Artists and shamans are both in the business of publicly exercising their abnormal brains. The difference is that shamans are considered to have practical value.
All artists worth talking about are weirdos. I think many of them would have been shamans in a different time. Maybe a shaman is just an artist who has a good scam going. Or maybe it's the other way around.
I've never felt comfortable on the dance floor. I don't understand what I'm doing there, or who I'm doing it for. When I finally got onto the stage, I found a place that made sense. The only place that makes sense, that isn't imaginary or inside a video game.
I've sometimes wondered if I would feel at home in a monastery. Some kind of Zen place, peaceful, lots of time for contemplation. Do places like that really exist? I hope the other monks don't mind if I bring drums.
Today I was sitting on a bench in the snow, near a library, and listening to the Decemberists song "Legionnaire's Lament." I like that one. I like songs with vocabulary words. I started to write down interesting words that rhyme.
Then I saw Sarah Vowell's show, and then Clusterfunk, and then I came home and wrote a rambling blog post using my weird brain.
Irrational Planet - a blog with an eccentric orbit
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Reverb = Genius
Koto-Scale Improv
I've been experimenting with recording recently, and this is the first thing that I've liked enough to put online. This is about %95 improvised. The simple theme at the beginning was planned, as was the key change, but that's it. I probably wouldn't have uploaded it, except that it sounds so spooky with the reverb.
The scale used for the first half originates with a Japanese string instrument, the koto. This scale, called In-Sen, arises from the way the koto is tuned. Interestingly, this five-note scale can be found within the seven-note scales of western music, but its attitude is quite different.
One of the most pleasant scales is the pentatonic, which can be described as a stack of five perfect fifths, for example F-C-G-D-A. Add two more notes to that stack and you get the seven-note scale of the western world, F-C-G-D-A-E-B. The first and last notes are a diminished fifth apart, and form a harmonic boundary between scale tones and the five other "outside" tones on the circle of fifths. Now, cut out the second and third notes, leaving F-D-A-E-B, and there's the In-Sen scale. It shares a sense of purity with the pentatonic, but the diminished fifth drastically changes its character.
I've been experimenting with recording recently, and this is the first thing that I've liked enough to put online. This is about %95 improvised. The simple theme at the beginning was planned, as was the key change, but that's it. I probably wouldn't have uploaded it, except that it sounds so spooky with the reverb.
The scale used for the first half originates with a Japanese string instrument, the koto. This scale, called In-Sen, arises from the way the koto is tuned. Interestingly, this five-note scale can be found within the seven-note scales of western music, but its attitude is quite different.
One of the most pleasant scales is the pentatonic, which can be described as a stack of five perfect fifths, for example F-C-G-D-A. Add two more notes to that stack and you get the seven-note scale of the western world, F-C-G-D-A-E-B. The first and last notes are a diminished fifth apart, and form a harmonic boundary between scale tones and the five other "outside" tones on the circle of fifths. Now, cut out the second and third notes, leaving F-D-A-E-B, and there's the In-Sen scale. It shares a sense of purity with the pentatonic, but the diminished fifth drastically changes its character.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Eris Vs. Eros
Here is my second tune to be posted to the interwebs: Eris Vs. Eros.
Three mythological names in one title may be a bit too much implicit meaning for a three-minute long computerized instrumental to live up to, but once I'd thought of the name there was no doubt that I was going to use it. Don't read too much into it. Titles are mostly a hook to catch someone's attention and give them a rough picture of the content. I feel it's appropriate that they should be only vaguely suggestive, though, because too much "meaning" up front prevents the audience from hearing the music with an open mind.
