Music and my Writing Muse

Tags

music, writing

Early in my writing career, I could not listen to music while I wrote my stories of epic fantasy, sci-fi, horror and weird tales. Nothing, nada, nix. The reason being that I am a person with several areas of interest.

If you’ve read my bio in various locations on the web, anthologies and book backcovers, you’d know I have a few musical talents. I’m a professionally trained classical organist. I’ve contributed a couple of pieces to the Moravian Music Foundation, with more on the way. Not to mention my voice training, which has enabled me to keep a range of almost 3 whole octaves on a good day (C2 to B4) after all my years.
Making a long story short, music is as much my creative language as English is.

As a result, for the longest time, music of any genre and writing time were mutually exclusive. I would easily be distracted by thoughts of “that’s a cool chord change,” “Ooh! Polychords!” “How did they get that synth texture?” and a bazillion other interruptions as I was trying to hammer out the next chapter.

With the passing of time, things slowly changed. I can now read and edit with almost any music playing, as long as the volume is low enough. And this past year, I discovered I can finally write while music floats out of my computer speakers.

But not any music. I still require there be no vocals. As soon as I hear a voice singing words, my language centers try to multitask, and get tangled. If I can change the station fast enough, my writing muse is not scared away.

This past year, I’ve been listening to internet radio. I can’t listen to my 500-CD library and streams, because I will sing along to it, losing any hope of writing for an hour or so. For quite a while now,I find I’ve been listening almost exclusively to SOMA-fm (www.somafm.com). Specifically their Groove Salad, Groove Salad Classic, Secret Agent, and Deep Space channels.
Ambient with minimal voices. Sheer bliss! I really must send them a donation and get one of their cool T-shirts.

Here’s the music on SOMA I’ve earmarked during 2022, with the intention getting my own copy in 2023. Not just for listening, but for study in the creation of my own piano/organ/synth compositions.

table, th, td { border: 1px solid black; border-collapse: collapse; }

Artist	Title
Animal Firepower	Nylons
Audio Lotion	Farewell To Vesper
Babble	Sun
Bent	Kisses
Bonobo	Cirrus
Deep	Smokers Delight
Edge Of The Universe	The Synthetics
Elemental Journey	The Band From Atlantis
Fragile State	Panacea
France Dom	Urban Haze
Global Communication	14:31 (Ob-selon Mi-Nos)
Harbor Tea Rooms	Midnight Hour
Higher Intelligence Agency	Skank
Incognito	I Can See The Future
Keston And Westdal	Nebula
Kick Bong	Landscape (Cydelix Remix)
Mauxuam	Sounds A Lot
Module	Empty Space Missing Units
Nacho Sotomayor	Interior
New Deal	Then And Now
Nitemoves	Mikuni
Ott	Joyful Wonder
Polished Chrome	In The Garden Desire
Poly Vinyl	Margaritta
Pretz	Texas Exhale
Promisk	Eyes Like Sun
Quant	Sauna Grease
Secede	Leraine (Feat. Kettel)
Setsuna	Ether
Sounds From The Ground	A Thousand Colours
Telepopmusik	Don’t Look Back
Thomas Lemmer & Andreas Bach	Greater Love (Gold Lounge Remix)
Tycho	Weather See Cypress A Walk PCH
Ulrich Schnauss	Molfsee I Take Comfort in Your Ignorance (Tycho Remix)
Yonderboi	I Am Cgi

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What I Did During my Novel Vacation

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Blender, Kdenlive, LMMS, MIDI

Hello fellow Novel Covid19 huddlers! I hope you are all doing well. And to those who aren’t, I hope that you are doing as best you can, given the circumstances.

As for myself, I try to do the best I can, whenever I can. At least that’s the goal — I confess some days are less successful than others. But during this extended period of self-quarantining, I’ve outdone myself. Zowie!

Under my belt over the past four months are these sets of mini-milestones:

• Health
  • Both knees replaced. I’m walking again! Stairs are no longer my nemesis! Woohoo! On the other hand, I lost my excuse to not mow the lawn. Awwww…

• Writing
  • Learned Libre Office to replace my previous writing software.
  • Completed work with my diversity editor for my YA urban-fantasy/horror My Friend Jackson. I am still on target to release for late fall in 2020!
  • Completed edits for my short story Goats in the Machine, slated for the Bethlehem Writers Group’s next anthology Feathers, Fur & Scales.

