One of the books I'm currently reading is Why You Like It: The Science and Culture of Musical Taste by Nolan Glasser, chief architect of the Pandora Radio’s Music Genome Project. It's a 770 page doorstopper of a book that seems to encompass anything you'd ever want to know about music. My Kindle says I'm only 11 percent done but I've already found some tasty quotes, like this one from Steven Pinker about the utility of music who suspects that “music is auditory cheesecake, an exquisite confection crafted to tickle the sensitive spots of... our mental faculties.”
I guess Pinker is saying that music has no usefulness. It's like a fattening, sugar-laden course after a nourishing meal. It's superfluous and it's only purpose is pleasure.
Martin Luther, on the other hand, believed that music was a gift from God and it's sole purpose was to glorify and worship Him.
My perspective, albeit unpolished and only partly informed, is that music is akin to humour: it's a coping / survival mechanism. It releases endorphins. It feels good and lifts our mood. I also agree with Charles Darwin that song is used for sexual selection and to attract mates, both amongst humans and other animals in nature. We can also use music for worship and creative expression.
As mentioned earlier in this blog, Djent is a subgenre of metal. It's signature sound is heavily distorted guitars, polyrhythmic drumming and synth keyboards. Definitely a prog rock vibe. Guitarists in this genre employ techniques such as “palm muting” and “chugging”. I've been looking for equivalent techniques for the piano / keyboard to use in my dhymn.
For palm muting on the piano I found this example on Reddit. It's a technique commonly used in free jazz by artists such as Cecil Taylor and Paul Bley (here's a great documentary on free jazz).
As for chugging, the closest equivalent sound I can find is the very beginning chords of Tower by Ian Ring. Still looking for other examples.
My new job has thrown me right off my routine and it's been months since my last post. I apologise for breaking my promise.
Now I'm re-designing a practice and writing routine where I can still be productive between 12 hour night shifts. And I've had to recruit help, because even on my nights off it's been hard to focus. My mind has had a hard time adjusting to the time switch.
To finish the arrangement of my Dhymn proof-of-concept, I hired a musician on Fiverr. Many that I asked declined. They felt the gig would be too difficult to take on. One person declined due to religious grounds (he didn't clarify). It's made me contemplate the implications of blending a contemporary, somewhat “aggressive” style of music with a song of worship. This is a topic I'll continue to grapple with – that and the fact I have no right to invent a new music genre with so little knowledge, ability, natural talent and experience!
Despite my hesitations, the first draft A Mighty Fortress Is Our God: Dhymn version is done and uploaded to MuseScore. However, it's not djenty enough. After I learn to play the song in it's entirety (this could take awhile), I'll make changes.
For me, the most difficult part of learning to play a song on the piano is the fingering. Deciphering sheet music and translating it into an efficient sequence of finger movements (at 3am) was so inexorably slow, I decided to hire a local piano teacher to do it for me. She isn't teaching me proper form or music theory, I only hired her to map out the fingering. Lessons are one evening a week – a stop-off on my way to work – and take about 15 minutes, if that.
Since my last post I've tried other methods to move the needle and establish a habit of writing daily, but they haven't worked (obviously). Hopefully this time is different.
P.S. Poseur to Composer has moved to a new service and the version on Write.as may not be updated as regularly, if at all. The RSS feed url has changed as well (here's the new one).
Now I'm sleep during the day and awake at night. However, it's not natural for me to be productive at 3am, so practicing on the music keyboard has not been consistent in the past month and a half and my writing stopped completely – until today. I used self-tracking apps to cut through this mental haze I've been experiencing since becoming nocturnal and get motivated again.
I'll share the details of this rather cool motivational hack in an upcoming post.
Speaking of the nocturnal, I recently finished a book about the making of Bitches Brew, the revolutionary (yet somewhat inaccessible) album by Miles Davis. There's definitely a late night vibe to the recording, and I've been listening to it after work to get me into a chill and relaxed state so I can sleep.
According to the book's author Victor Svorinich, Miles did that on purpose. Here's the excerpt:
Davis held the sessions from ten in the morning to one in the afternoon. Recording in the morning was rare for any musician, and resulted in some grumblings, but he needed his crew fresh and away from the daily distractions they could bring with them. Miles also did not want any disruptions from people hanging around the place, so he closed the studio off to writers, photographers, friends, and ladies. Despite the early start, Miles built an ambience similar to an all-night jam session. “What’s amazing is the mood,” recalled Corea. “If I didn’t know, I’d say this went down at three in the morning."
Yesterday has me reflecting on the importance of silence. First I was verbally thrashed by a co-worker for my friendly 4am banter which he took personally. Then a few hours later a shelter resident publicly berated me for failing to explain our towel policy. Both incidences were self-inflicted because I didn't keep my mouth shut.
I'm usually concerned with saying the right thing. To be congenial and soft spoken. But in a workplace where tensions are high, every word is a step in a minefield. It's better to be strategically silent.
Miles Davis was a master of strategic silence. He's known for pithy sayings like “I always listen to what I can leave out” and “if you don't know what to play, play nothing”.
