025: Pop music has always been about the sound and the beat, but the lyrics have to be singable (important), even if you’re not sure of the meaning–if there was an intended meaning at all. Sometimes you tune into the lyrics years or decades later. A friend of mine never knew that the female voice in I’m Not In Love was saying “Big boys don’t cry”. He thought it was a foreign language. Post-internet it’s easy to get backgro...

December 17ths  6/17/2010             Harbor Walk : Continued walk past DuSable Harbor towards the Abegweit. There was a blues band playing on deck which you can hear in the background. A passerby says ‘Party Boat!’. The strong breezes make for very clanky boat masts. As I walked south along the curved shore along came several hundred joggers running past me. Continued path past yacht club and into Monroe Harbor area, traffic noise from LSD on right, end at Balbo Drive.  6/17/2024  When you look for synchronicities and don’t see them, they are happening to someone else which may involve you in the future.  *** If AI-generation is a toy, or a toy tool, and we can get accessories or different materials to use—for example different kinds of clay or putty with different attachments or extensions—it would produce very little variety. Anyone can make art with some crap ordered online. That’s what AI music is to me. I make prototypes with ...

The “score” of Figured Basses  played with the “/” and “\” keys as a percussion instrument. The “|” character is the bar line.    

Branches and other parts of trees wrapped around chain link at Mills Park. You see this everywhere and is perhaps a cliche, but they are still good metaphors.  

 

  6/14/1886 I witness history disguised as necessity. The war taught us that democracy survives through decisive action. But whose decisions? Whose survival?  6/14/2005 While on a walk, there were two locomotives idling, their pneumatic system spitting out an insanely fast jungle rhythm in 64th notes, with little bursts of odd moments. (incorporate into music).  [Not exactly the same but a field recording of a passing train that could be used for atmosphere]: 6/14/2021 On “emotional piquancy” in music: Emotion is an emergent or flocking phenomenon. In music, there’s a flocking that happens when the dynamic level rises. If just one instrument got louder then it would throw off the piece. It’s the thinking together that really creates the emotion. When the composer is writing the piece it’s a mechanical process because you have to write in the dynamic levels to say how the piece should be emotional. In my experience working at that granular mechanical level is removed from ...

Antipode: December 13ths   6/13/1886, Sunday Churches preach reconciliation while congregations whisper of revolution. Sermons and sedition share the same summer air. Kindness persists despite the fear. Perhaps this is how we survive—one gesture at a time. The war took my certainties. The city took my youth. What remains? The daily choice between compassion and convenience. [It's interesting that Civil War babies are still traumatized by it--at least as inferred by AI. I see this as plausible. Sometimes the plausibility of something can stand for a partial truth. This is like a 30-year old in 1975 feeling traumatized by World War II--probably not plausible, but perhaps plausible in the mid-1880s relating to 1855]. https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/f6ae1bd0-0ea0-4643-930e-73e410a29999 6/13/1949 (Denver) Kerouac gets settled in and types 10,000 words for “On the Road”. “Beautiful summer is mine”.   Songday idea:    [The Suno version which interprets it as pure B...

Interval Cubes Acrylic on panels (2013) P.O.R.    Inquire Download symbol (block) grid. (Adobe Illustrator) 12 cubes (6x6x2) for each interval in the chromatic scale using only black, white and red. Can be displayed on a shelf, or hung on a wall. Each cube is currently prepared for shelf display with felt on the back edges to prevent cubes from scraping. The cubes can also be tiled together in different ways like building blocks to teach chords and intervals. A very unique work done in the style of Josef Albers or Alexander Calder. Work is fully documented on its own website for information and archival purposes. Cube 1. Unison Cube 2. Minor Second Cube 3. Major Second Cube 4. Minor Third Cube 5. Major Third Cube 6. Perfect Fourth Cube 7. Diminished Fifth Cube 8. Perfect Fifth Cube 9. Minor Sixth Cube 10. Major Sixth Cube 11. Minor Seventh Cube 12. Major Seventh A symbol grid in Adobe Illustrator [Download .ai file] Drag symbols (blocks) and rearran...

On the other side of the year: December 12ths  6/12/1886 (Sullivan Diary) Police patrol in pairs. Workers gather in smaller groups. Fear reshapes the geometry of our streets. Haymarket: Justice or theater? Immigrants still arrive daily seeking the democracy of opportunity. Do they find it, or does Chicago find them first?  6/12/1927 (Weston Daybooks)  So many gray days which breaks the shells period, but not through lack of desire. Songday Treatment:    6/12/2010 Soundwalks: Union Station , Chicago Loop Walk , Post Office  6/12/2011  Calder, AI North Garden               6/12/2021 Perhaps it’s already been done, but what would be interesting is a history class that was based on songs written through the ages, which would correspond to actual history. The history of the recordings would be studied as well and perhaps people would write songs as class assignments and perform and record them.      ...

