名作記

A few weeks ago, I had Kramer do a year-long chart for me. I put the text into XML and created a page that lists the relevant transits for the day.
Some the transits for this month state it’s a good time to pursue creative endeavors. It must be — I don’t think I’ve worked on so much new music in the last few years.
Last week, I wrote an entirely new song from scratch. It bears a very close resemblance to one of the tracks from the first Eponymous 4 project — and a glancing resemblance to Cocco’s “Mizukagami” — but it’s new (for me) nonetheless.
Today, I hooked my boombox — the only machine with a decent cassette playback — to my mixer and my mixer to my computer. I went through and digitized the rest of the only demo tape to survive the Burglary of 1998.
There are works on that tape that I would prefer to relegate to obsolence, but I’m preserving them anyway because who knows? Maybe there’s something in them that might yield a new idea.
(Highly doubtful since these tracks alternately sound like Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, Information Society and Everything But the Girl.)
Right now, I’m reconstructing one of my old songs and fleshing out another new one. And I’ve got three other files with scraps of bits of pieces. They’re too embryonic to even be considered sketches.
It feels nice.
I still don’t get the sense what’s coming out of the speakers is all that it can be, but it feels good to be putting ideas to bytes.
I usually work in waves.
When I get momentum going on a project, I usually work like mad till that momentum peters out. (It’s been a while since I’ve gone on a web development rampage.)
So I’m glad one of these waves deals with my own songwriting.

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All that to say I’ve posted two more MP3s to the main index of my site.
Of course, both are untitled since I’ve yet to write lyrics for either of them.
I should actually name “Untitled (ACO 3)” (download) to “Untitled (Cocco 1)” — it’s got more of a rock feel, but for some reason, I still want to include it with the more jazz-pop stuff.
The other track, “Untitled (House) [2005 Mix]” (download), is a reconstruction of a song from A Ghost in My Shadow.
It’s funny — I wrote “Untitled (House)” as an exercise to see if I could write in a style I didn’t like at the time. At first, I considered this track filler, but over the years, I’ve come to like it.

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[UPDATE: 2005.03.09 09:49]
I originally made part of this entry secret before I moved it to this particular journal.
Not because I had to say anything in confidence or because I want to hide something from my family or from my work.
No — I posted links to some of the work I did, but I didn’t want them to be entirely public.
It’s because, well, I’m embarrassed.
I thought some of these tracks sounded good at the time — and perhaps they did — but now? There’s a fine line between imitation and theft, and some of these pieces didn’t cross it.
But I didn’t set up a secret directory for this site, so I’m going to reveal these songs as they are.
Don’t laugh too hard when you listen to them.

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OK. So here they are … the outtakes from A Ghost in My Shadow.
And it’s still not everything. There are two tracks in particular that sound so much like the songs that inspired them, I’m keeping them under wraps. (I’m salvaging them in case I can grab something useful from them.)
You may actually end up liking these tracks. Maybe I might come to feel that way again one of these days.

But for now — it’s just between you and me …

• String Quartet (I. Allegro) I wrote this piece after having been introduced to Dmitri Shostakovich’s Quartet for Strings, No. 8, Op. 110. I even lift the quote of a quote of his own work. It’s actually an impressive piece of writing for a 19-year-old, and I’d include it in an application for graduate school with a bevy of caveats.
• String Quartet (II. Adagio) The structure of the quartet was inspired by Samuel Barber’s String Quartet, from which the Adagio for Strings was extracted. The first and third movements of the quartet are the same, but the second movement is slow and elegiac. This piece, though, sounds like a John Williams soundtrack.
• String Quartet (III. Allegro [Reprise]) See previous.
• Untitled (Acid Vogue) As the title implies, this song was inspired by acid house and Madonna’s “Vogue”. I’ve always liked the drum beat to “Vogue”, and maybe I just might outright steal it for something. My old synthesizer had a few neat sounds for songs just like this one, but I rarely wrote songs like this one. So I never used them. The chords are more like Depeche Mode.
• The Nature of Things I wrote the lyrics to this song first, then wrote around it. I listened to Information Society’s “I Wanna Know” as reference. I can now admit I was actually trying to rip Information Society off. Here’s a case where theft really did turn into imitation.

