the timespace interchange
New York Part Four
OF COURSE IT WOULD BE YOU WHO MANAGED TO RETURN WITH WHAT WE WERE WAITING FOR
July 13th 2016. Thinking about Cambodia, Tim, Pokemon Go. Back in NYC. Maybe still needs lyrics and vocals.
New York Part Four
THINKING THROUGH A SOFT TOUCH
July 13th 2016. Scribbling on the piano. In the background at a ski lodge someone's cousin is standing in for the usual pianist. You're drinking mint tea and eating an large oatmeal cookie.
New York Part Four
THAT LAST DANCE ISN'T OVER YET
July 12th 2016. I'm actually still working on this. But here's a taste of it.
New York Part Four
RAGEDDY PIANO
July 12th 2016. My beaten-up piano actually sounds better with a worse mic. I was thinking this piano's dissonances taught me, even as a kid, how wide is the scope of harmony.
New York Part Four
New York Part Four
New York Part Four
New York Part Four
DRUM CIRCLE IN THE PARK
June 20th 2016. Around father's day, tourists join in with the natives.
New York Part Four
SHALOM ALECHIEM
June 14th 20th 2016. Daniel's back at camp from coming home from Israel; we'd gone to see Fiddler on the Roof.
New York Part Four
POETS BRING BACK THE DEAD
June 13th 20th 2016.
poets bring back the dead
communicating with kierkegaard via the song
if kiekegaard were here
he'd say look
at what you did
there
you had my thought in mind
my three part structure
1st part
desire doesn't desire any thing
it has no direction or object
in the interpenetration of all things
a great wealth is given to desire
desire dances among the thousand stars
but desire is sad
because it doesn't know how to want what it has
so all its joys are tinged with melancholy
as desire dances among them
as if in a crowd of strangers
who could not possibly be
objects of desire
yet are desiring
it
but it's really the dance of joys--
and all are admitted--so
desire wonders, how to get in?
2nd part
seeking
desire awakens to itself
desire learns to desire a desire
desire learns how to want and what to want
how many desires can it desire at once
how few
which desires cannot be desired together
desire jumps into the fray
reshaping the rings of dancers in the crowd
louder and louder
giving voice to its heart's desire
spinning and spinning
calling all far and near
until
desire too drunk to even see
ah whizzing splendor
desire suddenly sees itself
as if in a mirror
and trips
stumbles
...
..
.
falling
caught, surpisingly
by someone's arms
borne away
3rd part
that night
the resulting muted howl
is what desire was trying to say about itself
all along
if it's being really honest
what it really wants
even if sentimental, embarrassing
almost too gross to touch so
to cleanse itself
desire now seeks the object of its desire
tries to transcend sentimentality
through the process of seduction
but has to pass deep into sentimentality
to get through to the other side
if only desire alone could bring
everything into synchrony,
the object would be obtained!
oh woe!
but at the last moment--
a break in the clouds
desire and its object--
they get closer and closer
until it's as if heaven and earth
came to touch each other
in marriage
beyond which
is the unknown
point at infinity
of unison
...
..
.
k would say
you reproduced my story
through the medium of music
it makes sense
since that's where i got it from to begin with
lol i was talking about mozart
and my theories of what music can say
and what language can't
so you began the song with
the universal groove
the most basic spannings of the octave
almost frightning
like contemplating
being spun around in a circle
for an eternity
but almost soon as it's begun
the twirling is
covered over with horns
dripped in the honey
of higher order song
strings
until i see
you made yourself
as a performer
get so into it
you'd trip without thinking about it
and trip each instrument to an end
meanwhile
harmony keeps oscillating between
major seventh and minor seventh
major signifying closeness, authenticity
minor signifying distance, sentimentality
after the burst of youth,
left naked
suddenly a cafe in the middle of the night
by a stupid large warehouse
by the river of accidents
a half-assed conclusion
you half-justified ending it there
because of culture, or something
but then you realized--
this is actually you falling in love
for real!
and you keep on
the moment you wouldn't have realized it
you agree to move in
in a marriage that fills completely a home
New York Part Four
AWAKE MY ST. JOHN
June 10th 2016. Yet another Alexander Pope, Intro to Essay on Man. None of them really capture it. I'll have to do it 100 more times. I want to rerecord the vocals but I'm too tired.
