Category Archive

…sez Tower of Power!

Seth came to visit last week, Frank Warren gave a talk on Monday, I trekked down to Harrisburg last night for the Average White Band & ToP show, and I’ve stayed busy this week preparing for the Astrobiology Science Conference in Santa Clara next week. I’ve been away from blogging, but I’m having fun!

I’m with Paul in saying goodbye to February. I’m not surprised that my music listening habits returned to normal as March and Spring glistened on the horizon–and just in time for me to snag April tickets to both Tower of Power and Blue Man Group.

To get an early start on my Spring, I’m off to Puerto Rico for a week of rum drinking, telescope visiting, rainforest tromping, and beach bumming! In addition, I’m also looking forward to finishing revisions on my book (~60% done) and reading Frans de Waal’s Primates and Philosophers.

Have a great week, everyone!

A Valentine’s Day observation courtesy of Rowlf and Kermit.

You can’t live with ‘em, you can’t live without ‘em
There’s somethin’ irresistible-ish about ‘em
We grin and bear it ’cause the nights are long
I hope that somethin’ better comes along

I’ve found myself listening to music much less frequently this past week, though I’m not burned out on music as I’ve also been composing more. I think I must simply be enjoying a break from my habit of nearly continuous music in my apartment. (I didn’t decide to stop listening to music one day; it just sort of happened.) The experience has made me wonder if music is sometimes overplayed in our lives, if the incessant and continuous sounds cause the art to lose its significance. For me, at least, musical experiences have been some of my most profound spiritual moments, both as a performer and as an audience member. This sacred experience of music has nothing to do with religious or faith tradition, for music is a way for human beings to communicate and share with each other when words fall short.

In some of the world’s dwindling tribal societies, music is not an industry. Instead of individual consumption of personal musical tastes, music is a communal experience as part of celebration or ceremony that shapes a shared cultural mythology. The power of music comes from the interaction between performers and participants, and in this type of musical celebration no one is a bystander. Furthermore, community events such as this are one of the only times to hear music, as the lack of recording technology and portable playback devices limits non-ceremonial music to the recreational activities of musicians. In a way, the sanctity of music is guarded in such a society by limiting musical consumption to sacred venues. Sacred music in our society, on the other hand, is constantly diluted with profane (commercial?) music, blurring the line between the two.

This is not to say that our culture has too much music, but my current experiment with silence has caused me to wonder if a constant barrage of music deadens our senses and devalues our perception of the art as a whole. I’m sure I’ll eventually return to my habits of music consumption, but for now silence is golden.

We can learn music mathematically, but only when we reach creative understanding do we fully appreciate it. I think other mathematically described systems are no different.

Off to Minnesota (and still trying to make physical intuition of climate dynamics).

Language is a construct, and because of this it is ultimately limited in its ability to express all ideas. Some ideas are well characterized linguistically, but this is not true of all ideas–in fact, many ideas and concepts cannot even be reasonably translated between languages! As a corollary to this, any derivative of a language system (such as logical manipulation of language symbols) is also a construct. Thus, if we limit our view of the world to only that which can be known through language (or logic, or mathematics) we risk minimizing our exposure to ideas that can only be expressed otherwise.

Fortunately, this type of worldview is almost impossible to maintain, at least for someone with even minimal exposure to the arts. In addition to music, visual art, and dance, poetry (including lyrics) provides an intermediary between the world of language and art. Poetic expression uses the same lexicon as spoken language, but the devices of metaphor and (somewhat) free reign on syntax and form create an art of language, in a sense. Powerful ideas captured in poetics have the ability to transcend the literality of words and convey an untranslatable message.

Musical and theatrical performances, then, strive to achieve this super-linguistic degree of communication (with varying degrees of success). But I think it is important to realize that a wordless song or dance can convey an idea just as real, true, and applicable as a book or speech. Ideas come from people, not from words.