Since I mentioned “Untitled (ACO 1)” has lyrics, I may as well post them here.
I’ve never been through a break-up of a long-term relationship, but it seems I know quite a number of people who have recently. I didn’t really know what this song would be about, but I found some old lyrics that I never set to music. The first line of that other song fit this one, so I took it from there.
“Our Best Wasn’t Enough”
Jan. 29, 2005
Maybe I can change your mind
Tell you things you want to hear
But we’d know it’s just a lie
In the end it’s what we fear to face
This time the dream comes to an end
We both believed this moment
Was a time we’d never reach
Now we’ve got both eyes open
We’re awakened to the truth of what has been
We did our best
It’s not enough
Who am I to disagree?
Would it change a thing at all?
Should I keep the door unlocked
If you choose to throw away the key
To what was once a place of hope?
And if you ever think back
To the times we used to share
Would you remember wanting
Nothing more than I could ever give to you
We tried our best
It’s not enough
And if I ever look back
To the times I shared with you
I wouldn’t change a thing
Even all the points that brought us where we are
We took a risk
It’s all we had
We did our best
It wasn’t enough
We took a risk
It’s all we had

Amateurs imitate. Geniuses steal.

I’ve always found this idea comforting.

There’s no such thing as an original idea.

I heard that in a music composition class, although I think I read it in a Sting interview in high school.

When I was much younger and a lot more unchecked with my egotism — these days it’s reigned in but not by much — I prided myself on being a thief. I would write a song and say exactly where I took each idea.

I stole that drum beat from Basia. I took that bass rhythm from Duran Duran. That background noise is from John Zorn. I wrote those lyrics in the style of Robin Holcomb.

I was confident my theivery was blatant but unrecognizable once filtered through my own sense of harmony and rhythm and melody.

I’m doing it again.

I said I’m “studying” ACO’s absolute ego album to work on the second Eponymous 4 project, which is a euphemism for “stealing”.

But it occurred to me — is it really possible for me to know if I’m really stealing? What if my sense of theft is actually imitation?

What constitutes imitation anyway?

When DJ Danger Mouse deconstructs the Beatles and Jay-Z, is that theft or imitation? When MC Hammer lifted Rick James’ “Superfreak” for “You Can’t Touch This”, is that theft or imitation?

When Kurt Cobain lifted the chorus of “More Than a Feeling” from Boston for “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, is that theft or imitation? When The Killers sing about a “boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend” 10 years after Blur sang about “girls who are boys who like girls to be boys”, is taht theft or imitation? (Never mind both songs rip off the ’80s.)

Today, I bought Soul II Soul’s “Back to the Life” from iTunes because I wanted to use that song’s beat in a reconstruction of a song I wrote 12 years ago parodying their style. (The beat I came up with then was closer to Madonna’s “Vogue”.)

And just before I sat down to write this entry, I went track by track through absolute ego looking for more beats to steal. I’m finding it easier to play randomly to a rhythm than just plucking chords out of thin air.

When am I stealing? And when am I imitating?

And would the listener notice in the end?

Maybe ACO would …

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In a fit of irrational paranoia, I spent a few minutes yesterday jotting down the serial numbers of all my valuable electronics.

Now that I’ve bought the same model keyboard that was stolen from me six years ago, I want to make sure I can recover it should lightning strike twice.

There’s a superstitous part of me that thinks an object which attracted thieves way back when isn’t something to welcome back into my home. I think that’s culture — my mom was once adamant that we keep a moth fluttering about our porch light from entering the house. She said it was my grandfather.

However much that primordial sense influenced the act of taking down those serial numbers, really it’s just a smart thing to do regardless.

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The following section are a bunch of notes to myself, but I’m posting them hear to make myself accountable.

So far, I’m working on the following songs for the second Eponymous 4 project. I’m taking a few of them from A Ghost in My Shadow:

• Promises¹
• Never Turn Back¹
• Silver Sting¹
• Our Best Wasn’t Enough²
• Untitled (ACO 2)³
• Untitled (Oktober 1)⁴
• Untitled (House)¹

¹ These songs are reconstructions from A Ghost in My Shadow.

² Formerly “Untitled (ACO 1)”. I wrote lyrics to this song last night (Jan. 29).

³ This song is probably more inspired by UA than ACO, but since I’m “stealing” from absolute ego, I may as well label it ACO.

⁴ I want to use the rhythm from Duran Duran’s “Secret Oktober” for a dub song, but I can’t help but want to do something more along the lines of ACO’s “Intensity (You Are”) or Sade’s “Slave Song”. A member of Sade wrote “Intensity” for ACO.