The next anthology from the Bethlehem Writers Group

• Music
  • Learned MidiEditor software
  • Learned LMMS (Linux MultiMedia Studio) software
  • Learned several VST (Virtual Studio Technology) instruments
  • Edited MIDI recordings from 1984 and 1996
  • Learned Finale and Musescore3 sheet music software

All this, to achieve the goal of submitting my compositions for piano and organ to the archives of the Moravian Music Foundation. Submission requires both a recording and sheet music. Software was my best path, as my penmanship becomes truly stercoraceous after the third line.
I am happy to report that both of my first two pieces have been accepted by the archives! I guess that means I am now officially a part of history?

• Video
  • Learned Kdenlive, Olive, Openshot, and Shotcut video editors .(Hasta la Vista and good riddance Adobe Premiere!) I chose Kdenlive as it is the most versatile, and works on both Windows and Linux operating systems.

All this, to craft the first of many videos slated for my new YouTube channel. I hope to produce more videos of my music, and many, many videos of yours truly reading my own short fiction and performing my storytelling stints.

What’s next for the Author with Too Many Damn Interests? I need to purchase a new Linux workhorse PC to replace my poor dead Windows-XP monster machine. (At least it was a musclebound beast when I bought it in 2007. Thirteen years was an excellent run!)

Once that’s up and running, then I continue the progression of switching to Open Source versions of my software. Most notably, Blender will replace my beloved LightWave3D. Bon voyage and thanks for the memories old friend, but it’s on to bigger and better things. Why do I do this? Besides my animation work, I need a 3D modeling and rendering software to create my book covers. My Friend Jackson is coming this fall, remember?

Woof. I need more coffee!

So dear reader… What tools do you like to use for writing, music, and graphic arts? Let me know in your comments. Especially if you’re a Linux believer!

Next installment of my blog – the Handicapper General Diana Moon Glampers comes after me. She is convinced that I am achieving too much.

I Am a Boiled Frog

Tags

change, life experience

And in all probability, so are you.

We’re all familiar with the adage that if you drop a frog in boiling water, he’ll immediately jump out. The flip side of the story tells us if you put a frog in tepid water and raise its temperature slowly enough, he’ll stay there ’til he’s cooked.

I am reminded on a weekly basis (sometimes daily) about the person that I am — and how I bear little resemblance to the person I was, or even the person I thought I would turn out to be. A long series of small changes leads to a big difference.

Today, that moment of realization occurred when I had a glass of milk. It was a glass of 2% — I normally drink and cook with 1% milk. After a single sip, I remarked on its fatty taste and texture.

I immediately flashed back to my youth, when my family struggled to make it through our weekly budget. One of my cornerstones of my childhood diet was powdered milk. If you dislike today’s fat-free milk, I guarantee you will be revolted by that loathsome bilge of sky-blue fat-free powder-and-water mixture. I have never had that vile Carnation concoction since I finished high school, and hope to never allow it past my lips again.
Time, tide, and tightening belts (due to dietary restrictions, not financial), now have me at the 1% mark. And I prefer it. How times and tastes have changed!

I’ve noted several other changes in my tastes – for example, I now love spinach and grapefruit, foods I could not tolerate until a mere five years ago.

On the non-gastronomical front, things certainly have taken paths I never could have guessed at. As a child, I wanted to be an astronaut veterinarian. My actual career path was solidly grounded on earth, wending through organist, physicist, electrical engineer, software systems analyst, animator, to arrive at my current vocation — writer.

About the only thing that has been constant through that journey is that I have been blessed, allowed to do the things I love to do.

On the subject of being blessed, my belief system has had a similar multi-directional slog through the spiritual multi-verse — from Moravian, to Jesus Freak, to sullen agnostic, finally re-embracing being born again. My stint as a church organist put me in a unique position to sample all that is right (and all that is wrong) over a wide spectrum of denominations. As a result, my belief system is one that both Catholic and Baptist would shake their collective heads at. The feeling is mutual, friends. My best advice is to remove the log from your own eye.

I don’t say that to condemn, but rather to urge you, dear reader, to try something new. Life is change. Perhaps you should have a try at being boiled. Maybe you already are, you just don’t know it. A moment of reflection, and we all can learn something.