David’s recent musings at The Edge of Grace got me thinking about the way we transmit and share information and experiences–as well as mystery. Language is a vehicle for communicating many ideas, ultimately language breaks down in its ability to share the experience of mystery.

This limitation of linguistic communication made me realize the importance of alternate communication modes, namely through various art forms. When I play music with others, there is a deep level of communication that is maintained through the sounds even though no words are spoken. The communication that develops over time among musical friends is without parallel in linguistics and cannot be sufficiently described in prose. Yet I am confident that any practitioner of an art form also finds expression and mystery that cannot translate into words.

And speaking of music, Cootie Brown albums are now available online! They are available directly from the Ekora webstore as well as on CD Baby.

Yesterday’s entry at Whiskey River makes a concise and important observation about the experience and creation of artistic expression.

My most profound musical moments (which often occur in the practice room) would be accurately described as “a self-forgetful, perfectly useless concentration”. As a performer involved in the creation of this art, there is virtually no distinction between self and music, nor is there any distinction between the music generation and experience. In a sense, the physical body (which generates the music) is indistinguishable from the auditory sensation (which interprets the music).

Of course, in the end it is impossible to accurately describe the musical experience in words. But to fully experience an art form we continually strive toward this state of mind where artistic expression speaks for itself.

The fulfillment of one dream is the beginning of another.

Once again, ready to rock the town!

This weekend marks the 4th annual Locust Grove summer weekend. As I packed up my car, I considered the reasons for looking forward to the weekend.

Seclusion. There is no such thing as “getting closer to nature”; we are biological creatures, so anything we do or make is still natural. However, spending time away from the sights and demands of civilization make it easier to reflect on a time when all humans on the planet (including our ancestors) lived as hunter-gatherers. And on top of that, a secluded location necessitates disappearance.

Music. I enjoy playing music, and I enjoy listening; but for me music is a need. Music is powerful, and music creates memories. As Tower of Power put it, “The music makes you happy, or it can make you sad. It can turn the worst day into the best you ever had.”

Community. We spend most of our days interacting with various groups of people, many of which are unrelated. Before the (recent) advent of human cities, the tribe was the primary human social unit. It is difficult to recreate all elements of tribalism, especially in a weekend, but even a temporary experience of the tribe is worthwhile.

Off I go! Be back on Sunday.

The degree to which your ear is accustomed to a particular album can approximately be divided into three categories. Each is followed by an example in my collection.

New - You have only listened a few times, and each time you hear something you didn’t before. (Weather Report - Black Market)

Familiar - You know the music well, and you become alert at all your favorite parts (Funkadelic - Electric Spanking of War Babies)

Ambient - You are familiar with the timing of all sounds and emotions in the album. You know exactly how an album will feel, and the album becomes an ambiance as much as a collection of songs. (Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s)

My stereo system is one of the best purchases I have made. I think it is fair to claim that most of the work I have done while playing music in my apartment (or bedroom back in MN) has been positively influenced, yet it would be difficult-to-impossible to quantify this contribution. The music is more than just a silence-filler: it aids in the creation of a positive work environment. For some people, this can include hanging posters, drinking coffee/tea, or having a comfortable place to sit. I would have a hard time writing off a stereo system as a business expense, but it has been just as valuable for maintaining productivity as any other tool.

My first attempt at spoken word, inspired by an older entry.

When I grow up, I want to pick berries
Where the food that I need every day is outside
Just a stroll through the woods every morning and evening
To fill up my belly with what I can find

I won’t need to go to the grocery store
Where everything comes so neat in a can
Canned tomatoes and peaches and cherries and salmon
And little white cheeses in red waxy cases

Instead I’ll just climb up a tree
Grab an apple or two
Maybe find some sweet honey
Or else dig around in the dirt
Tasty shrooms all around
And maybe some truffles
Or the fish in the lake
Or the deer in the woods
Or the squirrel in the tree
Cause some people like squirrel!

