Lee Barry Composition (And Photo) Diary

Why am I so attracted to AI for generating material? I had been involved in generative music in the ‘90s creating music from seed structures, and I’m still interested in that, but sometimes I find myself wasting too much time going to websites, logging in, thinking of text prompts to generate music–when I can generate music from an idea or simply pick up a guitar or a bass and I’ll have an idea within seconds. Like this morning: There was a Bill Clinton quote in my diary on 9/22/2010: “They always like you better when you’re gone.” I heard a 12/8 minor blues in it. For the past 4 or 5 months I have been generating music from words and phrases that are in my diary and I jot them down in my Songday notebook. I wouldn’t necessarily want to generate music algorithmically as a first choice. It would be interesting to have my own large language model that would generate music based on the inputs that I give it, such as a rhythm or melody and see what happens. A lot of creativity is “Let’s tr...

 

  Attempted Arrest of the Five Members ---Charles West Cope    

  Back in the 70s, songwriters wrote about cities: Phoenix, Wichita, Galveston. This lyric wasn't a riff on that--only the rhythm of the phrase "Hotel in Carlsbad". But Baltimore and Galveston are more interesting for a potential narrative--and are 3-syllable words. I like that it remains ambiguous and suggests that it's about the devastating hurricane in 1900 and the aftermath, but it really isn't--but could be by associating images with it.   ***  When the rains returned Cloud after cloud I went back to the place  Where the waves made a sound The virga would fall But I wouldn't hear a thing I was welcomed to a world Where the rains would begin Hotel in Galveston Far from African dust A new atmosphere Of American lust Saw it in a noondream Of America's bloom It's embedded in a place From the bust to the boom A place tells a story Not erased by time It's in your hand In the feel of a rhyme Copyright 2026 Lee Barry. Lyric rights reserved  

 

 On the other side of the year 9/22/1995  For the Fall Equinox:  The AI treatment:     9/22/2017 “Soulful” or any other words or concepts attached to human emotions can possibly be built into machines, but it begs the question why. I have been attempting to compose piano pieces with algorithms and I still can’t answer the Whys. I prefer playing them myself because Soul is built in.  [9/22/2025: The latest foray into AI-generated songwriting is an experiment with Esperanto translations of old lyrics. If you were to do this manually 30 years ago you'd have to find someone to translate them, then write melodies. Since I don't speak the language (does anyone?), it would be impossible to sit down with an instrument and sing against it. AI can do that, but it's a soul-less mechanical process--something I sometimes find hollow and creepy. The music itself works as a kind of addicting confection which hides the fact that the sugar isn't good for you. The transla...

  Play it again Sam!!  

8/22/2004 Poetry is in the ear of the beholder. The most successful lyricists understand that while music on its own can be powerful, music married to emotionally charged images and phraseology can have a more lasting impact. But more often it is the trialectic with milestone events in your life that gives power to music, as they more indelibly encode in memory. This makes me think again of the “music of language”. You can say nothing, but say it very well if you put music in the voice. You have to be careful and not just listen to the notes (the surface elements), but to hear the music as well (the entire context). 8/22/2019  Morning Night --ominous storm clouds--Trump Tower: 8/22/2024 AI is still very much in its talking head phase where people don’t know exactly how to use it in an interesting way. What’s interesting to me now is the possibility of creating different artist characters and matching them with styles of music—a character for ambient music, or a character for folk m...

New Money (7/22/2005) by meta4s

The other side of the year  7/22/2005            “Meaning is the new money”.                           7/22/2010 Field audio: Farmer’s Market . 

 Beachy House   

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 ...

 

 

 Earth Day 2025  

Just the isolated groove from God Save the King  

 

 

On the other side of the year 3/22/1944  (Naples 44) At the time of my arrival the lava was pushing its way very quietly down the main street, and about fifty yards from the edge of this great, slowly-shifting slagheap, a crowd of several hundred people, mostly in black, knelt in prayer. Holy banners and church images were held aloft, and acolytes swung censers and sprinkled holy water in the direction of the cinders. Occasionally a grief-crazed citizen would grab one of the banners and dash towards the wall of lava, asking it angrily as to warn off the malignant spirits of the eruption. The spectacle of the eruption was totally unexpected. I had been prepared for rivers of fire, but there was no fire and no burning anywhere — only the slow, deliberate suffocation of the town under millions of tons of clinkers. The lava was moving at a rate of only a few yards an hour, and it had covered half the town to a depth of perhaps thirty-feet.  Book Excerpt Library : "Write a report o...

2/22/1999 The most interesting thing about a piece of music is how it develops and how well it positions itself in the landscape of all other music. Music never had "salons" but it's that kind of effect. 2/22/2013  Finished Macrophage . It looked demonic a few days ago with the plain Red Cross in blood red but “white washing” it with a “Mondrian Stripe” "healed" it up.   2/22/2018 Working on Rings of Saturn track re: Dunwich. Apparently, a huge hurricane-like storm devastated the area in the 13th century: "On New Year's Eve 1285, a storm tide devastated the lower town and the portside so terribly that for months afterwards no one could tell where the land ended and the sea began..." https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-35549952   2/22/2025 The more theory you know isn’t going to make the art better. I like my level of mastery in music, and it allows me to create art at that level. What’s the point of learning just for the sake of learning, ...