New York Part Four
YOU'RE HERE THEN YOU'RE NOT HERE
June 9th 2016. For some reason I'm always picturing cutting through the brush to the end of the forest and looking down at the dizzying fields below.
New York Part Four
New York Part Four
FAMILY
Recorded while everyone was getting ready around the apartment before we went to... Marchi's? June 8th 2016.
New York Part Four
THAT'S LIFE SOLO
It's worth comparing all the versions of 'That's Life' on youtube. The original isn't what you're expecting. James Brown probably had the most fun doing it. June 4th 2016.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
THAT PIT OF PRIMES
May 27th, 2016. Where do we go when we're alone on the train home, beneath the verbal thoughts that protect us against the cinematic?
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
STACCATO PRIME SOUP 2
May 22th, 2016. A sea of numbers randomly colliding with each other and, in doing so, jittering their PRIME FACTORS (combining primes), their BITSTRING (gluing two bitstrings together), and their MAGNITUDE (summing). PRIME FACTORS give harmony. MAGNITUDE gives duration. BITSTRING gives rhythm.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
SPARKLING PRIME SOUP 2
May 22th, 2016. See above. Each "pulse" is a single moment of time of the soup being heard.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
STACCATO PRIME SOUP
May 22th, 2016. See above. These all have different numbers of numbers in the soup.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
GREEK CRUSH
May 20th, 2016. I was just thinking that running scales is the musical equivalent of talking. Can you imagine a world in which all communication was musical, a world in which we forgave people for their music being a vehicle for thought and not a finished product, terrorizing them with an idea of perfection--simply hearing music as talking, wondering?
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
SLOW PRIME SOUP MIXING FACTORS, BITS, AND SUMS. 45 NUMBERS
May 20th, 2016. I feel the whoozhi-ness of this in my groin. See above (May 22nd).
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
SLOW PRIME SOUP MIXING FACTORS, BITS, AND SUMS. 32 NUMBERS
May 20th, 2016. See above. Each of these starts with random numbers, and they interact randomly. So each one is different. Just trying to give a flavor.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
SLOW PRIME SOUP MIXING FACTORS, BITS, AND SUMS. 100 NUMBERS
May 20th, 2016. I like it when it hurts a little bit.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
PRIME SOUP MIXING FACTORS, BITS, AND SUMS. 33 NUMBERS
May 20th, 2016. What if the afterlife is just like this. It's just too loud to think and so staggered by the intricate majesty, you wait until the next moment of peace. As we wait for that moment of violence.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
PRIME SOUP MIXING FACTORS, BITS, AND SUMS. 7 NUMBERS
May 20th, 2016. It's easier to visualize the interactions when there are only a handful of number in the pot of soup.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
PRIME SOUP MIXING FACTORS, BITS, AND SUMS
May 20th, 2016. I find this makes me tingle in my head.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
GIRL WITH ONE EYE
May 18th, 2016. The question was how to deny the "male" narcissism of the original by somehow coating it in sugar, to solidify it. Needs vocals.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
JUDAH HA-LEVI
May 10th 2016.
how long will you remain (just) a boy?
how long will you remain a boy?