But they won’t let me, they tell me I can’t
Have to get me a job, have to get me a car
There’s no place left in the world I can go
To live out my dream of living the hunt

When you go to the city
It doesn’t look pretty
For miles and miles there’s people you see
And it’s not that I don’t like to see all the people
But I’ve seen the real jungle
It’s got no concrete

I’ve been to the plains of the great Seringetti
So close to the place that our species began
Not just people around them, but all sorts of creatures
A modern-day density could not be found
No grocery stores
No streets full of people
Just a tribe
And a hunt
And a wide open land

When I grow up, I want to pick berries
And hunt for my food like my ancestors did
I can’t help but think that the city is lonely
And life is too short to surrender and fade

If drafts work for sports, then why not for music? I think this could be an interesting concept: an organized pop music association whose members shuffle around every few years–where pop music refers to the most cheezy, made-for-radio music that generates up to one memorable song per album.

Each band would be a franchise not owned by any of the musicians. The musicians would each sign contracts, and new musicians would be recruited through a draft system. Every year the lineup of each band would change by a small or large amount, thereby reducing the stagnancy of the pop music.

And, as an added bonus, the end of every band season could culminate with a national battle of the bands playoff series.

I was going to make a blog entry, but instead I played my vibraphone. I think it was a good decision. I discovered two things as well:

1) It is much easier to sing and play than I thought it would be.

2) I accompanied myself on a song I wrote several years ago. My feelings at the time were different than they are now, and singing the song was a nice reflection on how time can change things.

Here’s everyone’s chance to add to my music library. The best way for me to discover new books and music is personal recommendation. Everyone can suggest five of their favorite albums they think I should hear. I have pretty eclectic tastes, so I usually end up with some good finds after doing something like this.

To start things off, here’s five suggestions from my music collection:

Arturo Sandoval - Hot House
Belle and Sebastian - The Boy with the Arab Strap
Blue Man Group - Audio
Fatboy Slim - Better Living Through Chemistry
Tower of Power - T.O.P.

Related to my entry on the Album.

Listening to 3 hours of shuffled multi-artist music (such as a digital music collection) is an emulation of the radio experience–but with a personalized playlist.

Listening to 3 consecutive albums is an emulation of the concert experience–but with a personalized band lineup.

Some people listen to music for the words. Others listen for a particular instrument, such as the guitar.

I usually find myself focusing on the rhythms and chord progressions. It is interesting to compare musical observations with others to see the differences in musical perception.

Minimalist music is everywhere, though often by other names.

Passed the candidacy exam today! Perhaps I’ll find a way to use today’s post in a paper or presentation…

I was going to post on INTERCAL today, but I’ll let you read about it on your own–INTERCAL amuses me less than it used to.

Instead, I stumbled across another interesting esoteric programming language: Fugue, created by Nikita Ayzikovsky in 2005. Fugue operates identically to the language Prelude, but it uses musical notation instead of ASCII text. For example, the following is the cat program (copy input to output) written in Fugue:

Prelude and Fugue are Turing-complete, but what really sold me was this statement: “it is trivial to compile BrainF*** into Prelude using just two voices”. Incredible! I must write some Fugue in the near future.

Digital music players–especially portable ones–have changed the way people listen to music. Many people collect music in a compressed digital format that can be easily moved, traded, exchanged, and organized. As a result, many people listen to radio-style song mixes, where the playlist is a collection of hand-picked or randomly assorted songs from various artists.

I sometimes enjoy listening to the radio, but a shuffled mix of music loses something that is present when listening to an album. An album is often more than just a collection of songs by the same artist or group; the ordering of the songs often contributes to a unifying theme, and a deeper appreciation for certain songs can be gleaned in the context of the rest of the album. An album also has a beginning and an ending. This may seem like an obvious observation, but a continuously streaming digital radio station has no foreseeable end.

