Curio No. 88
The rhythmic and melodic seed is based on a childhood taunt. [ more ]
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Tumbledown
Robert Adams, Pikes Peak Park, Colorado Springs, 1969 Ideally, what you want from a set of lyrics is a” package” of some kind, where the original spark creates the ultimate shape of the lyric, combined with various other things that you wouldn't have imagined in the beginning (including images). The original spark was the word “tumbledown”, a term that's used in auto design (or "tumblehome"). But it gathered other meanings along the way because of the rhymes: “tumbleweed”, “humble town”, and "Levittown", which makes the lyric veer off in interesting directions. In the end, what it seems to be about is American Suburbia (and American culture overall) and how it's declined since the 1950s. The bouncy country music setting is ironic considering where the country is now. *** Down here Tumbledown Here we are in humble town Postwar Goin' 'round Cookie-cutter Levittowns Big sky Border town People tunnel underground Tumbleweed Blowin' 'round...
Enheduanna in the age of AI
The first storytelling from 5000 years ago, just when it started to come out of its talking head phase of utilitarian use, now being "sung" by a machine. This passage in isolation isn't very musical so I am using only part of it. This is actually art song material, not to be used as a verse in a pop song, but AI could never compose an art song, but I suppose it could if its data set was art songs.
Girl In the Diner
Ideal Diner, Perth Amboy, New Jersey (George Tice) Would-be silhouette The shadow he could get One of the characters is dreaming I think it's the girl in the diner Civil rights activist Now she's on a list One of the characters is dreaming I think it's the girl in the diner Sussing out the blue key In Mulholland Drive One of the characters is dreaming I think it's the girl in the diner Copyright 2026 Lee Barry, Rights in lyrics reserved Two Blues and a Pop:
Learning From Las Vegas
What does architecture have to do with early-70s blues rock? Nothing. If you were just starting to play in the 70s, you probably listened to stuff like this. Decade Highways reminds me of Wishbone Ash, That Means A Lot sounds like Cream. especially the bass.
Mysteronomy
With AI music you can pull out the stops on wordplay, and have it sung--so you can use words like "synecdoche" and use portmanteaux. AI-generation of art and music is a real thing now and will continue to evolve as we adapt. I'm trying to find niche uses for it instead of churning out country music. [Mysteronomy: Mystery+Astronomy] Mysteronomy Weaving webs through history In veils of anonymity Lost in a sea of subjectivity We still mistake freedom for free A synecdoche Weaving threads through you and me A way towards relativity Lost in a maze of free activity We still mistake the I for the Me Mysteronomy It's the end of our uncertainty The truth of our cosmology Lost is a space of subjectivity We still mistake freedom for free Copyright 2022 Lee Barry. Rights in lyrics reserved. The original version. AI music can't come close to harmonic complexity beyond what's in the training sets, and even if Thelonious Monk is in there it would never sound right....
Curio No. 85 (Human In the Loop)
A "steal" from the outro of an AI-Generated song, Burn-In, So I'm the "human in the loop".
On Creative Constraints
Another distinction between AI-generated music and music that we make organically is that we go to the art store, we buy the paint, we buy the brushes, we take them home, and we make something with just those tools, which is drastically different from using some software or app that millions of other people are using. Take for example, there's one art store in a city of millions of people, and those are the only materials that anybody could ever use. What would the art exhibition be like with the results of millions of people using the same materials from that one store? Actually, I've been doing it in art for some time with my Black White and Red series. Sometimes constraints can make you more creative.
David Bowie's 42 Words
A good exercise in using words for their syllabic stresses strictly in a musical context. [Open In New Window]
Insinuendo
Words can twist and turn throughout the ages Some are the same as used by the sages Expressions are used to signal and solve To make it easy--easy to resolve "Huh" is a universal word Huh (Huh Huh Huh) Is a universal word (Huh huh huh huh) Explanation is information What's left in is exformation Innuendo (What did you say?) Insinuendo (What did you mean to say?) Copyright 2026 Lee Barry. Rights in lyrics reserved. Huh is also a universal word Exformation could also be interpreted as what's left out. Both "left in" and "left out" leave what has been discarded. Insinuendo is a portmanteau of insinuation and innuendo, also words that have interchangeable meanings.
