Wednesday, 20 August 2008
While driving to an appointment this morning, I noticed that the iPod had chosen two tracks in a row that I was into in 1980. Looking now at the other tracks it chose today, 7 of 13 tracks are from albums I’ve had since the late 70's or early 80's.
Thus the weakness of the “random shuffle” playlist. Mine’s a bit more complicated—it tries to mix “not recently played” with a healthy dose of “recently added,” but the problem with “recently added” is that it’s indistinguishable from “recently (re-)ripped from CD.”
I think I’m going to throw together a little script to build a playlist by queueing manually chosen albums.
Monday, 18 August 2008
I was working on some string quartet parts at 11:30 this morning when the power went out. Fortunately there’s a UPS so I was able to save and shut down. But the power stayed out until 4:30 (when I’d just given up on the blender and used a lighter to start the gas stove and heat some corn soup).
During the outage, I read, slept, and played a little piano. When the power came back on, I more or less finished the piece for piano and string quartet. It’s about 2 minutes long and maybe a little deceptively simple. I’ll put it in the category of “demo complete.”
Other tidbits...
I don’t think I’ve heard the Freefall version of The Dregs’ Cruise Control since I saw them live in 1980! Awesome.
This morning the surgeon asked if I was regaining sensation in the lower jaw. I told him “yes, but a lot of it is pain!” We laughed. But seriously, there’s now enough feeling around the lower jaw to be able to feel where my lips are on cups, not dribble so much, and notice when I do. I’m beginning to venture beyond soup, shakes, smoothies and various baby-food-like blenderized concoctions; today, tuna with just mayonnaise seemed like quite a delicacy.
Friday, 15 August 2008
So, of course the improvisation I was most interested in transforming into a composition is 9 minutes long and very intricate. Yesterday I spent some time trying to put a click to the improv, made some progress, but ended up feeling overwhelmed and discouraged.
Today I picked another, shorter one (2 minutes) and was encouraged to have recorded a reasonable click in one pass (with just a little manual fixup at the beginning). And it didn’t take too long after that to build a coordinate system (meter and tempo tracks). At this point the idea is to push on whatever fronts seem productive and leave the others for another time where I’m feeling stronger and with some creative momentum.
Running errands this morning I was also a bit inspired by Ethel (a string quartet) on the iPod. There’s an idea to compose for string quartet on top of the piano parts.
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
Since the short haircut, my cat seems to have decided that my hair is
sufficiently similar to hers that it can be groomed like hers. Her
tongue is scratchy!
On top of the 28:52 of piano improvs recorded before the roof installation last week, I also discovered over an hour of solo synth improvs recorded at a friend’s studio in February 2006. I can’t believe I never listened to it; I hear several pieces just sitting there waiting to be developed.
That sent me scurrying for the tracks I think I recorded on a repeat visit. Either I didn’t really record anything, or in a moment of stupidity, deleted the tracks off the laptop, thinking incorrectly that they were on the desktop. One has to be careful with giant audio files; there’s a constant temptation to delete them and reclaim the space.
Anyhow, the first step to developing an improv is to play along with it and see what happens. For anything more rhythmic than atmospheric, it’s best to work in the MIDI domain where time can easily be bent to build a solid foundation. None of my MIDI cables have been connected since last May.
I started digging in the closet for MIDI cables. I found my giant backup stash, but none of the favorites (the best are “full duplex” pairs). Finally I found them tidily coiled up in the back of the rack. Similarly, I found the backup sustain pedal but #1 is MIA. It’s probably in the keyboard case...
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
Since Friday I’ve recorded almost 29 minutes of piano improvs. The Voice of Judgement is harsh, with thoughts like “that’s all?!” and “why did you have to inhibit yourself by never sitting down at the piano without having hit Record first, especially when you’re not particularly in shape?” (fear of missing something good? or maybe that’s just practice at having the red light on.)
Listening back now with a glass of wine, I’ve found one bit that moves me. I don’t know how it’s to be developed (if at all) but I’ll figure that out later. I’m just happy to be able to shut up the inner critic: it was utterly naive and uncalculated, and yet it works.
Yesterday and today I read The Sociopath Next Door.
After a friend recommended the book, I read the reviews on Amazon and had some reservations about it. Most particularly, the idea that some people’s character flaws are fatal doesn’t align well with what I believe about forgiveness. But I’m still trying to understand what happened with one person who passed through my life tumultuously. This book offers insight.
I’m reviewing my last email from this person, and almost every sentence matches one of the signs:
- pity plays
- gaslighting (suggestions designed to induce doubt in my own perceptions)
- excessive risk-taking behavior (thrill-seeking), possibly in connection with substance abuse
- a turning-around of one of the major incidents along the way to our falling out; no acceptance of his responsibility, blame all on me
And then there’s the hypochondria and complete lack of drive...
There are parts of the book that struck me as excess dramatic embellishment, possibly inspired by an editor (the first chapter approaches a constant drone about how 4% of the population are defective), but the insight into the character of the sociopath is worth the read.
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