Antipode: December 11ths  6/11/1886 [AI-Generated--with embellishments. He's now Thomas Sullivan, 30 years old living in Chicago] Blood has been scrubbed from the cobblestones, but memory stains deeper. Stockyards are a “red horizon”, not unlike a memory of violence. We are becoming something unprecedented. The question remains whether we'll recognize ourselves when the transformation completes. [ More ]     6/11/1887 What is it in a man that requires another man's suffering to feel safe? I've been turning this over for weeks.  Saw old Henriksen in the evening. He works seventeen hours some days and believes himself to be free. I almost said something. Some arguments you have with yourself.  6/11/2001                  Older jazz musician playing in the subway. He had several different thumb pianos with a pickup attached going through a cheesy amp. The sound was a cross between distorted guitar and Rhodes pia...

Blackhawks Stanley Cup parade and celebration. Gaggles of suburbanites flocking to the inner city in a sea of red.   

6/10/1886 (AI-Generated) Brennan says his cousin fled to Milwaukee after the arrests. Fear spreads through the neighborhoods like cholera. Young Michael asks why the police carry so many clubs now. How does one explain the world's complications to a five-year-old? I tell him they're keeping everyone safe. The lie tastes bitter. [ Source ]   6/10/1887 Haymarket still in the papers. Whether Spies and the others actually threw the thing seems beside the point to most people. The point is that someone must hang for the general disorder. The lie is justified by saying they're keeping everyone safe.  Brennan at the yard says his father came from County Cork with nothing but his arms and the idea that America was a country of laws.  Cleveland's veto of the Texas drought relief bill last winter was a masterpiece of principled cruelty. "It is not the duty of the Government to support the people," he said. One pictures him sleeping very soundly.  6/10/1907 (Paris) (Kess...

Antipode: December 9ths 6/9/2010 Field Audio: Union Station, Riverside at Adams                         6/9/2014 Composed a “placey” kind of piece—partly cloudy, then mostly sunny. The changing light in a place can affect the sound in an abstract way, similar to Debussy’s “Nuages”.  [6/9/2024—10 years after: I transformed the piece to include field recordings of train stations then used it as the soundtrack for a montage for a music video, “Arrival of Trains”. The narrative emerges from an artificial context of a woman on a train postwar (1948) and having memories of it.]  [6/9/2025: Play the two together --video and this repeating orchestral loop].   6/9/2019 Slippage --Jasper Johns in the wild:                  6/9/2023 Writers tend to think it’s easy to write lyrics. Lyrics have to be singable by someone. Even if you can sing it yourself with some ability (a...

6/8/1886 Trial day 35. Defense lawyers pressed Bonfield on police provocation. Did the raid on workers create the very violence it sought to prevent?     Defendants sit in jail while the conditions that created them persist unchanged. Declined invitation to German singing society—too risky given current atmosphere. 6/8/1995 (Eno Diary) Eno in Munich working with Andre Wilms on an “incomprehensible play” . It was twenty years ago on this day he and Fripp played at the London Palladium, the only performance that his parents attended.           6/8/1998                        Interesting that Greeks in Alexandria created an amalgam of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian. This is similar to what musicians do today; what we're creating is more “curating”. [In his recent book (2020), The Decadent Society , Ross Douthat posited that repetition through Remix was a symptom of decadence—a continuo...

Antipode: December 7ths 6/7/1886 (Chicago) (Thomas Sullivan) Attended trial proceedings. Spies, Parsons, and others—accused men who look ordinary enough in daylight. Prosecutor: “foreign anarchism”, defense–workers’ rights. Truth lies somewhere between rhetoric.  Murphy caught reading a labor pamphlet during lunch break. Dismissed on the spot. Reading becomes subversive. Barber on State Street: shares neighborhood gossip—which families receive “radical” newspapers, who attends suspicious meetings.  The city is a “nervous system” of informants and suspicions. Everyone watching everyone else.  6/7/1989 (Keith Haring Journal) “Had lunch with Yoko and Sam Havadtoy and then went shopping for a vase for her performance tonight....We went to see an incredible installation by Nam Jun Paik at the MoMA of Paris. It's amazing what images he gets out of a TV screen and the speed with which they change. This is what television as an art form is all about....”  [From the advent of...