dawns must end
behold the angels
of old age
angels
of old ages
shake off the timelike
like a bird shakes off the dew
shake off the timelike
like a bird shakes off the dew
shake off the timelike
like a bird shakes off the dew
of night dart like
a swallow
from the ocean of rage
of daytimelike
a swallow
dart like
pursue me pursue me
be intimate with me
pursue me pursue me
dart directly into me
pursue me pursue me
i'm as happy as can be
my company of souls flowing down
is souls flowing down
is souls flowing down
is souls flowing down
is the day
You may prefer the normalized version.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
PRIME GOD NODDING OFF
April 9th, 2016. Basically you divide by a base frequency instead of multiplying as you count, split, and breath life into it.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
NONCHALANT SEARCHING OVER PRIMES
April 9th, 2016. So here, each number gets played as a sequence. For example, 12 divides time into 12 parts. You hear the notes of the prime factors every prime factor beats. Like for 12 every 2nd chord has a 2-note, every 3rd chord has a 3-note. The sequences are concatenated.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
BIT RHYTHM PRIME
April 9th, 2016. From what I remember what's going on here is that the overall length of the sequences for each number is proportional to... the number of primes? So numbers with lots of primes have longer chords. See above.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
FOR JOHN ADAMS
March 29th, 2016. I have a theory that John Adams literally can't perceive melody and covers it up with his innate sense of rhythm.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
BEAR SHAKES OF THE BEAR TRAP
March 24th, 2016 / July 3rd, 2015. Came home after having a few drinks with Julie, and found an old drum track from last year. The guitar is probably the best instrument for not giving a fuck.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
ETERNAL PRIME DANCE
March 23rd, 2016. I actually forget what this is. But in general: counting. Every number is split into its primes. You hear a chord composed of notes whose frequencies are proportional to those primes with amplitudes proportional to the multiplicity of the prime. And clearly there's something going on with the timing... and the frequencies are being normalized in some way. I figure it out later.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
I WONDER WHERE OUR LOVE HAS GONE
March 18th, 2016. This is the kind of melody you'd kill to write. Specifcally the part where it goes: I know/without your love. Listen while I butcher it.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
THESE LITTLE THINGS ARE FRIENDLY
March 11th, 2016. This motif probably deserves greater development.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
OOOOO SICK
March 8th, 2016. The 21st century is an exploration into the lower frequencies. The 20th was an exploration of the high. We invented quantum mechanics. But now we look to the root.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
IPHONE SYMPHONY
March 7th, 2016. This is probably the first semiserious long form composition I've done. The motif is an iphone ringtone if you know it.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
PIANO GROOVE
March 6th, 2016. The thing about jazz is you can't premeditate it. I needed a come down after the next track.
New York Part Three: Inside Spring
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
ALICE AND BOB
Jam. March 4th, 2016. The lyrics are based on this paper. During the do-do-do waltz section you're supposed to picture the possibility flowing back and forth through the entanglement pipes.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
ALICE AND BOB
March 2nd, 2016. See above for version with lyrics and explanation.
"On a beautiful sunny day, Alice and Bob relax in their neighboring gardens. It happens that their two gardens share s water pipes, labeled by the numbers 1, 2, .... Each of these water pipes has one loose end in Alice's and the other loose end in Bob's garden. For the fun of it, Alice and Bob play the following game..."
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
ALICE AND BOB
March 1st, 2016. Demo. Alice and Bob will continue their eternal dance of cooperation or subversion until the end of time. See above.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
ALICE AND BOB
March 1st, 2016. Demo 0. Sometimes it's helpful hear all the voices in order to pick out the one.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
SUSSKIND
March 1st, 2016. I am so grateful for Leonard Susskind's existence. He eats sandwiches with me, makes me feel safe in my own bed, listening to his lectures as I fall asleep. He's a true inheritor of the physics spirit. He's recently suggested that quantum entanglement is basically equivalent to nontraversable wormholes. Well, so what? He's also taken the time to lucidly expose the inner rigor of physics to the interested layperson. As if: if he takes himself seriously, and the claims he's making seriously, he had a responsibility to communicate the foundations of those claims in good faith to anyone interested. He plays the role of the person who wouldn't just believe any old thing. I've learned so much from him.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
ALICE AND BOB
See above. Demo -10. February 28th, 2016. Is it coming over the horizon? Or are we falling endlessly in orbit?
