Chord Tones For the Bird Bones
AI-generated.
Posts
Sum III.2 (Sesquicentennial Soundwalk 7-4-2026)
A one-hour sound walk with binaural mics, Oak Park Wright District, Hemingway District, WWI Memorial, Lake Street, Marion Street, Pleasant Home, Holly Court. [Wear headphones]
Curio No. 252
Seed: The "real" music: The AI interpretation--way over the top, but is the "Revolution" cliche sound.
Beauty In the Shade
3/4/2023 Films are like dreams, dreams are like films. I find that to remember a dream I have to “rewind” it like a tape. This is why I’ve always liked David Lynch films because he approximated the dream experience so nicely. Film gave us a new metaphor to live by. Prior to film, dreams were probably more like chapters in books. Films are like dreams Dreams of escape Remembering a dream Rewinding the tape Details are something That a photo does well Even when the eyes Can't even tell When the shadows are wrong In the painting that you made You're looking in the wrong place The beauty's in the shade Neural network eyes A tool for the spy Why we're so obsessed With the life of the other guy This is why I like A David Lynch film How life is a dream Was important to him When the shadows are wrong In the painting that you made You're looking in the wrong place The beauty's in the shade My picks: 5, 6, 4, 1
October 4ths
10/4/1998 Advent of web radio means anyone can be their own radio station, whether they know something about radio or not. This will bring into play the “broadcast’” metaphor and everyone will start being DJs. [10/4/2024: This is the very beginning of streaming using the RealAudio format, It was actually “narrowcasting”. It would be 8 years before the first podcasts, which were downloads to the hard drive of the iPod. It was inconceivable, and perhaps unpredictable, that you could “watch” a podcast, let alone “listen” to a photograph. There are inconceivable things now that will be mainstream by 2032, but people are thinking of them, just as da Vinci’s idea for a helicopter didn’t materialize until all the components of it were conceived, invented, and manufactured over the course of hundreds of years. Similar to watching a podcast, we will be mostly watching books. The world is moving towards watching. Thi...
September 4ths
9/4/2012 Milwaukee for MAM visit. Excellent collection of modern art: Judds, Morris Louis’s, Kelly’s... 9/4/2016 On dealing with monotony in music: Monotony is largely subjective based upon cultural factors. I like constraints. With spare and/or repetitive bass parts I like to experiment with duration, space, and range, to the extent that the music allows it. Tension can be created by switching octaves; leaving space and playing with notes and rest durations can push and pull the groove in interesting ways. Alternating the role of player and listener, as well as little rhythmic adjustments can be effective. [On Bass Lines] 9/4/2017 People are still asking if 4’33” is music. If you broaden the definition of music to include a range of sound that includes pitch as well as noise, then it can be music if you are mindful of the sounds around you. Each “performance” is different because the ambient sounds are different. I’ve understood it as being equal parts co...
August 4ths
8/4/2000 Can you imagine, David Bowie becoming an architect?! It’s an interesting notion that aging rock stars can cross disciplinary boundaries. One might not think that Bowie belongs in something so Apollonian, but e’d infuse a Dionysian element. 8/4/2007 Another readymade, Electrolux. The end piece of a 1950s-era vacuum cleaner that has a mask-like appearance, placed in a shadow box frame, with a mirror placed in the hose connection, signed “R Mutt” as a sendup of Duchamp. 8/4/2010 Listened to Fresh Air interview with Brian May. Interesting: The guitar riff repeats on We Will Rock You are actually tape splices. AI Treatment: 8/4/2012 Saddle Man [Through the window of a local pool hall that had been closed for some time. There was a figurine of a cowboy in the window that had a "shadowy" vibe]. 8/4/2017 The proof of the eff...
July 4ths
Antipode: January 4ths 7/4/1886 Thomas Sullivan Diary (AI-Generated) Black-out lyric: 7/4/1969 (Beatles Studio Diary) Overdub onto the newly reduced Golden Slumbers and use of found recordings from the BBC Radio 2 broadcast of Britons and Jones winning The Wimbledon Ladies Tennis Championship beating Billie Jean King in a 71-minute three set. 7/4/1998 Interesting that Springsteen’s Born In The USA was misconstrued by most (including Lee Iacocca and Ronald Reagan) as some type of patriotic anthem, which it wasn’t, but sounded that way. The lessons here are: 1) if you write a song that sounds like an anthem, that’s how it will be perceived, regardless of what the lyrics say, and 2) most people don’t listen to the lyrics anyway. [7/4/2025: I still think this is mostly true. The sound washes over you first–tone and image are everything in pop music. But with AI,...
