Lee Barry Composition (And Photo) Diary

  Became a soft ambient song. AI shortens the time from initial spark to mastered recording. 

  September Songs  

   Early 70s Genesis treatment:   

  Stills of Strange Days (1995) and Metropolis *** AI Gens:  Seed:  

 

 

    Black-out lyric idea: An example of how to use AI in the flow of composition, starting with a black-out lyric, generating the  music, then deriving another piece from the AI musical elements, in this case a classical piece.   The angular harmony is what interested me to want to reverse engineer this. AI music is terrible at harmonic invention, but sometimes you get these kinds of "happy accidents". I put that in quotes because I don't think they're either in this case: Firstly, because the harmony is sadly mysterious, and secondly, because I think AI-generated content isn't capable of generating them. The only way I see them happening is if they are synchronistic in some way, where it presents a solution in the moment in the flow of time, just as something happens at the moment of totality. It's obvious I was using a Pink Floyd vibe.

  Charles Sheeler - Industrial Study No. 2, 1935   8/19/2024  Abstracted lines from 8/19 diary entries: Function before form Start with a basic sound Think that they were art Looking at them close and far Roman or Egyptian art Brightly-colored African art Going back to nature Going back to the roots   ***  Orchestral:  8/19/2026 (AI Version):

8/18/1948 (Jack Kerouac Journal--paraphrased) Jack goes to New York with Tom, jazz club for bop, smoked pot, and pondered epigonism [an imitation of an artist by a subsequent generation], existence of “atomic disease”: “There is something definitely afoot, a madness, one not unlike the late Roman cult-madnesses.”                                   Run through AI:  Extrapolated lyric: Took off for New York Went out with his other girl Enemy of the bourgeois Back to the windblown world Madness of a Roman cult Shadow of the bomb Fell to your knees From atomic disease Jazz club for bop Smoked a lot Pondered beat religion Go back to Kerouac Back to the windblown world Addicted to the city Intellectual juice The splitting of the atom Electrons on the loose Survival paranoia Post-nuclear rage Despair in France The existential age The haunting sound of a breathless saxophone It comes around when you'r...

   AI treatment: 

      AI spins: 

  Seed:    

It's interesting to trace the evolution of a piece of music born 32 years ago, from the acoustic version to an AI  interpretation in 2026.  ***  In the eyes of a child The reflection of a mother's care Father so silent Yet so heartfully there A country's border There to keep out the danger There to cast out the strangers That storm the gates of heaven When there comes a time A babe needs your hand Open your arms and then Give them your land When they've come to conquer Your fortress so lame Infants will scream louder 'Til the bedside she came A light shines from her window Silhouette dance with impassioned grace We all seek the comfort In the bosom of her border Like war-weary men Their desire like the battlefield Are drawn into her light The salve to soothe their pain *** Ladies full-throttled Packaged and bottled For love we coddle In the babe's lonesome room Sweet handmaiden waddle Nightingale Street toddle Bedside manner lens Its eyes never staid Visions an...

  It's interesting to re-imagine old lyrics with AI with fake band names. Feel free to use the names, but you'll have the same band playing different music, which might be interesting in the AI realm. [Hot New Earth 1997]  Visionary art  Culture create Useful technology  What cannot be made? Weaving the cloth That keeps us warm Leaving the land So trashed and worn The balance of soul To the roots in the land To the gothic cathedrals Where the masses band The song and the dance Of the social norm Is now the slam dunk Of the antisocial porn  In a hot new earth In a cold cold sweat Hot new earth Meets a cold cold death Force times velocity Will give us power In a hot new...  Earth Overrated human The master of slaves Never the spiritual Just material craves A culture to integrate The math with the art The choice (joy) to be ignorant And not to be smart The removal of skin The raising of the sea Take away the trees The means for recovery Poison pills For a feve...

A series of brass miniatures, a minute or less in length, using the "history overlay "technique that I've used in photography where two photographs are superimposed with the older image in the background. But here I've also used American paintings from the 18th century and early photography and Daguerreotypes. The short transitional images between the pieces are mostly Jasper Johns flags, as a way to say that American cultural traditions are now mostly contemporary or appropriated. It's hard to interpret the occasion as being purely traditional 60 years after the advent of Pop art, but the music is completely traditional. The dates are the Songdays--the day where I had the riff idea.  Scores:

Photographs for (AI) music (Walker Evans)  Blind is based on Dynaxiom 3384: Nostalgia can make us blind to the shadows. Back To Egypt is a re-make of a 1998 song, done in a Blues/Gospel style. It's interesting to hear "someone else" cover your songs.

  Alternately about continuous software "improvements" to justify its success (bells and whistles), or just saying things are going well when they aren't. The Special Hello version is my pick with its nice vocal melismas.   ***  Another whistle   Another bell   Another shoe   Another fell      Keeping secrets   Never tell   Always say   You're doing well      Another bell   Another ring   Another wish   Another dream      Keeping secrets   Never tell   Always say   You're doing well   

      The order in which we do things has also changed in that text can now generate both audio and video using AI. So it’s easier to start with text, so you don’t have to deal with sound and visuals later; the text automatically does that. But it’s the ideas (not from text) that are now missing from generated art, but you can add those later as well, just as you would add a narrative to a film that was all eye candy. It’s like making the architectural plans for a house you already built. The lyric is tangentially based on the Out of Order blog post, as well as the Oblique Strategy:   Do the last thing first Reverse *** Do the last thing First Reverse Do the last thing Do the first thing Last Reverse Do the first thing Do the last thing First Reverse Do the last thing Do the first thing Last Reverse Do the first thing Do the last thing (First) Reverse Do the last thing Do the first thing Last (Reverse) Do the first thing 

   Lyrics derived from a series of lines I jotted down while watching the Artemis fly-by.  AI music is a nostalgia jukebox, but you write the lyrics for all the songs. My pick is "Call of Nature" The moonlight   Falls heavy on my soul   The soil turned to white   Black into the cold   Impact flash   Injection burn   First live look   Then another turn      Are you ready for when it shines?   You're getting close to the terminator line    At the start, the mission new   Not just you and the terminator view    On my pillow, a trillionth of a feather   Better look out for the space weather   Sitting in the earthshine--adjust the heat   Waiting for the fly-by   Grooving to the beat      Looking at the moon   At the terminator line   You saw the far side   Not ...

  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...