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
THINKING THROUGH ST LOUIS
February 26th, 2016. When life's got me down, I try to sing this song and I've never once succeeded.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
ALICE AND BOB
See above. This beat taught me how to pose the rhythm. This was before the nugget had the right ending. Demo -12. February 25th, 2016.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
THINKING THROUGH MORE HORNS
February 25th, 2016. I wonder when you're becoming a fireman, if they train you in horn-pumping technique, for when you're alarming the vehicles. Short short short long....
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
ME, MYSELF, AND I
February 16th, 2016. This is how you sing the song at four in the morning.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
NOW THE THUNDERER
February 13th, 2016. From Alexander Pope's translation of The Iliad. The game is to improv a melody over the eternal iambic and hear the hexameters shine through.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
THINKING THROUGH THE ILIAD AGAIN
February 12th, 2016. This is how a classical text should be read. With a keyboard in hand to sound it out, and a kind of heedlessness of embarrassment.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
ELEAVATOR PRINCIPLE
February 12th, 2016. Another in my long running series of interminable compositions. The principle here is the equivalence principle: the elevator pulling you up is exactly equivalent to gravity pulling you down.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
PACHABEL
Pachabaalel. February 11th, 2016. Learning from the master. I want to say something like: as all music from this time period, the Canon in D is about the soul's striving towards God. It's like: oh god, they never said how easy it would be to repent, oh all too easy in this sadness today.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
SHOWER
February 3rd, 2016. One of my best friends in college had the idea of making a shower which you could control from inside, and adjust its shape so you could get the right harmonics while you're singing in the shower.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
ESTRANG
February 2nd, 2016. There's something about this that reminds me of playing Mario Kart.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
THINKING THROUGH HARP
January 31st, 2016. Who needs counterpoint when you have reverberations? I have a theory that when Pythagoras discovered the circle of fifths, in doing so, he allowed people to conceive of whole-tone adjacent major chords: like a concept of C Major (CEG) next to D Major (DF#A), where D is a 2nd in C, and C is a 7th, thus giving birth to a tonality befitting the melancholic happines of their philosophy.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
LONE MAN WITH A GUN AT THE END OF EMPIRE WHAT'S THAT
January 31st, 2016. James Bond melts.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
THINKING THROUGH HORNS
January 30th, 2016. What if the troubadours passing by your window sounded like this? Nothing is better interleaved than horns.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
12345 67 89 11 12 13
Fourth Demo. Janurary 29th, 2016. I guess I could actually write lyrics to this. I probably went a little to heavy on the horns. But I love horns! I should probably redo the levels--yet even though everything's weirdly separated over the left and right ears, sometimes there's a weird hollow space left despite all the din that I kind of like. Goes on for too long...
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
12345 67 89 11 12 13
Third Demo. Janurary 25th 2016. That tiny key in the left ear is so loud!
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
12345 67 89 11 12 13
Second Version. Janurary 24th 2016. The way this melody line ends is inspired by a certain Hebrew prayer my dad likes.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
12345 67 89 11 12 13
First Version. Janurary 24th 2016. This lacks development, but has certain juicy moments at the end if you have the patience. I'm picturing asphalt being laid on a punk band while they struggle to continue playing.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
THE OLIGARCHS
January 19th, 2016. I tried to write a rap after talking with Pete and Julian, and failed.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
PUPUPUPU PUPUPU
January 18th, 2016. Welcome to your new home. We're still adjusting the functionality. Feel free to feel nostalgia while you wait.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
THE JOURNEY BEGINS SOFTLY
January 18th, 2016. I love the way this starts. It more or less meanders after that. But here maybe meandering is the point. If you concentrated too hard on anything in particular, then you'd remember. Yet this is a kind of remembering.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
BABY LET ME FOLLOW YOU DOWN
January 13th, 2016. I don't know why I expose myself in my vulnerability to you. After all, here I'm playing an old song, just for myself, to think. I just happened to record it. This isn't a cover of a song--it's a cover for you to think about something else just like I was.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
JANINE
January 13th, 2016. See above re: vulnerability/embarassment. I'm not suggesting this is a good rendition of Janine. Rather, this was how Janine felt today. It's a different kind of musical communication. I struggle through the song; maybe you learn something from my struggle to exhibit.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
COUNTING SWUNG
January 11th, 2016. Counting that gets weighed down as it tries to rise. Why? Because here numbers with lots of prime factors get played rapidly, and numbers with few primes get played more slowly. Since there are more composites as you go up, obviously, we feel the Platonic universe weighing on our shoulders.
