August 26ths

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8/26/2022

Tools are the most basic form of technology, but tools can very often be confused with creativity or obfuscate creativity. The greater the specificity of the genre, the more creativity will be at the service of technology. Certain genres of music have equipment requirements, but in my view, the creativity should be less tool-dependent—unless you start with a particular tool and find materials to use it on.    

[8/26/2025: If AI is a tool, it's one that requires no physical effort--it's "motorized"].

8/26/2023

Thousands of Americans on Saturday commemorated the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, a pivotal event in the 1960s U.S. civil rights movement at which Martin Luther King Jr gave his galvanizing “I have a dream” speech.

A sonic memory: Audio Snapshots: Washington DC August 26, 1963 60 years on.

8/26/2026

Everyone ultimately becomes the product of memory, and will shape your intentions. I remember the things I liked in the 70s-90s and want to re-explore those things. For other people it will be the 80s-00s, others 90s-10s, and so on. The window is about 30 years. 

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2009 Charlie Rose interview with Dolly Parton. For her, music a spiritual reason for being--a vehicle. Something to do with your days. There was a segment where she was asked about the song  Backwards Barbie and she recited the entire lyric as if she had sung it, and you realize how speech is inherently musical, and how lyrics can be conversational. The use of speech rhythms in music makes it conversational even if you leave the words out. ("I love to write and I love to sing. I was always singing but I was always writing since I was little so they kind of go together.") Her speech was full of one-liners, so you have to be quick to catch them. Back in the 40s when musicals were popular, the characters would suddenly break into song, but here she's blending the two.

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