The fourth Easier Piece is a tango. Why not?
Here’s what I came up with so far this morning:
Easier Piece No. 4 (Tango) | mp3
I’m exploring the power of repeats.
One thing I will decide as I go along is how long it should be. It might be nice to have an extremely short, langorous dance—or we could really go for it with a passionate central section that steps up our game. Comments are welcome.
I’ve been reading Daily Rituals, by Mason Currey, as my bedtime reading. It’s a very simple read: brief descriptions of the daily working habits of scores of writers, artists, and composers. They don’t seem to be in any particular order, and a great many of them were already known to me, but it is nonetheless inspirational in a belaboring-about-the-head-and-shoulders kind of way.
Ben Franklin had his daily ritual and even published it:
He was the first to admit that he found it difficult to follow this schedule, but that when he did it was productive.
So have I learned my lesson? Sure—over and over again.
Back when I was fully employed and working on William Blake’s Inn and the penguin opera, I composed on Sunday mornings and Wednesday/Thursday nights without fail. The iPad in the kitchen still beeps me every Sunday morning to remind me to get to work.
Since retirement, I have attempted to maintain a fuller schedule, to wit:
Does it work? Mostly. When I really buckle down, I’m able to knock out new music, blog regularly, write books, etc. If I allow myself to be lazy, then nothing gets done. (It is worth noting, too, that I follow this schedule only on weekdays. Weekends are for debauchery fun.)
These past two weeks, for example, I have made real progress on Five Easier Pieces, writing and/or completing three of them, and yes, I’ve started the process of writing a book.
That book is Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy, and it’s based on a seminar on Lichtenbergianism a bunch of us gave at GHP back in 2013, a light-hearted—but quite serious—look at the creative process.
At first, I considered a series of blogposts for the Lichtenbergian website, but nothing was happening. I just wasn’t able to pull the swarm of ideas out of my head and put them into a coherent whole on the screen, topic by topic.
Then last week, as the weather turned warmer and I was able to return to the labyrinth for afternoon work, I pulled out my Lichtenbergianism field notebook and began writing in it, randomly. So far I’ve been able to write about an hour every afternoon, just jotting down phrases and ideas and examples as they come to me.
In its own way, the process is a perfect exemplar of the the Nine Precepts of Lichtenbergianism:
So far so good. The book and its composition are recursive: the more I write about each precept, the more I find it applies to the writing, which I then reference: “This book was started in a waste book…”
Eventually I hope to start turning the waste book material into blog posts for my fellow Lichtenbergians for their comments. One of my gestalt visions for the book is to include sidebars and blockquotes from them about how they use the creative process in their daily work, much as we did in the original seminar.
So that’s my daily ritual. For the moment. I should really look at a fourth Easier Piece now…
I think I’ve finished the third Easier Piece. There’s still some slippery/bare harmonies in there, probably caused by parallel fifths/octaves but I’m not going to go check right now. Let’s consider it done unless my theory teacher raps me across my knuckles.[1]
Five Easier Pieces: No. 3 (Étude Héroïque) | score [pdf] | mp3
—————
[1] The joke is on the universe, since it has never provided me with a theory teacher despite my specific requests that it do so.
As is not unusual, I am stuck with a piece, in this case the third abortive attempt at one of the Five Easier Pieces. Some really nice bits, especially the transition to the major key, but then it starts to wander, and I have no idea on how to end it.
I don’t know why, but recently I have avoided sharing my works-in-progress. I don’t know why; it used to be my stock in trade to whine about how little I was accomplishing. Perhaps it was better when I did, and so I’m sharing now.
No score, but here’s the mp3: abortive attempt #3
These Next 5 Minutes will ‘Change’ Your life
Shaving away: your ‘Savings’ on Razors.
Drive your Partner – ‘Crazy’ in Bed Tonight.
No more ‘struggling’ – to hook your bra!
Thousands of ‘Jobs‘ — are 2 Mins Away!
We Are Recruiting ‘New Agents’ In Your Area
We have a ‘huge selection’ – of printer ink
Stop your Dog — from ‘Pulling’ on Walks
Protect your — ‘Garage Floor’ Today!
Extra cushioning and ‘odor protection’
Find Hot-deals on winter—‘Cruises’
5 BIG ‘Early Warning’ Signs of Memory Loss?
Need ‘pricing’ on local assisted living options…
We have a ‘massive’ number – of active members…
Do Not Live in Fear: of Loud Noises !
These of course came from spam emails in my spam filter. The mysterious thing is that on Feb. 4, the quotation marks vanished from all the subject lines!
We spent this past weekend in Asheville, NC, and I have to recommend it highly. Great food, fabulous art, and a kick in my creative pants!
One of the most fun things we did was to go to a bar/club called Lex 18, at which a DJ spins electroswing on Friday nights. Do you not know what electroswing is?
Here you go:
Or here:
Or here:
You’re welcome.
The dance floor was filled with young persons who knew what they were doing, and it was fabulous. (We also danced, for the record.)
Anyway, we visited studios and galleries and ate fantastic meals, and I’ve been inspired to get back to work.
Before heading up to Asheville, we went to Athens to hear Peter Schickele in concert. He is now 80 and in a wheelchair, but his music has lost none of its charm, wit, or éclat. It made me want to get home and produce music of my own. For a change.
So this morning I sat down and got back to work on Five Easier Pieces, which has been on my plate for several years now. I actually started a new file and played with some motifs, but when I went to save the file I found that I had a small flock of abortive attempts, so I opened those to see if there was anything worth looking at.
Lo! and also behold! most of them were actually pretty good, so I set aside this morning’s work and picked up two of them and filled them out.
