Text
Something fundamental has changed over the past few days because of good music good books. I go around in the world differently. Why ten novels didn’t do this for me (more like fourteen but the early ones sucked) I don’t know, but having the knowledge that I CAN DO THE THING AGAIN with music for real has changed how I feel, like my feet are solidly on the ground, I’m confident in my abilities, I’m secure in my presence somehow.
I had to spend all day at a thing where I was the only non-expert in the field. This would have made me feel like a dummy or a loser not that long ago. Again, not sure why writing between 4 and eight really good novels (one fantastic one) didn’t do it for me.
I got all baffled last night and texted a friend that I didn’t understand how I could just look at the words of the Beaufort wind scale (of all things) and go, “I dunno, like this?” and put notes to it, and have it be one of the most excruciatingly beautiful things I’ve ever heard. Like. HOW. How did I do that. How can I do it when I don’t know how I do it. The whole piece is that way. Then I went to fill in the gaps between the little verses (one measure between a four measure repeat) and that ended up gorgeous and fitted just right.
HOW.
I guess I don’t care how, as long as I can do it. I wrote Stop All the Clocks the same way. It’s not chord-based. It’s just what goes with what, somehow? It’s how I always did it back in ancient times. It’s tonal and it’s harmonic but it’s not directional. There’s a lot of close passing dissonance that feels so good.
Beaufort. It works.
But that gives me I think three that are complete in a way that I’m happy with. Not just like, oh, that’s decent and done, but they make me kind of ecstatic.
The album entitled Revenant:
Stop All the Clocks (gorgeous)
Beaufort Wind Scale (gorgeous)
La Gitarra (orchestrated for string quartet but in chords, so boring and I hate that, so I’ll redo it my sliding dissonance lusciousness way)
The Fear is Gone (might rework a little but it’s really good as is)
Emergency (ugh if I could record VOICE properly and make a crowd singing together I would–have to try bathtub)
Crossing the Bar (needs to be gorgeous strings or something, maybe French horn and oboe also, not tromping church piano)
Chanson (Oscar Wilde poem. feels cheesy in the music. can I de-cheese?)
Tell me the truth about love (Auden poem set at the request of Auden’s literary executor but he didn’t really like it and that makes me sad. Might rework somehow. Like I can hear the tune and have changes I want to make already.)
All in Green (sounds like tromping orc armies, very gloomy, have to rethink it and see whether that’s what I want)
Fly (unfinished, has very good parts but is cobbled together and doesn’t work as is)
Unsurprising many are in an iffy state as I’ve just been finding my feet again. HOWEVER. I need them to get into finished states. I’m working as hard and as fast as I can to get them there.
For all I know there are ten more. I have NO MEMORY about music I write. Must be related to the prosopagnosia. If I didn’t look at the above list, which I made from a list on my phone that I made from looking at my files, I would not be able to replicate it. Brains! The same used to be true of novels, though. I had no memory of how many I’d written or what they were called or what they were about. Now I could list them. Probably.
And what I ought to do is find a singer. Pay the singer. Record the singer. Have singing. They’re FUCKING SONGS. They should have a singer in them.
Revenant. Coming some time. What should the cover art be? Can it be a visual reference somehow to the nice young man who inspired me and kept me going? Wouldn’t it be funny to call it “Thanks, Andrew” or something? Hahahahaha. I would never stop dying of embarrassment. Though obviously I’ll dedicate it to him. Hello. Duh.
Maybe I’ll paint something, as long as I’m doing everything again that I ever used to do and stopped. Paint De Selby 2. Paint Shrike. No, paint From Eden somehow! What would that even look like? I get to do it if I want, though. I get to do whatever I want.
Text
I did not know about the squint test. Im not sure it applies also to the squint test but I naturally found out on my own but in another way. In my experience voluntarily defocusing your irises lens without squinting to different depths and playing with the position of how far or close you’re looking at the image helps alot for making big context choices on the composition. You can also play around with using one or both eyes.
Text
I’ve been writing a piece for classical guitar the past few days. I have all of these ideas I can hear in my head, but when I go to play the guitar, my hands don’t find it very quickly and then I forget my original idea.
why is composition like this
Text
A page of carefully assembled images by a 19th century scrapbook artist. Album de cromos de Enriqueta Sanfíz. 1885.
The album consists of compositions made by pasting various materials onto the pages: chromolithograph trading cards (cromos), die-cut scraps, matchboxes, almanac pages, pocket calendars, commercial cards, greeting cards, transport tickets, postcards, fashion plate clippings, and book cuttings.
Held in the Biblioteca Nacional de España as part of their Ephemera collection
Text
piece I made on Christmas last year that I forgot about for a bit
might use for a game in the future?? Idk we shall see
day + night variations