Listen to Miles and you'll notice, if you haven't already, how judicious he was with the trumpet. It's an approach he adopted near the beginning of his career while playing with Jazz legends Charlie “Bird” Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Miles couldn't keep up with Bird and Dizzy's fast-tempoed solos so he (re)invented his style. Instead of trying harder, he was sparse. His musical statements became pithy like his quotes, but he was more apt to let others talk then punctuate at the right moment.
It was the beginning of the iconic Miles Davis we know, and the style that made Kind of Blue possible.
Meditation
Time bookstanding today: 40
Quality of meditation (out of 10): 6
Practice
Minutes on the keyboard today (out of 40): 20 minutes
Quality of practice (out of 10): 6
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I'm using Jump by Van Halen for developing hand independence. The left hand part is so simple, I can't imagine a better song to start with. And it's working. Under an hour of total practice time and my left hand is playing independent of the right.
While practicing, I recognize an important truth about control: when I focus on either hand I flub up immediately, but when I zoom out and just observe, I play better. It reminds me of something Shunryu Suzuki wrote in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.
About control, Suzuki said:
To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him. So it is with people: first let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good; that is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them.
This is so true. At my new job at the homeless shelter, I serve all different kinds of people. Many have a mental illness or drug addiction, and some self medicate their mental illness or trauma with hard drugs. Others have violent or anti social temperaments. Most are angry. None want to be there. All of them want their own space and live independently, but due to life circumstances they cannot survive without the shelter's help.
As a staff member, I try to give as much leeway and as many choices as possible. If they are in violation of one of the shelter's rules, I inform them but then step back and give them space. With a bit of time and space, most people of sound mind do the right thing of their own accord.
Suzuki goes on to say:
The true purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. This is to put everything under control under the widest sense.
Try the Zen of Control for dealing with people in the fairest possible manner, and paradoxically enough, for developing left hand independence. Just add Van Halen'sJump for best results.
Meditation
Time bookstanding today: 40
Quality of meditation (out of 10): 5
Practice
Minutes on the keyboard today (out of 40): 15 minutes
Quality of practice (out of 10): 6
You can follow this blog via twitter or by RSS in your favorite RSS feed reader. I also send out the occassional newsletter.
A recently published study in The Journal of Physiology shows that neuro plasticity can happen immediately, instead of months or years. The findings show that after just one hour of training with a Brain Computer Interface (BCI), there were measurable changes in areas of the brain specifically required to conduct the tasks.
This answers the question lurking in my mind about how long it takes before these hand independence exercises “rewire the brain” so I can properly play piano with both hands. Encouraging news for anyone who wants to develop hand independence for piano (or any other endeavor) but doesn't have a lot of time.
Meditation
Time bookstanding today: 40
Quality of meditation (out of 10): 6
Practice
Minutes on the keyboard today (out of 40): 5 minutes
Quality of practice (out of 10): 6
You can follow this blog via twitter or by RSS in your favorite RSS feed reader. I also send out the occassional newsletter.
I was having second thoughts about project Dhymn. I wondered if it would be heretical to mix secular musical styles with sacred hymns. But then I discovered that's just what Martin Luther did. At least some of the melodies for his compositions were lifted from popular bar tunes and folk songs of the time and reappropriated for worship.
Luther even quipped, “why should the devil have all the good tunes?”
The substitution of one text for another without substantial change to the music is called contrafactum. Contrafactum was a common practice in the sixteenth century, as there was no concept of copyright law or intellectual property.
An update on the hand independence exercise: I'm gotten a lot quicker, but can only do it five six times in a row before flubbing up. Developing hand independence requires complete attention and awareness. My window of high awareness is short, even with daily meditation.
I'll work on expanding this window with more meditation and mindfulness.
Meditation
Time meditating today: 0
Quality of meditation (out of 10): 0
Practice
Minutes on the keyboard today (out of 40): 20 minutes
Quality of practice (out of 10): 6
Luther Making Music in the Circle of His Family by Gustav Spangenberg
Martin Luther advocated for uniting people as a congregation and worshipping God in heartfelt song. Before then, music was relegated to Roman Catholic priests and monks who sang in Latin, a language the common folk did not understand.
So it's not surprising he had strong feelings about music. Here is what Luther wrote as a forward in a collection of musical compositions. His peppery personality is on full display here.
Our dear fathers and prophets did not desire without reason that music be always used in the churches. Hence, we have so many songs and psalms. This precious gift has been given to man alone that he might thereby remind himself that God has created man for the express purpose of praising and extolling God. However, when man's natural musical ability is whetted and polished to the extent that it becomes an art, then do we note with great surprise the great and perfect wisdom of God in music, which is, after all, His product and His gift; we marvel when we hear music in which one voice sings a simple melody, while three, four, or five other voices play and trip lustily around the voice that sings its simple melody and adorn this simple melody wonderfully with artistic musical effects, thus reminding us of a heavenly dance, where all meet in a spirit of friendliness, caress and embrace. A person who gives this some thought and yet does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.
Meditation
Time bookstanding today: 20
Quality of meditation (out of 10): 7
Practice
Minutes on the keyboard today (out of 40): 15 minutes
Quality of practice (out of 10): 5
Miles Davis, Bitches Brew. Photo by 
Luther Making Music in the Circle of His Family by Gustav Spangenberg