And so, I present to you…
Five Easier Pieces (a companion to, and a partial apology for, Six Preludes (no fugues))
I. No. 1 (Invention) | score [pdf] | mp3
II. No. 2 (Waltz) | score [pdf] | mp3
There will be further reportage on the Asheville venture.
Here is part of what I wrote for my son’s wedding in October:
It is usually said at weddings
that the ring is a circular symbol
of the unbroken, never-ending nature of love.
That is certainly true,
but I would like to take a different tack today.
When you selected these rings for each other—
and I imagine that this is true
for all those here today who are married—
you took care to select something
that would be pleasing to its wearer—
because you will be wearing these rings for a very long time,
and no one wants their spouse to look down
and be reminded of how inappropriate their wedding ring is.
More than that—
it is a physical reminder of your vows today.
At first you will find its presence an odd thing
as you constantly play with it,
testing its right to be there
and marveling at what fortune or fate
brought you to this most excellent pass.
Eventually, its presence will no longer surprise you,
but your awareness of it on your finger
never goes away,
and I hope that every time
you rather absentmindedly fiddle with it,
you will feel—even if subconsciously—
the blessing of being married to the one you love.
Finally, your ring is an outward show
of your commitment to each other.
In a few moments, its presence on your finger
will tell everyone you meet
that you have come to be with the person
you are meant to be with,
and that you have vowed to be
with him or her for the rest of your life.
Thus others know of your blessing.
I post this today because two nights ago, as I sat by the fire with my lovely first wife, I looked down at my hand and realized that my wedding ring was gone. Completely not there. At some point that day, it had slipped from my hand and vanished into the universe.
How? is the question that keeps hammering in my head. How did I not feel it come off? How did I not hear it hit whatever it bounced off of before vanishing? I never take it off (except for the occasional MRI or stage role), so it had to work its way off.
I do remember washing my hands that afternoon as I prepared soup for supper and noticing then that it was loose. Over the years, as I’ve gained weight, I’ve had it expanded a couple of times—it was originally a very small ring for a man. It might even have been a woman’s ring; I forget. But now as I age and my weight fluctuates, it has gotten looser.
It has stuck in my head that it might have vanished when I pulled off gloves, either my work gloves when I trundled firewood up to the front porch or the rubber gloves after I washed dishes. But it’s not in the kitchen or in the yard.
I didn’t leave the house after I started cooking, so even though I called Home Depot and Kroger to ask them to be on the lookout, I know it’s in neither of those places.
Needless to say, we have scoured the entire house and yard multiple times. We’ve gone through the trash. I’ve disassembled the bathroom sink. (The kitchen sink has a garbage disposal—I would have known if it had gone down that drain.) We’ve swept under furniture, pulled sheets off the bed, and emptied coats, pants, and gloves every ten minutes.
It’s gone.
It was square, gold, engraved, and it is still a part of me. Everything I said in my wedding homily was based on my ring, and everything I said is true. I am deeply wounded by its loss; it cannot be gone.
It is gone.
So this came in—or tried to come in—through the transom today:
===============================================.
IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR: dale@dalelyles.com.
===============================================.
URGENT – BANNED.
===============================================.Dear Subscriber,
Prepared yourself: there is a new scandal that is poised to break.
This scandal is regarding what we now know to be a GIANT conspiracy
between our government many of the biggest producers of food in the
country.
This alarming-story is so controversial that Fox-News not only banned it
from being aired, they then fired the two-reporters who were trying to
air it.
If you are happy with our president, you shouldn’t even bother watching
this presentation.
This is so shocking that many people are going to want to IMPEACH Obama
for what he’s been doing…This may be the thing that finally takes him
down.VISIT HERE TODAY and get more information on this story:
http://see5.yournewurgent-alerts.rocksI must warn you though, what you are going to find out may seriously
turn your stomach.Best-Regards,
Doug Hill
Director, LaissezFaire Club
Every day I get a report from my email server’s spam filter. Since it’s not always 100% smart, I have taken to logging in and scanning all 100+ messages to make sure that the Chicago Symphony is not trying to reach me about William Blake’s Inn. (Did you know that they in fact have been given the score by someone in Chicago’s arts scene? But let that pass.)
This was clearly spam, but sometimes I just feel like mucking out the stables, you know? So I peeked at the content, which is what you want to do when you don’t want to admit these vampires into your inbox.
I was dazed at the audacity with which the sender hit the jackpot with Nutjob Bingo:
Don’t you just want to click on that link now?
Pro Tip: don’t ever click on the link.
Here’s the thing about that link: I’ve seen a lot of these floating around the spam, these URLs that end with some bizarre top-level domain. .rock? Really? How does that even work even? (But it does: .rock is a generic top-level domain for “general” use, whatever the hell that means.)
Be that as it may, don’t click on the link. Copy the text of the link, see5.yournewurgent-alerts.rocks, paste it into your browserand see where it takes you. (Conversely, you can right-click on the link and see the actual link buried behind the text. Dollars to donuts it’s not the same thing.)
Out of extra caution, I left off the see5 and went straight to the front page, yournewurgent-alerts.rocks, and guess what? It doesn’t exist.
httpv://youtu.be/rX7wtNOkuHo
I put the see5 back in there. Still doesn’t exist.
Went back to the spam filter and saw that the email was from wen.yournewurgent-alerts.rocks, so I tried that. Nope.
So now here’s the quandary: how was this supposed to work, spam-speaking-wise? There wasn’t anything to click on, neither to trigger a malware installation nor to take me to a terrible website. The URL they gave me that I URGENTLY needed to read because NUTJOB BINGO WORDS, doesn’t exist. So I mean to say, wot?
update, 1/24/15: Another one today, identical message, this time from ConstitutionalProtectionAgency@yournewurgent-alerts.rocks