Well that was reckless of me.
I was trying to reconstruct some of the music that was lost in the Burglary of 1998, and after spending a few minutes trying to finding the right timbres, I just was not feeling it.
So I jumped on eBay last night and plugged in a search for “Kawai K4”. Exactly one person was selling it. I thought about waiting till Tuesday to see who else would bite in the bidding, and maybe saving a few bucks from the “Buy It Now!” price of $200.
But the more I thought about it, the more I knew I wanted it. And the seller lives up near Dallas anyway, which means shipping shouldn’t take too long. So I bought it.
(Acutally, I have this nagging suspicion UPS is going to route the package from Dallas through Ottawa before sending it back down to Austin.)
However much I felt that old Kawai K-4 of mine was limited — the damn thing has only 16 sounds, compared to the 500 on my Korg N364 — the timbres I used to create those first demos nearly 15 years ago are the ones I’ve lived with the most.
I just didn’t feel like messing up what already turned out all right. (I can’t say that about all the songs on my demo.)
I didn’t think about where I’m going to put the thing or whether I can hook it up to my interface. I just felt I wanted something back from that lost era.
Besides, some of the preset sounds on that machine might work well with the arsenal I have at my disposal now.
I mulled a little bit on why I was so impulsive about this purchase, and I remembered — I’m not saving up for a downpayment any more, and I actually have some savings.
I don’t want to spend forever waiting for the next economic downturn.
Now I just have to keep myself in check so I can get a new desktop.

I’m hesitant to call two songs in two days being on a roll, but relatively speaking? I’m on a roll!
After posting “Untitled (ACO 1)” (download) last night, I went straight into recording another song I wrote right after completing the first Eponymous 4 project.
(Ed. note: Since the publication of this entry, “Untitled (ACO 1)” has since become “Our Best Wasn’t Enough”)
It’s called “Speechless” (download), and I wrote two drafts of lyrics, neither of which I’m particularly fond. But it seems like an appropriate title for the melody.
The levels were too hot, and the hard disk skipped twice during recording. It was 1 a.m. by the time I played it back, and I figured I’d give it another shot tonight.
I dropped the levels a bit and got a full take. I also re-encoded “Untitled (ACO 1)” to 192kbps, which doesn’t make too much of a difference.
So there. More music from me for you to enjoy. Or ignore. Whatever.
Here are the lyrics. Maybe they’re not that bad, but they kind of strike me as, well, predictable:
“Speechless”
When the clock strikes three o’clock
I’ll try not to make you stir
I’ll just find my own way out
We’ll talk later
Say the words to make me feel
That tonight I’d be remiss
Never to return your calls
Or messages
A string of words
A mess of thoughts
Sometimes they never meet
What I keep in
I can’t let out
And still I try to try
To make it all make sense
Feel the blood rush through your face
See the moon turn into red
I can’t think of how I’d spend
Now forever
Come into my mind again
Make me wonder what I’d miss
If I’d never hold you tight
Or felt your kiss
A string of words
A mess of thoughts
Sometimes they never meet
What I keep in
I can’t let out
And still I try to try
To make it all make sense

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I added a third verse last night, but there are no lyrics for them yet.
Oops.

Oh, man, does the level of my own neglect suprise the fuck out of me.
I went ahead and just barrelled through the end of the new song I’m fleshing out. I’m pretty sure I’ll go back and tweak a number of things, but for now, I’m satisfied with the overall direction of it.
So I hooked up my mixer to my computer, fiddled around with the levels of both the sound card and the mixer and made a quick recording of it on my hard drive.
After I exported it to MP3, I added it to the left-side navigation of my main personal site — it’s labeled “Untitled (ACO 1)” (download) under the Eponymous 4 heading — and clicked on it.
(Ed. note: Since the publication of this entry, “Untitled (ACO 1)” has since become “Our Best Wasn’t Enough”)
The link was broken.
In fact, the link was redirecting me to my local machine.
I’m not sure how many months it’s been like this, but I forgot to change a configuration setting in my script to indicate it was a production environment, not a development environment.
In other words, I have no idea how long people have not been able to download my own music. In fact, no one informed me the links were broken because, well, no one downloads my own music.
Not even myself. (Not like there’s a reason for me to do so, but still …)
So I switched the setting, tested the link, and now a very shoddy recording of a sketch of a song I’m still working on is available for preview.
(And, um, I’d appreciate some feedback from the peanut gallery about it. If you have an account, you can even post a comment down below.)
But this sound is somewhat close to what I want to write for the next Eponymous 4 project. I may even comandeer some tracks from A Ghost in My Shadow.
I hope I can pull it off.

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Oh, and I’m aiming for a full-length release — 10 to 12 songs. At least a number more than five.

On Wednesday night, I finally made it all the way through Johann Sebastian Bach’s Invention No. 13.

It took me three months to reach that point, so I’m feeling very proud of myself.

But I’m nowhere ready to perform it live. And there’s no way I can play it at the tempo marking. Hell, I can barely get to half the tempo marking.

So it’s going to take another few months — at least a year, if I start slacking — to get the point where I can play this piece in public.