This is not to say listening to an album is superior to a radio-style mix. An album accentuates different aspects of the music, and the era of portable digital music has diminished some of these experiences.

This entry is inspired by Sly Civilian’s Radical Fun Day 2.0; literalist that I sometimes am, this seemed like a good time for a song parody.

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still be charged like me?
For I must be traveling on, now
There’s many particles I haven’t seen
And if I stayed in the group, now
Things just wouldn’t be the same

Well I’m as free as a quark now
And a quark you can not change
And a quark you can not change
And a quark you can not change
Bose knows I can’t change

Bye, bye, its been color-neutral
And though this color I can’t change
Please don’t take it negatively
Cause Bose knows I’m to blame
And, if I stayed in the group now
Charges wouldn’t be the same

For I’m as free as a quark now
And this quark you’ll never change
And the quark you can not change
And the quark you can not change
Bose knows, I can’t change

Bose help me, I can’t change
Bose I can’t change!
Wont you fly high free quark?

Saturday I decided to do another music synching experiment, so I set up for Wish You Were Neo and Dark Side of the Matrix by Michael Allen. For those of you who don’t follow links, the idea is simple: play Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here and Dark Side of the Moon back-to-back while watching The Matrix.

I must admit that I was very impressed with this sync. Most of the interesting points were musical, although it was more than fitting that “Welcome to the Machine” began when Neo saw the agents for the first time and lasted until he woke up the next morning. I won’t ruin all the surprises, as I highly recommend this sync, but I will say that when the second album starts, there are still some great moments. And the ending–I don’t think that could have worked any better. There were not really any vocal syncs, but the overall themes of the two albums back-to-back certainly matched that of the movie.

These are the lyrics I wrote for the Cootie Brown song “Solstice”.

Day by day I think of all I see
Dressed in the clothes that were given me
Kneeling down beneath the starry sky
I look up high and I wonder why

That first light shone so long ago
I wonder how it is I know
And soon the light it fades to grey
I look back down and walk away

And the rain comes down
As the wind blows round
And I stand alone
As the seasons change
And the rain comes down
As the wind blows round
And I stand alone
As the seasons change

Hour by hour I pass through the crowd
The consternation cries out loud
Gaze across the multicolored sea
And lose yourself, find who you’ll be

Across the trodden Earth we stand
The remnants of a fertile land
The dust beneath us covers all
Now from this dust receive your call

And the rain comes down
As the wind blows round
And I stand alone
As the seasons change
And the rain comes down
As the wind blows round
And I stand alone
As the seasons change

I finally did the classic music synchronization experiment: The Wizard of Oz with Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”. Being a Pink Floyd fan anyways, I knew I would at least enjoy listening to the album, but the sync itself was definitely interesting and entertaining. I don’t think Pink Floyd intentionally synced their album to the movie, but some of the parallels are a bit too perfect. Unfortunately I only watched the first way through–I’ve heard that if you loop the album, the third time through is really good. I’ll save that for another day.

The best part of doing the sync, though, was listening to the music. That is, there are not too many times during the day when we sit down and actively listen to music. We may play music as we work, travel, drive, or eat, but very rarely do people sit down and just listen to recorded music. Of course, concerts provide a venue to appreciate music by itself, but the concert atmosphere provides a different outlook than a quiet room. Coupled with a familiar movie, certain aspects of the album are accentuated and amplified in ways that may have not been apparent before. Whether or not a movie was intended to synchronize with an album, there is a unique symbiosis that provides a fresh outlook on both the movie and album. In addition to doing the full rendition of “Dark Side of the Rainbow” I will certainly be trying some other movie synchronizations; I’ve heard that “Wish You Were Here” goes well with The Matrix.

Our band has played in four shows so far, but this Saturday will be our first gig (a gig being a paid show)–as well as our first indoor performance. We’ll be a bit crowded for space with a 7-piece band, but playing Zeno’s on a Saturday night is great for our first State College show!