This brings to mind something that David Byrne wrote in the liner notes for the CD release of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts:
Byrne: In the West, anyway, the causal link between the author and performer is strong. For instance, it is assumed that I write lyrics(and the accompanying music) for songs because I have something I need to "express." And that as a performer it is assumed that everything one utters is naturally autobiographical. I find that more often, on the contrary, it is the music and the lyric that trigger the emotion within me rather than the other way around. By making music, we are pushing our own buttons, in effect, and the surprising thing is that vocals that we didn't write or even sing can make us feel a gamut of emotions just as much as ones that we wrote. In a way making music is constructing machines that, when successful, dredge up emotions - in us and in the listener. Some people find this idea repulsive, for it seems to relegate the artist to the level of trickster, manipulator, deceiver. They would prefer to see music as an "expression" of emotion rather than a generator of it, to believe in the artist as someone with something to "say." This queasiness is connected with the idea of authenticity as well; that, for example, musicians who "appear" down-home must be more real.
I was very happy to read that, because it matches up with my own artistic experiences and makes me feel that I'm on the right track. Writing music for me is an almost psychedelic experience. During the creative act, there is little conscious consideration of "meaning." There is instead a feedback loop of generating ideas and critiquing them, over and over again until the thing feels right and complete in its entirety. Meaning arises unconsciously, as the art that one creates tends to reflect one's feelings at the time, even if one is not aware of it.
Three mythological names in one title may be a bit too much implicit meaning for a three-minute long computerized instrumental to live up to, but once I'd thought of the name there was no doubt that I was going to use it. Don't read too much into it. Titles are mostly a hook to catch someone's attention and give them a rough picture of the content. I feel it's appropriate that they should be only vaguely suggestive, though, because too much "meaning" up front prevents the audience from hearing the music with an open mind.
This brings to mind something that David Byrne wrote in the liner notes for the CD release of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts:
Byrne: In the West, anyway, the causal link between the author and performer is strong. For instance, it is assumed that I write lyrics(and the accompanying music) for songs because I have something I need to "express." And that as a performer it is assumed that everything one utters is naturally autobiographical. I find that more often, on the contrary, it is the music and the lyric that trigger the emotion within me rather than the other way around. By making music, we are pushing our own buttons, in effect, and the surprising thing is that vocals that we didn't write or even sing can make us feel a gamut of emotions just as much as ones that we wrote. In a way making music is constructing machines that, when successful, dredge up emotions - in us and in the listener. Some people find this idea repulsive, for it seems to relegate the artist to the level of trickster, manipulator, deceiver. They would prefer to see music as an "expression" of emotion rather than a generator of it, to believe in the artist as someone with something to "say." This queasiness is connected with the idea of authenticity as well; that, for example, musicians who "appear" down-home must be more real.
I was very happy to read that, because it matches up with my own artistic experiences and makes me feel that I'm on the right track. Writing music for me is an almost psychedelic experience. During the creative act, there is little conscious consideration of "meaning." There is instead a feedback loop of generating ideas and critiquing them, over and over again until the thing feels right and complete in its entirety. Meaning arises unconsciously, as the art that one creates tends to reflect one's feelings at the time, even if one is not aware of it.
art/life/game
A recurring issue of the day is whether video games qualify as art. Proponents point out that video games are clearly able to recreate art in any of its various forms, whether as film, music, painting, comic books, or even theater. Of course, the video game context changes things, which is where the naysayers come in. Games are defined by interactivity. Take away interactivity from a video game and the result is a very different medium, typically something like a computer-animated movie. If the audience has a choice in the outcome of the story, is it still art? Some have argued that the meaning of art disappears in this case. Another complaint is that games often offer not so much a plot as a laundry list of meaningless chores. Sort of like real life.
Let's go back to the beginning. Video games can do everything art can do and more. Even if we were to agree that interactivity destroys artistry(and it doesn't, but let it go) this point remains. Art is something that you get when you remove features from video games, or to put it more simply, video games are bigger than art. Art is a way for an artist to share his ideas about life, but ideas are ethereal. They don't have to prove themselves against the logic of the real world. Games are more real than art, with physical rules and cause and effect. Art is given significance by its distance from life, while games are trivialized by their closeness to it. Which then, are video games closer to, art or life? They are fictional, but they are a kind of existence.