Right now, the individual pieces of my current repertoire include:

• “Big My Secret” from The Piano by Michael Nyman
• “A Mood That Passes Through You” from The Piano by Michael Nyman
• “The Heart Seeks Pleasure First” from The Piano by Michael Nyman
• Moonlight Sonata, First movement by Ludwig Van Beethoven
• Invention No. 13 by Johann Sebastian Bach

I may continue learning more pieces from The Piano, and I may even be brave enough to start working on the second movement of the Moonlight Sonata.

For some reason, I’ve been toying with Claude Debussy’s “Claire de Lune”, and there’s still some Scarlatti and Mozart books I haven’t cracked open yet.

But I feel good about finally being able to play the Invention No. 13 from start to finish — for the most part.

Back in August, Matt Damon said he wanted to be in a porn movie. Well, in my head, he’s in one.
A long while back, I started writing this story called The Mansion. I was partly inspired by the Anne Rice erotica novels — “partly” because my imagination is far more vanilla — and I started “casting” a number of celebrities as (models for) characters.
An original version of this story had Sting, Patrick Stewart and Lorenzo Lamas — or rather characters that look a lot like them — doing some, well, slashy things.
After Damon made his comments, I recasted the story to put him in the starring role with Tony Goldwyn as his, ahem, “mentor”. I may drop Sting but keep Patrick Stewart and Lorenzo Lamas somewhere in the plot.
I have a version of the story unflagged in work in progress, but after the recast, some of the dialogue changed and so did the main character. I may post something if I get around to putting things down on paper.

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I had the vague idea of participating in NaNoWriMo this year, but I knew it would be a busy month for me. Had I done so, I would have waited till Nov. 1 to start, with no plot preparation beforehand.
The story I would have written was (tenatively) titled The Album. It’s a variation of an idea I came up with last year — I wanted to write a series of short stories in which Waterloo Records somehow lurked in the background. Some leaps of imagination later, I ended up with the idea of following the impact of a music album on a number of people’s lives, including the band that made it.
I was thinking of something pretty advanced for my level of writing — shifting perspectives, weaving in fictional reviews from imaginary zines, incorporating lyrics of my own songs.
It’s a worthy idea, I think.
If only blah blah blah …

I’ve spent the last two months practicing on the piano. I mentioned it a few times in the journal. At first, I spent about two hours practicing daily. I’ve since tapered off to an hour, hour and a half at most.
I’m just about finished learning the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, and I’m slowly but surely working my way through “Invention No. 13” from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Inventions and Sinfonias.
I’ve just about committed to memory three pieces from Michael Nyman’s The Piano: “Big My Secret”, “Mood That Passes Through You” and “The Heart Seeks Pleasure First”.
I’ve also gone sheet music crazy, buying up books of piano pieces by Wolfgang Mozart, Claude Debussy and Dominico Scarlatti. I’ve even taken to practicing Hanon’s Sixty Progressive Studies with a metronome!
I started piano lessons in late 7th grade, but by the time I reached high school, they had turned into composition lessons. I never really had a very good head for rehearsal.
Now I think I actually want to build a repertoire. I may not be playing these pieces “correctly”, but at the very least, I want to learn them for myself. If other people happen to hear my perform them, so be it.
Right now, my rehearsal regimen — which is actually pretty loose — consists of:

• Finger exercises (if I can spare the time)
• Reviewing The Piano
• Learning Moonlight and “Invention No. 13”

When I’ve reached a comfortable spot with the Beethoven and Bach, I’ll throw in a new piece to learn, and perhaps an old piece to relearn. I would like one day to perform Aram Khachaturian’s Tocatta without mishap.

I haven’t mentioned this anywhere officially, but I started taking singing lessons this month, per my New Year’s resolution.
Unfortunately, a month is all I can afford to take — I seem to be running out of on-hand cash from month-to-month, and $100/month on singing lessons is a bit of a luxury.
I’ve resisted writing this entry because I’m also undertaking another task, somewhat related to said New Year’s resolution.
I’m starting the first Crux novel from scratch.
I’ve made no progress with the draft I was writing because I plain lost steam. And when I go back to read it, I’m not satisfied with the tone, and I’m not satisfied with how the characters are coming across.
In short, it doesn’t have that ring of truth, however truthful a book full of lies can be.
AndyA has also pushed me to try something with the story that I’ve been too intimidated to try — provide no backstory.
Just write the story in a manner that puts the reader right square in the middle of the universe. See, I’m still harboring that long shadow of Anne Rice’s influence, and that woman did backstory into the ground.
But if I’m truly after a crime novel passing itself off as a horror story, I should keep the writing lean.