Category Archives: Music Theory

I have to say, perfect pitch is awesome.

I have to say, perfect pitch is awesome.

arranging/composing music with it is just….

I bet somehow like super-vision or somethin. or like KNOWING what people are thinking or feeling. (the kind superman has)

yeah yeah, you can say that “but that would take all the fun out of it!” (I’ve heard as much)
but NO-
it opens up ENTIRELY NEW realms of “fun.”

you wouldn’t say that having MAPS takes all the fun out of sailing.

well, you might, but HAVING them, there are still “fun” things about it.

a dog that could see in 3-D. would still be a dog.

my. dear me. hard to explain/Pat Metheny

my. dear me. hard to explain.

hearing some music, a few “very sad” old Pat Metheny tunes

(“September Fifteenth” and “It’s For You” both from the Wichita Falls album which are “almost” AS sad as the song “San Lorenzo” from their first, Self-Titled album.)

many years ago, it seems (1999, maybe even 1998)
these songs seem to have been a part of moving on after college (in hindsight, all before calarts:)

leaving old friendships, literally,

and a HORRIBLE sense of loss and hopelessness, as if our best days were alREADy behind us (yes, I was 22 or 23… how funny it seems now.)

as if mistakes made then could NEVER be corrected, improved upon,

as if we’d alREADY made the wrong choices and we would NEVER EVER have second chances, at life, love, anything.

(reading these words…. thinking of them…
I can’t help but think

“my GOD, WHAT kind of depressing as fuck upbringing did I HAVE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!”

I used to hear these songs and, well, short of crying (which DID happen, sometimes,) I’d just LANGUISH in a pile of misery and despair… their jazzy harmonies (Ebm11…. minor 11 chords… not unlike in a Reich piece…).

I thought things would NEVER get better.

it all had something too, to do with a film known as FANDANGO, a coming-of-age film, starring the young kevin costner, about some young men in a very similar situation (albeit, the vietnam war draft wasn’t a factor in our own real-life version.)

(this film was after the fact; we knew and experienced the songs and feelings “quite some time” before becoming aware of a film which seemingly by coincidene, used several of the same songs and feelings)

flash foward to today.

while I could indeed be happier,

I couldn’t really be much happier with the crazy fun stuff I get to do.

SO MANY new things happened after those days, SO much music, SO many people, SO many friends, so many EVERYTHINGS.

and they tell me I’m still young.

(I read about Dementia today…. sounds like it sucks, hopefully I’ll already have lived well enough if I ever get it.)

I’m hearing one of these tunes RIGHT NOW.

“It’s For You” from the Wichita Falls album by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays.

Bill Maley. I remember all this, old friend:)

I bet you also do.

life is pretty good.  smile emoticon

psst: I’m a leader! (shhh)

Today I asked someone trusted, the question of the week:

“Why is it that so very often, what normal/other/average/many people consider to be a reasonable way of doing things… is so VERY “out of phase” with how I would do them?

this has troubled me for DECADES.

Their answer?

“Because you are a Leader.”

speechless.

very nice indeed.

 

 

 

 

this is tagged almost EVERYTHING, cause it IS almost everything.

missing Joe LaBarbara, “working” instead

I was gonna go see Joe LaBarbara tonight…. now I gotta WORK instead (and by work, I mean compose the ending to a Marching band show with the only stipulations being that it finishes the last song (which I WROTE) and uses some of the material from the first song (which I also WROTE.)

 

if you can consider “composing music” to be work, and if you can consider marching band music to in fact be “music” (hey, I like the stuff, sometimes, and I can say more for it than “at least, my TASTE”, in country, or folk (nothing against them, they just…. don’t much “speak” to me, but that says little about them and everything about me, just like people I’m not attracted to, they are fine, I just, don’t want em that way.

 

#onlyhuman:)

I just used the term “V for Vendettafication” to describe-

I just used the term

“V for Vendettafication”

to describe a chord progression.

HELL yeah

it was the kind where one note is sustained, and several chords, all of which CONTAIN said note, are played under/above it.

 

such as

A is the note…

am   (a is the root

B7   (a is the minor 7th)

FM7   (a is the major 3rd)

DM add 9.   A is the perfect 5th.)

(this is actually from V for Vendetta (“Evey Reborn”) (though similar progressions are found throughout the ENTIRE soundtrack…(“I want this message to be heard throughout the ENTIRE INTerlink!”)

 

 

African Rhythms Remembered

2 hours last night, and one tonight, I remembered 36 (African) rhythms, with dozens more to go.

(I learned them gradually over “many” years, and at one point, wrote some of them down in rudimentary ways. months ago, I accidentally deleted all the notation (and every other microsoft file I had for the last 11 years.)

good thing I had already long since memorized all of them:)

only have about 50 more to go. learning things in such a way that you remember them for years is good-feeling.

Thought of the Day, 10 16 2015

Thought of the Day, 10 16 2015

normal people often leave me wanting more excitement.
creative weirdos who DON’T just do a little of it on top of their otherwise conventional life…, yeah. I’m judging, I know. I know.

I just love… people so into one thing, or many, that they don’t really bother with all that average social niceties stuff.

who’s got time for it, or the interest, when there are for more compelling things to learn and do.

like insane music, and togetherness of jams, and Cs F#s 5s 7s jam.

I wrote and write marching band music fun fun

I wrote marching band music (hey, it pays and it’s fun) lately.
surprisingly enjoyable. one of the songs is sorta supposed to sound like danny elfman, but not BE him. curious. (I’m surprised how easy “sounding like someone else” was, but maybe it was luck. hey, I don’y really write “non-percussive” music EVER, ya know?