As above, counting turns each number into sound by creating a chord whose notes have frequency proportional to its prime factors and amplitude proportional to their multiplicity, and then playing each chord for some amount of time as you count.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
TINY COUNTING
January 11th, 2016. See above. Here time seem seems to be speeding up exponentially quickly until we enter the world of the tiny pitters who live in heaven.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
COUNTING SPEEDING PULSES
January 11th, 2016. See above. I think time each number takes to play is going like 1/n where n is the number you've counted to.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
COUNTING EVEN PULSES
January 11th, 2016. See above. This may sound like it it's getting faster, but it isn't. You're just lifting off the ground.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
COUNTING 984
January 11th, 2016. This is a good example of what makes being in the prime number business worth it in the end. That *insane* chord at the end redeemed all my lost hours. I want to eat it!
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
THE DIN
Demo. January 10th, 2016. Lyrics from back in Iowa. Added a flavor of Pachabel (see above for further developments along that line).
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
TWEEDALIETAWEEDALIE
January 8th, 2016. This is what water droplets feel like when they're hurtling towards the shower flower.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
THINKING THROUGH BESSIE
December 23rd, 2015. I don't know what made me think of this old song. I feel like I'm including a lot of these recordings so as to create the appearence of musical context around the other tracks.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
SLEEP IS OUR GROUND STATE
December 21st, 2015. I stole the beginning from Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata while thinking about Coldplay. In physics, the lowest energy state of a physical system is known as the "ground state." If you add energy (like knocking an atom with an electron), you might pop the system into a higher level energy state. But it has to be the right amount of energy! Like in general there's no halfway energy state between any two energy states. Hence the quantum in quantum mechanics.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
JAM 2 WITH FRIENDS
December 8th, 2015. With Paul and Julie. Paul on guitar. Julie improvising with a text, I forget what it was! I'll ask.
New York Part Two: Atlantis Frozen
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
LITTLE COMPLEX NUMBERS REDUX
November 24th, 2015. I realized I'd forgotten how to sing this song from back in 2013. This is the sonic equivalent of a memory, of a half remembered technique.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
LONG STRINGS
November 22nd, 2015. One day all will be yours. But at what price? God alone knows.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
CAR WHEELS ON A GRAVEL ROAD
November 21st, 2015. Lucinda Williams cover. We used to listen to this song all the time in the car as a kid. Context: we live at the bottom of a gravel road.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
CAR WHEELS ON A GRAVEL ROAD
Demo. November 20th, 2015. In some ways, I like the mood of this better than the one I worked really hard on. The tempo's better.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
INFINITE LOVE
November 20th, 2015. A poem.
autumn leaves spilling on the roof like
brown green yellow on top
slate grey blue roof
the light like refreshing powdered sugar
but even more refined
like a liquid
dazzled by our sincere lack of knowledge
as time goes on, it becomes less and less clear what we're doing here
mother and son and father
each making choices
being generous
while we have the chance
yet words offer an axiom
everything that can be known can be known now
yet knowing makes things trivial
you can't get milage out of what you understand
it doesn't push you
the understood doesn't move
the best is when you understand
the worst is when you've just understood
the mystery gets shunted elsewhere
harder to find yet undeniably present
the space of explanations not cleared away
just stretched and shrunk
the mystery peeking out somewhere further down the line
for example evidently
apples fall
the moon orbits the earth
and dice rolls echo rolls far away
because the shadows in plato's cave
had to be perfect representations
why?
the mystery is shunted…
because everything knowable has to be knowable now?