Fireworks (Binaural)
7/4/2020 A binaural field recording of this year's fireworks, decidedly more intense than previous years. Listen with headphones or earbuds low enough to mix in your local sounds. Note the isobel levels (areas of equal sound intensity): Background distant continuous "thunder", a "cloud" of sound delays/echoes that sometimes commingles with wind noise Middle ground within 50 feet where fireworks exploding Foreground: traffic noise, voices, foot steps, air conditioners
June 4ths
6/4/1886 (Thomas Sullivan Diary) Heavy rains, a flood of mud. Congress likely to pass the Fourteenth Amendment—citizenship for all born here. Southern states already protesting. 6/4/1944 (Naples 44) Book Excerpt Library : "Discuss the events of June 4" 6/4/1968 (Beatles Studio Diary) A day of curious overdubs on “Revolution I”. John recorded his vocal lying flat on the floor. He was having hissy fits, claiming that the tape machine was always breaking down, and later apologized. Paul and George did background voices consisting of just the words “mama” and “dada”. [ Text used for Short ] 6/4/1995 Finished Tube Voyeur [AI-generated versions] *** 6/4/2017 One of my strategies is to “turn on the synths, and tune the guitars, and play and use the first thing you play”. This doesn’t last long because the “System 2” behaviors quickly take control, as they should. If I “surrender” all the time, and keep using these ideas...
February 4ths
2/4/1998 Interesting interview in Computerlife with Brian Eno on the generative nature of future music where pieces are started from seed ideas and grow organically and evolve naturally, which mimics the way folk music resonates through culture. Computer programs also will have these types of characteristics whereby they are designed to develop and learn with experience, just as humans do. To me, generative music is useful in producing raw ideas from which to develop new pieces. This approach could also use the computer to solve the problems inherent in composition, for example, to design the form of the piece, dynamics, and so on. Eno also says that the most interesting connection is in the brain, so we don’t always have to associate images with sounds. He says we spend too much time syncing things together. He didn’t even compose cues when he wrote for film, he just uses existing music. And as in Hall’s observations, things can naturally synchronize regardless of whether they have an...
January 4ths
Antipode: July 4ths 1/4/2000 If you asked someone what the urban landscape sounded like, they would recite slam poetry and/or play rap/hip hop. 1/4/2004 Mars rover lands successfully, first pictures beamed back. At first, you think they look boring—a shot of the sun from Mars, then you realize the significance. It’s like a baby’s first step, a rite of passage. 1/4/2017 Musical phrasing is the corollary to phrasing in language, with sentences (or fragments of sentences) separated or “delimited” with punctuation. On a wind instrument, phrasing is delimited with breaths. (The comma used in music notation is actually a breath mark). Non-wind instruments don’t need “breaths”, but inherit the expectation of phrasing. Guitarists use phrasing probably as an imitation of winds. [1/4/2025: When AI generates music with singing in it, the “singers” are taking breaths as they normally would, but it ...
November 4ths
11/4/1998 Interesting that Ragtime was never meant to be played fast. [“During the sinking of the Titanic, musicians played light ragtime tunes to maintain a sense that life was perfectly normal. ( LLM :”Discuss Ragtime”)] 11/4/2008 Summer-like warmth, 75 degrees Obama rally in Grant Park. 11/4/2010 Playing music is a way to be genuine. [11/4/2024: Playing music for 3-5 minutes clears my head. I’m with Daniel Levitin that music can be pharmaceutical (adjective).] Quincy Jones: "Music was the only thing I could control. It was the one world that offered me freedom. When I played music, my nightmares ended. my family problems disappeared. I didn't have to search for answers. The [greater] than the bell of any trumpet in my scrawled penciled scores. Music made me full, strong, popular, self-reliant, and...
9/4/2016
Green Channel (Study), 11 x 14 x 1 inches, acrylic, hardware and stencil on canvas board mounted on panel. (Cadmium red over sap green)