A better phrase to describe video games is "virtual reality," and I think if we remember this label every time we talk about games vs. art, many things become clearer. Everything that goes on in "real" reality can be simulated in virtual reality. Our virtual realities still have practical limitations, such as the lack of full sensory input, but the only absolute distinction between virtual and real is that virtual realities will always be simpler than the reality that contains them.
Video games, then, are a bit like life and a bit like art. There's a recursive pair of aphorisms - Art imitates life, and life imitates art. Is art life? Is life a game? Are games an art? Video games both epitomize and irrelevantize the distinctions between these elements. Video games are art/life/game. There may come a time when humans forget that art/life/game was once three different things.
Let's go back to the beginning. Video games can do everything art can do and more. Even if we were to agree that interactivity destroys artistry(and it doesn't, but let it go) this point remains. Art is something that you get when you remove features from video games, or to put it more simply, video games are bigger than art. Art is a way for an artist to share his ideas about life, but ideas are ethereal. They don't have to prove themselves against the logic of the real world. Games are more real than art, with physical rules and cause and effect. Art is given significance by its distance from life, while games are trivialized by their closeness to it. Which then, are video games closer to, art or life? They are fictional, but they are a kind of existence.
A better phrase to describe video games is "virtual reality," and I think if we remember this label every time we talk about games vs. art, many things become clearer. Everything that goes on in "real" reality can be simulated in virtual reality. Our virtual realities still have practical limitations, such as the lack of full sensory input, but the only absolute distinction between virtual and real is that virtual realities will always be simpler than the reality that contains them.
Video games, then, are a bit like life and a bit like art. There's a recursive pair of aphorisms - Art imitates life, and life imitates art. Is art life? Is life a game? Are games an art? Video games both epitomize and irrelevantize the distinctions between these elements. Video games are art/life/game. There may come a time when humans forget that art/life/game was once three different things.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Shuffle Kerfuffle
I'm stealing this idea from the Onion. Ten songs on shuffle:
1.Play Dead - Bjork
Bjork's pretty cool. I guess people have opinions about her. I dunno. She's a great singer. This song has a funky bass line. I like it.
2. Blackbird/Yesterday - The Beatles
This is from the new Love album of mashups and greatest hits. I ignored the Beatles for a long time because I figure things that are that popular probably aren't any good. Turns out, they live up to the hype. Yesterday is one of the most enjoyable songs to sing along with.
3. J-E-N-O-V-A - The Black Mages
One of the best compositions from the Final Fantasy series, in rock form. I love the key changes in this. It keeps shifting up or down a minor third. Strangely affecting.
4. Chocolate City - Parliament
In Parliament's cool guy on the radio series, this one isn't as fun as Wants to Get Funked Up, but it's still cool. And it seems particularly relevant today - "They call it the white house, but that's a temporary condition."
5. jags minns inte - psilodump
This is one of many tracks I got from 8-bit Peoples. If you like the idea of music made with primitive video game sound chips, this is the site for you. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but I love that sound.
6. Fugue #7777 - Asuka Sakai
In the video game Katamari Damacy, this is the theme of the King of All Cosmos. It's a funny synth-opera type of thing. I like having this piece of silliness show up in my shuffles, almost as much as Totaka's Song.
7. Slippery People - Talking Heads
I love Talking Heads, especially in their funky phase. I believe that David Byrne is the ultimate cool white man.
8. Lint of Love - Cibo Matto
My sister got me into this band, which is kind of like J-Pop made by Americans of Japanese descent. They have a unique attitude, and there's a lot of humor in their lyrics. I'd say Lint of Love is definitely their best song. It's both funny and musically strong.
9. Metal Man Goes Clubbing - Disco Dan
From the venerable Overclocked Remix. Like a lot of these game remixes, this one goes on a bit long for my tastes, but it's still great fun. It's almost impossible to go wrong with Mega Man 2.