Wham Blam Blam
Whaam! -- Roy Lichtenstein (1963) Seed idea was a diary entry on 3/11/1998: "First line for novel: 'In the old days, there were so many regrets. It became a game to see how many we could get.', and a title idea I had on 3/11/2009: The Game of Regret. In March 2003 the invasion of Iraq had begun, which was "Mission Accomplished" in 3 years in 2006, but went on for another 15 years. The song is more historical than it is political, to wit: 8/31/2010: End of combat mission in Iraq. Obama gives his mile-stone speech ‘Mission Unaccomplished’. Hawks are asserting that our occupation of Iraq for its nation building somehow changed the world for the better, when conceivably, leaving Hussein in power could have preserved the extant Arab ecosystem; the tribal boundaries are still there. Is it possible for them to fade or devolve over generations? (They haven’t in other Islamic nations, e.g. Iran)... With AI music you have skimpy options on how a song gets produced. Th...
Drop 31 Riffs
What I've always liked about the tunings is that you can use similar fingerings as you would in standard tuning, but interesting dissonances happen, and you can incorporate them without dismissing them out of hand. I've noticed that a lot of the music that I've written with the tunings tends to sound like XTC, In fact, Andy Partridge uses alternate tunings. They give the music an interesting “wrongness”. This one is actually more fitting with the Frank entry. Instant metal/prog (the notes at the 7th and 12th frets are harmonics). Note at the 7th fret on the F# string (C#) is held while plucking the harmonic at the 5th fret (D) on the D string (a b9)
Life Finds a Place
2393: Life Finds a Place. Life finds a place Where the roots might go It lets itself in Lets itself go Extremophiles Deeper than you know In the crushing darkness The red light shows To the far reaches In the depths of the sea Far below the surface Roots of the tree Either on the Earth Or on the Mars Life finds a place With a wish on a star It's reading the rocks From cover to cover Finding a place From under the tundra To the far reaches In the depths of the sea Far below the surface Roots of the tree Copyright 2026 Lee Barry, Rights in lyrics reserved
Form And A Function
If art never aged or wasn't judged by time How much would be left? How much would survive? Aesthetic erosion of the coast by the sea If we just left, how much would there be? A picture is a sum of destruction Beauty as a form of reduction A picture is a frame of construction Beauty as a form and a function Art exists as a record of the world In cuneiform or figures on a mural A palimpsest, laid to rest Beauty is a pattern that connects A picture is a sum of destruction Beauty as a form of reduction A picture is a frame of construction Beauty as a form and a function Copyright 2026 Lee Barry. Rights in lyrics reserved. *** 0260. Beauty is the pattern that connects. 0774. If beauty=form, then function follows form (art/design for its own sake). If beauty=function, then form follows function (things that ‘work beautifully’). If function follows form in a continuous loop you can have continuous beauty until function fails. What used to work beautifully would ...
Curio No. 83
More "human-in-the loop" transcriptions to Curios. You can actually play these together to some degree if you can manage to start them together or in some kind of phase.
Curio No. 68 (Extended)
The original seed is a 1994 song using just some of the chord changes and scoring it out for strings, then adding keyboards and bass. It contrasts extremes of flood and drought, dissolving with Curio 76. As a pair, it's kind of an "EP". Footage is from Bergman's Seventh Seal . Seed chords (All major):
Curio No. 76 (Extended)
An extension of the original seed orchestration of a recording of civil defense sirens. *** Seed Scores: *** ***
Blues Roots
3/30/2006 *** Sometimes my Chicago blues roots show in my music. I was a huge blues fan when I first started playing in the late 70s. The annual Blues Fest was a major event. You can't deny Blues is where it all started in the 60s. With AI music anyone can use "Rock" and "Blues" in a prompt, but it might not resonate if you've never played blues. I still think that humans do blues better, but this is not bad. Also, Cal's was what was left of Chicago's red-light district, bounded by and Wells at the west, State at the east, and Van Buren at the north, and Congress at the south. 3/30/2011 Even after 20 years of riding the El through the west side to the Loop, I’m still seeing new things. Today it was “New Drift Liquors” in Austiin-- a shuttered saloon. Would be a great photo. [This actually was a photo I took of Cal’s at Wabash and Van Buren, now a Greek fast-food restaurant. There's a little window on the north side of the building where t...