And if you’re not local, you can check out some of our tunes on MySpace!

Genetic algorithms are an interesting and powerful problem-solving tool. They can be used for some of the same applications as Monte-Carlo simulation, but the fundamental operating mechanism between the two is different: a Monte-Carlo method throws random values at a problem and arrives at a solution via the law of large numbers; a genetic algorithm, although also reliant upon multiple iterations, seeks out a solution through random mutation and selection–modeled after biological genetics. In other words, a genetic algorithm is a more structured and directed way of using a stochastic method to arrive at a solution. A pseudo-code algorithm (courtesy of Wikipedia) can be written as:

Choose initial population
Evaluate the individual fitnesses of a certain proportion of the population
Repeat
Select best-ranking individuals to reproduce
Breed new generation through crossover and mutation (genetic operations) and give birth to children
Evaluate the individual fitnesses of the children population
Replace best-ranking individuals
Until terminating condition

This works surprisingly well for many science and engineering applications. But what about music? The “fitness” criterion is generally expressed mathematically, but a subjective human opinion of good/bad music could also determine fitness. My preliminary idea is as follows:

1) Randomly generate a set of music clips (probably just one voice to begin with, such as a bassline)
2) Listen to the clips, and vote on which ones are good (”fit”) and which ones are not
3) Keep the good clips, and produce children via crossover and random mutations
4) Repeat the process until a desirable musical progression is produced
5) Repeat to allow for multiple voices (bass, melody, rhythm, etc.)

I think this could produce some interesting results. I’m going to play around with this idea in my head some more, and then maybe develop the idea. If I do, the listening/voting process will likely be through a web interface so anyone can contribute to the selection process.

There are many ways of observing the passage of time. Relatively slow changes, such as the seasons, are easy enough to observe qualitatively, but difficult to measure in comparison to, say, the relatively fast changes in the dripping of water or ticking of a metronome. Of the five “standard” senses (sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing), it is interesting to notice that three of these senses allow for the precise measurement of time, while the other two offer very little capacity for doing so. That is, one could easily devise a timekeeping device solely dependent upon sight, sound, or touch; however, doing the same for smell or taste is not as obvious.

With sight, repetitive flashing lights are sufficient to keep time. The sense of hearing requires a pulsating beat, such as the ticking of a clock and a touch-based clock would have a physical device that provided this rhythm (a booming beat that can be felt, or something that interfaces with the skin–feeling the dropping of water for instance). Taste and smell pose their own problems, though. While slow changes can be sensed by either of these methods, a pulsating scent, for example, will not convey the regular pulsation that a pulsating light can.

When viewing live music, all three of the relevant senses come into play. This difference between live and recorded music is one of the appeals of live music. Instead of a 1/5 sensory experience, the concert attendee gets a 3/5 sensory experience where the music is concerned. Taste and smell may come into play at a concert atmosphere, but most likely not directly related to the music itself.

It’s like data mining, but the data is your music collection. I have roughly 3000 songs in my collection (legal, believe it or not), and I finally joined the iTunes bandwagon. A lot of my music came from a one-year subscription I had to the eMusic downloading service (which was $10/month for unlimited downloads at the time). I got a bunch of jazz this way, as well as some other random stuff that looked interesting–but I didn’t necessarily listen to all of it very much. Now with iTunes shuffling through my entire music collection, I am stochastically discovering interesting music that I might not have come across otherwise. A few of my favorites from the last few days:

Echo and the Bunnymen - Hide & Seek
The Future Sound of London - Divinity
John Cougar - Thundering Hearts
They Might Be Giants - XTC vs. Adam Ant
Arab Strap - Autumnal
Alphaville - Control
Heaven 17 - Dive

Now all we need is a sophisticated music mining algorithm to be developed to wade through those million song databases. The stochastic method is certainly fun, but it’s not terribly efficient.