10. Hanging In There - Ray Holman (Mannette Festival 2003)
Ray Holman is one of the greatest pan composers. In his lightning-quick panorama pieces, he packs more excitement into a few chords than some people manage in entire songs. And then he has tunes like Hanging In There and Since You've Gone that draw you in with impressionistic harmonies but get more emotional as they go.
1.Play Dead - Bjork
Bjork's pretty cool. I guess people have opinions about her. I dunno. She's a great singer. This song has a funky bass line. I like it.
2. Blackbird/Yesterday - The Beatles
This is from the new Love album of mashups and greatest hits. I ignored the Beatles for a long time because I figure things that are that popular probably aren't any good. Turns out, they live up to the hype. Yesterday is one of the most enjoyable songs to sing along with.
3. J-E-N-O-V-A - The Black Mages
One of the best compositions from the Final Fantasy series, in rock form. I love the key changes in this. It keeps shifting up or down a minor third. Strangely affecting.
4. Chocolate City - Parliament
In Parliament's cool guy on the radio series, this one isn't as fun as Wants to Get Funked Up, but it's still cool. And it seems particularly relevant today - "They call it the white house, but that's a temporary condition."
5. jags minns inte - psilodump
This is one of many tracks I got from 8-bit Peoples. If you like the idea of music made with primitive video game sound chips, this is the site for you. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but I love that sound.
6. Fugue #7777 - Asuka Sakai
In the video game Katamari Damacy, this is the theme of the King of All Cosmos. It's a funny synth-opera type of thing. I like having this piece of silliness show up in my shuffles, almost as much as Totaka's Song.
7. Slippery People - Talking Heads
I love Talking Heads, especially in their funky phase. I believe that David Byrne is the ultimate cool white man.
8. Lint of Love - Cibo Matto
My sister got me into this band, which is kind of like J-Pop made by Americans of Japanese descent. They have a unique attitude, and there's a lot of humor in their lyrics. I'd say Lint of Love is definitely their best song. It's both funny and musically strong.
9. Metal Man Goes Clubbing - Disco Dan
From the venerable Overclocked Remix. Like a lot of these game remixes, this one goes on a bit long for my tastes, but it's still great fun. It's almost impossible to go wrong with Mega Man 2.
10. Hanging In There - Ray Holman (Mannette Festival 2003)
Ray Holman is one of the greatest pan composers. In his lightning-quick panorama pieces, he packs more excitement into a few chords than some people manage in entire songs. And then he has tunes like Hanging In There and Since You've Gone that draw you in with impressionistic harmonies but get more emotional as they go.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Haikus From Hell!
1
Hi, welcome to hell
See the pits of sadism
and the lava lakes
2
smoldering fires
endless torment of the damned
A nice cup of tea
3
In this dungeon dwells
Lucifer's favorite prey
Telemarketers
4
They never hang up
So steel spikes shoot from the phone
The wire strangles them
5
Grotesque and mangled
The corpses reanimate
To be killed anew
6
God's sense of humor
Nothing without irony
Hell is sarcastic
7
Cleansing satire
redemptive comedy with
a happy ending
8
The horror you see
Is just our way of showing
How we truly care
9
This concludes our tour.
Please patronize the gift shop.
Thank you for coming.
Hi, welcome to hell
See the pits of sadism
and the lava lakes
2
smoldering fires
endless torment of the damned
A nice cup of tea
3
In this dungeon dwells
Lucifer's favorite prey
Telemarketers
4
They never hang up
So steel spikes shoot from the phone
The wire strangles them
5
Grotesque and mangled
The corpses reanimate
To be killed anew
6
God's sense of humor
Nothing without irony
Hell is sarcastic
7
Cleansing satire
redemptive comedy with
a happy ending
8
The horror you see
Is just our way of showing
How we truly care
9
This concludes our tour.
Please patronize the gift shop.
Thank you for coming.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Multi-Genre Video Games
Why yes, I am indeed seeing how many different topics I can post about in my first week of blogging.
