0826 (My Cynical Me)
Posts
August 26ths
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...
June 26ths
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. ...
May 26ths
5/26/1969, Montreal John and Yoko’s second and last “bed-in” for peace. 5/26/1997 Memorial Day Cold and windy, 55 degrees—the coldest I’ve ever seen. Apparently there is a keen interest in memes on the Web. [1997–when I first saw changes in weather patterns]. 5/26/2005 One of the biggest mistakes in listening to music is just reading the lyrics and not listening to the music. They really use two different areas of the brain: one of the challenges of writing good songs is to target one of these areas in a positive way or to get both areas in sync. (John Lennon was good at this.) [Or it's the opposite--listening to the music and not listening to the lyrics. Sometimes lyrics can just be another sound, so they don't have to make sense or even be intelligible, and can just be mumbled. Pop music isn't about the music]. “Orange Rhyme” [How shadows fall at 5:30 in May] 5/26/2023 More and more I see songwriting as making a painting. Not th...
0426
Behavior As A Structure April 26, 2001 Program on “blurred boundaries” between humans and animals, now that we know how similar we are, but yet so different. Interesting: Behavior as a structure. *** The centennial of the Guernica massacre Possible lyric: Behavior as a structure We know how similar we are The words become the structure Blurred boundaries between us and them Propaganda of lies Smoke and mirrors Imperious tendency for world domination Human universal of settling the score Memory of the past in the future *** Who you tellin'? I already know.
March 26ths
3/26/1997 I don't want fame, I just want fortune and buy the fame when I want it. Can you buy fame? Riff from this entry: 3/26/2002 From “The People’s Chronology” on 1966: Electric guitar gains prominence in England, where US rock musician Jimi Hendrix, 23, begins to exploit the full potential of the relatively new instrument. Hendrix uses imagination, virtuosity, invention, and sexual pantomime in his stage appearances”, Bacos came on market, “mod” look, mini skirts, Beatles more popular than Jesus, use of Sitar, Indian culture. 3/26/2010 Possible Dynaxioms: Jazz turns melody on its side and makes it sound like harmony, When you’re creating something, you’re essentially steering it to a conclusion. 3/26/2021 Sometimes when I work on mixes I push the louder things to the background. For example, loud distorted guitars sound like they’re two blocks away. There was a book I read recently that relates, and i...
February 26ths
2/26/1998 Did remix of Ice Moons and remix of Splat , a short 2-minute piece. Could possibly be fleshed out. George Bernard Shaw: There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire, the other is to get it. Phil Glass on Sessions at West 54th. I don’t completely see the point of having humans play like machines, or vice versa, but Glass found his voice and became successful at it. [2/26/2026: Playing like a machine is actually a form of meditation as it becomes a kind of “mantra”.] 2/26/1999 This is the age of recycling ideas rather than inventing them. The invention is the way in which ideas are recycled and what their effect is. But I'm sort of suspicious of how merely creating collages of things can ultimately be that interesting. Everyone seems to want to be somewhere other than where they are. A friend showed me the mp3.com site. I'm skeptical because I think the sheer amount of things to listen to will trivialize music. We're overstuffed on musi...
January 26ths
1/26/2001 Revisit: Slam Stewart, “Big Noise From Winetka (sic)”. 1/26/2007 Dream: A white Buddha sitting on the street corner in stark contrast with dark, dimly lit street, a la David Lynch. Went back to the old house, Dan there, said nothing; Brian turned into another person. Dream had an interesting look to it: bright saturated colors in darkly-contrasted scenes. 1/26/2025 And So On video. A song with a lyric that is only 3 words. Usually with AI music you have to accept what actually works using a production vibe you would never use. If I were to do it myself I probably would use echoes and delays on the vocal.
December 26ths
12/26/1997 Book: Fundamentals of Music Composition by Arnold Schoenberg. A very dense, erudite book, but he has some interesting points: Music consists of elements functioning like a living organism. The presentation of ideas must be based on their relationship with the other elements and parts in the music. Anything too extended cannot be coherently processed by the brain. Intelligibility in music is impossible without repetition (but too much of it can be patronizing.) A theme should have a certain “something” which the whole world already knows.” (Mattheson Music is composed of sentences, a language (but single words can also be meaningful). “The construction of the beginning determines the construction of the continuation.” Schoenberg is much too academic but he does make some good observations about composition that remain contemporary. Our ability to comprehend musical sequences is innate and therefore there are patterns we should follow so that it make...
November 26ths
Photos taken on the 26th of any month 11/26/1997 Web browsers should have a “this site only” feature to prevent you from straying too far away from your original focus. This makes surfing more like reading just one book with many footnotes, containing hyperlinks that you can explore later. [11/26/2024: Even in the beginning of the internet, distraction was an issue–primarily through hyperlinks. But distraction is a bug of our cognitive software. It was once simply called daydreaming, where even if you were reading something you liked, there would be points where you thought of something else, or had an idea. This was always the case for me, where I’d want to jot down a lyric line or title that was inspired by something I was reading. That’s how these diaries started, and here I am 27 years later, commenting on it]. [11/26/2025: The problem we all have is a short attention span. That's alw...
October 26ths
10/26/1933 From 803 Griffith Park Bvld in Santa Monica, John Cage writes to Henry Cowell . He is currently working on the Sonata for Two Voices . 10/26/1997 Interesting show on CBC about the abstract associations between music and other arts and disciplines, hosted by Yo-Yo Ma. He was saying things like “Bach built cathedrals out of music” and “traveled in his head”...I’ve always believed that art is more powerful when metaphors are applied or suggested. Either the artist and/or the audience can apply them. I also think the artist should explain her/his metaphorical theories, but I also suspect that metaphors are inherent in all artistic (and linguistic) expressions. (I should think more abstractly about music). Worked on “Dome City” concept idea. [ Dome City was ultimately released in October 2006]. This is a song idea based on these two disparate entries. Ultimately, it could be antiphonal in some way, with the words replaced, yet retaining the original roots to Cage. That addr...
July 26ths
January 26ths 7/26/1997 Music strategies : abstraction-sex; arrangement-contrast tempi; treatments-Indian drone; mood/texture-distorted/grainy; Key-G# minor; meter-5/8; topic-the sea. [7/26/2024: AI could never do this] [7/26/2025: Prompt: A love song in 6/8 that begins slowly and gradually increases in intensity, Romantic, Mysterious, Male Vocals, Bass, Drums, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Piano, Steady, Pulsing. It makes my point. The music is syrupy because my lyrics are syrupy. But I have a version that is in fact in 6/8. The way AI seems to work is that it “sniffs” the words and finds stems that fit the words. AI can't come close to real music, but what it can create is "palatable"]. 7/26/2004 Hunger Pain 7/26/2024 Today's Songday is based on...
April 26ths
4/26/1937 was the attack on Guernica The "seed": 4/26/2014 4/26/2021 Apparently there’s this pop group in in Russia called Cream Soda that writes music using AI and to create their videos. They said that “the sentence or the lyric is the canvas”, which I thought was an interesting metaphor. Their videos are created by having a neural network go out on Google and pull in images then run a filter on them of some kind. I wonder how AI as used in music is going to evolve because I haven't seen much of an evolution over the last five years, perhaps because people aren't using it. Maybe its use and popularity will spur innovation and development. 4/26/2026: With AI music the lyric drives the music, as it always does. But humans are still better at it]. 4/26/2022 I’ve tried writing music with AI because it’s The New but I can’t stand doing it for more than 30 minutes. I can force myself to intentionally continue with it, but if free will is fully fu...