Whistle While You Kraftwerk

Tags

King Crimson, Kraftwerk, Liparulo, music, Rick Wakeman, Soma FM, Triumvirat, WMUH

As a kid, I did all my homework while watching TV — usually Star Trek reruns
— much to the chagrin of my parents.  During my college days, I graduated to listening to music while I worked on my physics and math problems.

The refrains of my unusual musical tastes were loud enough that I couldn’t hear the mumbles, comments, complaints and curses that I’m sure my fellow academicians were voicing in their offices and dorm rooms next to mine.
Since I was a church organist, and an enthusiast about all things keyboard related, my speakers were constantly blaring the sounds of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Triumvirat, Kraftwerk, Chick Corea, Patrick Moraz, Walter (before he became Wendy) Carlos’ synthesized masterpieces, Rick Wakeman and Yes, and of course King Crimson featuring their magically hypnotic mellotron.

In the workaday world that came after college, my cubicle was void of tunes, until I was promoted to an office where I could play my music — albeit at much lower volumes. I also tuned to college radio, so that I could enjoy a variety of music, and not cheese off my office-mate. See? I can be taught to be considerate!

Actually, that was only half the reason for lower volumes.
I found I enjoyed the music so much that it distracted me from efficiently performing my work.

These days, I wonder how I accomplished any work at all.
I shake my head in disbelief a how many of my peers work with loud music. For example, Richard Liparulo told me he often plays music conducive to the genre he’s writing – e.g., playing star-opera movie sound tracks while writing sci-fi.

I now most often work in silence. The noise, dialog and movie rolling in my head when I’m writing is enough and incredibly fragile. My budding efforts are entirely erased if music intrudes. That is simply intolerable to my muse.
On those rare occasions that I can tolerate music — usually when I’m doing light editing — I seek refuge with my old favorites. Though lately I tune into internet radio, streaming my old college radio station WMUH, or  Soma FM’s 70’s, 80’s and Secret Agent channels.

So, what do you whistle while you work, or listen while you lurk?

Original Syn-Thesis

Tags

TED Talk

The other day I heard a TED radio talk by K. Ferguson “Embrace the Remix”.  It was not the best entry in the series I’ve heard, but it was quite challenging and thought provoking, which is a plus in my book.

The talk opened with the statement “the last original thing was the Big Bang,” and everything since then has been a remix.  The talk’s examples were wanting, to say the least, in my opinion.

It compared George Lucas’ Star Wars to the works of Kurosawa (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and several others).  I found that part of the argument weak (but not flawed) on several levels: 1) the influences he used as anecdotal proof were due to the art director and costume designer, not Lucas; 2) he totally ignored Joseph Campbells’ work (more on that later), whereby the entire Star Wars story is a retelling of the millenia-old “orphan with a destiny comes of age” story arc.

Ferguson’s other body of examples circled around Bob Dylan. His body of work was considered groundbreaking at the time, but an analysis of his music shows that he cribbed from folk music – e.g. deep dark Appalachia.  Ferguson then proceeded to torpedo his own argument by fessing up that such behavior was the norm in those days – it was expected and encouraged that folk songs copy from each other.
Not only does he kick out one of the legs of his own argument, be he ignores the fact that sometime somewhere somewhen – SOMEBODY came up with the strictures of music not observable in nature (meter, harmony, the math behind the music).

I was struck by the coincidence on that very day I had read from Stephen King’s “On Writing” that original ideas aren’t original, they are the result of two existing ideas colliding in your head.  The writer has to always be ready to capture it.  Two points to Team Ferguson.

However, I noticed that the body of Ferguson’s talk focused on the arts – movies, music, fashion, etc.  Not once did he venture into the more scientific fields.  I would love to hear how he explains away the earth-shaking advances in history made there.  Take heliocentrism, general relativity or quantum mechanics – not only were they arguably original, they went against the grain of accepted thought. What did they crib from, pray tell?

The talk ended with me chortling to myself over Joseph Campbell, who said that there are no original stories – that all stories boil down to seven archetypes.  Guess that means that Ferguson’s hypothesis isn’t all that original either.

Any commentary, controversy, chatter, contradiction, criticism?
But please, only original comments! *snicker*