Occasionally a game comes out that consists of two different types of game neatly pasted together. The results are usually quite memorable. You'd almost think game designers would try it more often, but I suppose it means a lot of extra work. I'm not sure how many games like this have been made, but I can think of three off the top of my head.
In Sunsoft's NES classic Blaster Master, you put on a spacesuit and drive a tank into a mysterious underworld, searching for a frog. Not a frog that turns into a princess or anything like that, just a frog. The main world is a sidescrolling platform game that's a bit nonlinear. Sometimes you'll find buildings where you can exit the tank and enter a Zelda-like overhead view. All the bosses are fought in this mode, including... more frogs. Big ones.
Also appearing on the NES was The Guardian Legend, from Compile. This time, the main world that you wander around in is the Zelda-style one. When it's time for action, the anime cyborg heroine transforms into a spaceship and flies into a 2D shooter remniscent of the top-down parts of Life Force. Less frog fetishization in this one. Maybe that's why I never liked TGL nearly as much as Blaster Master. It's still a good game, though.
The last example that springs readily to mind is Actraiser for the Super NES, made by Quintet. This short but excellent game puts you in the role of a vengeful god, cleansing the world of demons and eradicating every ecosystem that your worshippers can't cope with. There are no specific references to frogs in the game, but I guess we can assume from its stance on environmentalism that it's even less frog-friendly than The Guardian Legend. Anyway, the up-close-and-personal business of demon-smiting is done in a side-scrolling format, by your sword-wielding avatar. The grander scale of the game is seen in the simulation mode, where you and your cherubic lackey guide the development of civilization. Actraiser is probably the best of these three games, although it's also the easiest and shortest.
Am I forgetting some other games that would fit this criteria? Do they have frogs in them? If my frog ran away and fell into a vast underworld I think I'd just get a new one.
Occasionally a game comes out that consists of two different types of game neatly pasted together. The results are usually quite memorable. You'd almost think game designers would try it more often, but I suppose it means a lot of extra work. I'm not sure how many games like this have been made, but I can think of three off the top of my head.
In Sunsoft's NES classic Blaster Master, you put on a spacesuit and drive a tank into a mysterious underworld, searching for a frog. Not a frog that turns into a princess or anything like that, just a frog. The main world is a sidescrolling platform game that's a bit nonlinear. Sometimes you'll find buildings where you can exit the tank and enter a Zelda-like overhead view. All the bosses are fought in this mode, including... more frogs. Big ones.
Also appearing on the NES was The Guardian Legend, from Compile. This time, the main world that you wander around in is the Zelda-style one. When it's time for action, the anime cyborg heroine transforms into a spaceship and flies into a 2D shooter remniscent of the top-down parts of Life Force. Less frog fetishization in this one. Maybe that's why I never liked TGL nearly as much as Blaster Master. It's still a good game, though.
The last example that springs readily to mind is Actraiser for the Super NES, made by Quintet. This short but excellent game puts you in the role of a vengeful god, cleansing the world of demons and eradicating every ecosystem that your worshippers can't cope with. There are no specific references to frogs in the game, but I guess we can assume from its stance on environmentalism that it's even less frog-friendly than The Guardian Legend. Anyway, the up-close-and-personal business of demon-smiting is done in a side-scrolling format, by your sword-wielding avatar. The grander scale of the game is seen in the simulation mode, where you and your cherubic lackey guide the development of civilization. Actraiser is probably the best of these three games, although it's also the easiest and shortest.
Am I forgetting some other games that would fit this criteria? Do they have frogs in them? If my frog ran away and fell into a vast underworld I think I'd just get a new one.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
The Internet is Star Trek Technology
In the future of Star Trek, Earth is a utopia where technology satisfies everyone's needs and desires. There is no money because nothing is scarce. There is no business because nothing is exploitable. In short, Star Trek technology makes people happier while also making capitalism obsolete. On the TV show, they rarely went into much depth about this, so there are some logical holes. How does their government work? Would we ever really run out of things to buy and sell? Does Captain Sisko's father run a restaurant simply because he wants to? How do the Ferengi continue to be unapologetically capitalist when they have all the same technology? These issues aside, the premise is a sound one - technology removes limitations from our lives, and businesses which exist to exploit those limitations inevitably die off.