it's easy to say
the marvelous is frustrating
and the love of the world for us can be tiresome
and hatred is nice
it lets you off the hook of being present
we may have one life
and our being together is controversial
as far as the universe is concerned
yet i hate you
don't give a shit
deal with it
i don't have to look at you
i can imagine you at my mercy
the mercy of my violence
obviously we only hate what we love
we can only hate when there is love
what's the point otherwise
we'd just drive people away
we only hate people whom we expect to return to
whom we expect to return to us
you wait for the hate to disappear
i wait too
it thaws
we can only hate in security
we think we understand the world
we think we have time
that is why hate is so nice
so superfluous
so luxurious
it's a defiance of time
i'll spend my time as i wish
i won't be enslaved by the law of death all the time
i refuse to be reasonable
there's no reasoning with me
i hate you
and i'm not looking at you
why else is it such a betrayal
when the hated one abandons you?
oh they'll come back
come back
god hates us
we hate god
that's how much we love each other
thank god god hates us
because that means god will return
thank god we hate god
because that means we'll return to god
love without hate isn't really love
both god and man live in defiance of their own laws
that is our prerogative
yet the more we waste our time
the more we fear time will come to an end
that we pushed too far
that's why it's ideal to have infinite love
it's no harder than counting
it's no harder than hating
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
THINKING THROUGH ORGANS
November 12th, 2015. Nothing is more inspiring that a good organ riff.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
BUM DE BUM DI BUM DA LOVE
November 11th, 2015. Surprisingly the melody stays constant throughout.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
MICROWAVE SONG
November 11th, 2015. Hovering around the kitchen in the evening the hearth where the heart never fails.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
LOADING FUNK
November 10th, 2015. Will we ever see another screen? I had deja vu literally as I was typing this.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
KOALA DISCO
November 10th, 2015. After a koala dances, it gets tired and has to go to sleep.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
KOALA DISCO DEMO
Demo. November 9th, 2015. I guess I always liked the behind the scenes documentaries more than the movies they were documenting.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
COMPUTATION, NEW YORK
November 6th, 2015. Even after a month, I didn't feel at home in NYC musically until I wrote this. I will always remember the first chill in the air, walking around the Met listening to this on repeat.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
THIS IS MY KEYBOARD
November 2nd, 2015. It's Julie's keyboard and it's the best. A little improvisation on the old standby, Pope's Iliad.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
CAN'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME
October 28rd, 2015. Rainy solo. Probably my favorite album of all time is Ella and Louis.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
FOLSOM PRISON BLUES
October 19th, 2015. Solo. Trying to sing like Johnny Cash really clears out the lungs.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
WHERE ARE YOU TONIGHT?
October 16th, 2015. Demo. I couldn't sustain it, but this is the mood I was trying to capture. It's a hard song to do because it's so long.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
WHERE ARE YOU TONIGHT?
October 15th, 2015. Instrumental. Doesn't really carry through, but I think the beginning managed to capture something of the perfect Dylan backing band sound.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
WHERE ARE YOU TONIGHT?
October 15th, 2015. The path not taken. Just going crazy on the drums.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
WHERE ARE YOU TONIGHT?
October 9th, 2015. After all of it, this is the one I liked the best.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
New York Part One: 149 E. 81st St.
WHERE ARE YOU TONIGHT?
First demo. September 21st, 2015. Recorded in the basement in NJ just before moving to NYC.
DO I HATE SUMMER?.
DON'T THINK TWICE
August 30th, 2015. Songs like this were like the first songs I ever learned back in high school, and I still can't play them.
DO I HATE SUMMER?.
OMG AWAKE MY ST. JOHN
August 17th, 2015. I privately use the acronym YAST: Yet Another St. John. One day I will do this to my satisfaction!
Iowa Frozen.
ALL THE LONELY NIGHTS
January 31st, 2015. "The One That You Love (And Death From Above)" by Jeremy Zorn. Thanks to Toby! In Iowa, walking through the snow to workshop.
Iowa Frozen.