The internet is the Enterprise's copy machine. It makes copies of anything, for anyone, in any quantity. A lot of money was made in the 20th century by selling copies, but in the 21st, copying information is a basic fact of life. Trying to corner the market on digital copies now is like trying to corner the market on oxygen. I'm not sure what replaces the old business model, but ignoring change is not an option.
The two things to note here are A: Star Trek technology improves life for humanity in general, and B: Star Trek technology makes business models obsolete. Maybe I watched too much Star Trek, but I think it's only a matter of time before A makes us forget that we had any concerns over B.
Ps. Another good sci-fi allegory for the internet age is The Stars My Destination.
The internet is the Enterprise's copy machine. It makes copies of anything, for anyone, in any quantity. A lot of money was made in the 20th century by selling copies, but in the 21st, copying information is a basic fact of life. Trying to corner the market on digital copies now is like trying to corner the market on oxygen. I'm not sure what replaces the old business model, but ignoring change is not an option.
The two things to note here are A: Star Trek technology improves life for humanity in general, and B: Star Trek technology makes business models obsolete. Maybe I watched too much Star Trek, but I think it's only a matter of time before A makes us forget that we had any concerns over B.
Ps. Another good sci-fi allegory for the internet age is The Stars My Destination.
The Irrational Planet Thing
A few years ago, I was sitting in computer science 101 and thinking about music instead of paying attention. I was mentally stuck in 5/4 time, a seldom-used meter with five beats to the measure(famous examples of pieces in 5/4 include the Mission Impossible theme, Take Five by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, and a Gorillaz song simply titled 5/4*). One nice thing about being stuck in 5/4 is it makes you nigh invulnerable to earworms. After a great deal of thinking and tapping out rhythms with my pencil, I wrote in my notebook a rhythmic pattern of three dotted quarter notes and an eighth note. This would become a bass line. I chose E minor simply because I hadn't composed anything in E minor before. I added a repeating motif above the bass that would become the central theme of the entire piece. I had a random idea that the melody could be split between measures, taking up two-and-a-half beats each from the measure preceding it and the measure following. If only all my random ideas worked out so well. It would take two more years of listening, tweaking, and learning before I was able to finish the piece. I began to feel that I'd painted myself into a corner with weird overlapping rhythms and wonky chord progressions.
While listening to the tune, I had a funny notion that it might be considered dance music on some other planet inhabitated by many-legged Far Side-esque aliens(I've often thought that in a perfect world, Take Five would have inspired a dance craze instead of just a trend in jazz). So I decided that the name of the piece would reflect this idea, although it would take a lot of brainstorming to come up with the final title, Irrational Planet. And Irrational Planet: The Song Thing led to Irrational Planet: The Album Thing, and now I'm posting it on Irrational Planet: The Blog Thing. This rendition of the tune was created in Logic with software synthesizers.
Irrational Planet: The MP3
*Video game fans should also recall the Ridley boss theme from the Metroid games, the battle theme from Final Fantasy VIII, and the final overworld theme from Secret of Mana.
While listening to the tune, I had a funny notion that it might be considered dance music on some other planet inhabitated by many-legged Far Side-esque aliens(I've often thought that in a perfect world, Take Five would have inspired a dance craze instead of just a trend in jazz). So I decided that the name of the piece would reflect this idea, although it would take a lot of brainstorming to come up with the final title, Irrational Planet. And Irrational Planet: The Song Thing led to Irrational Planet: The Album Thing, and now I'm posting it on Irrational Planet: The Blog Thing. This rendition of the tune was created in Logic with software synthesizers.
Irrational Planet: The MP3
*Video game fans should also recall the Ridley boss theme from the Metroid games, the battle theme from Final Fantasy VIII, and the final overworld theme from Secret of Mana.
Friday, March 14, 2008
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