THOTH
FOUR COLLATZ VOICES
October 10th, 2014. This is worth all four hours. I consider it one of my masterpieces. So the Collatz conjecture is the following: You start with a counting number N. The goal is to get to 1. If N is even, you divide out 2's until there are no more 2's, and you're left with an odd number. Well, you can add 1 to get an even number, then take out the 2's until you get another odd, add 1, divide out 2's...until you get to 1. That's trivial. But what happens if instead of just adding 1, you multiply by 3 and add 1. You'll get an even number. Take out the 2's until you're left with an odd number. Multiply by 3, add 1, etc. Will you end up at 1? Collatz conjectured yes. No one knows for sure. (Intuitively: imagine the number as a string of bits. Taking out 2's just pops off 0's from the left: it shrinks the string. Multiplying by three and adding 1 stretches the string. Will shrinking overcome stretching? The problem is also known as the hailstone problem, the metaphor being the number is like a hailstone falling to the earth due to gravity but being buffeted back upwards by the wind. Will it stay up there forever?)
You can consider generalizations: for example, why not multiply by 5 and add 1, and take out 2's and 3's? Why not multiply by 7 and add 1, and take out 2's and 3's and 5's? Consider those four rules:
- N -> N/2 if N % 2 == 0
N -> N + 1 if N % 2 != 0 - N -> N/2 if N % 2 == 0
N -> 3N + 1 if N % 2 != 0 - N -> N/2 if N % 2 == 0
N -> N/3 if N % 3 == 0
N -> 5N + 1 if N % 2 != 0 and N % 3 != 0 - N -> N/2 if N % 2 == 0
N -> N/3 if N % 3 == 0
N -> N/5 if N % 5 == 0
N -> 7N + 1 if N % 2 != 0 and N % 3 != 0 and N % 5 != 0
At least for low N, these rules seem to lead to 1. Now imagine starting with a number N and evaluating each of the four rules in parallel until they each hit 1. Consider the 3N+1 rule: if it hits 1, it goes to 4, then 2, then 1, then 4, then 2, then 1. So imagine when a number hits 1, it just bounces like this waiting for the other three numbers to hit 1. And when they've all hit 1 at least once, you stop. Think of this like a four lines of counterpoint. Interpret each number as a chord where the notes have frequencies corresponding to prime factors and amplitudes corresponding to the multiplicity of the given prime factors. Okay: so now you've got a little four part harmony for any given number N. Then start counting 1, 2, 3, 4, and get the four part harmony for each number, and just play them one after the other. That's what FOUR COLLATZ VOICES is.
THOTH
HAILSTONE CHORDS
September 29th, 2014. See above. I can't remember exactly how this one works, but I think it generates chords where the frequencies of the notes are proportional to the numbers in the hailstone sequence (the path from N to 1) itself.
While we're on the subject: One reason I like the 3N+1 problem is Pythagoreanism related. Pythagoras gets credit for the circle of fifths. You go up a fifth from C to get G, a fifth from G to get D, a fifth from D to get A, all the way around until you end up back at C. Well, almost. Going up fifths is multiplying by 3's. But going up an octave is multiplying by 2's. You'll never get a power of 2 by multiplying by 3's. But by the laws of form, there happens to be coincidental moments when, multiplying by 3's, you end up close to a power of 2, perhaps so close the human ear cannot distinguish the difference. But there is a difference (hence we tune our instruments using even temperament). I feel, however, the 3N+1 problem puts a new twist on this old conundrum: what if instead of going up by 3's and trying futilely to take out 2's (to prove we have a true octave), we go up by a 3, add 1, take out 2's, go up by 3, add 1, take out 2's, which is literally the next simplest thing you could imagine doing. If the conjecture were true, it would mean that a +1 solves Pythagoras's musical crisis. Metaphysically: perfection cannot return to the root; adding the slightst imperfection clears the path to the fundamental.
THOTH
NEOPLATONIC HAILSTONES
September 28th, 2014. See above. This is the hailstorm itself. We're using the 3N+1 rule. And we're counting. And as we get to each number, that number is added to the storm, and tries to fall to 1. So the sky is filled with number shooting down from heaven.