Soon after acquainting myself with the city, I realized that it was time to for me to immerse myself back into my creative zone and work on some music. During the day, I spent my time in between my friends’ apartment and a studio space playing guitar and trying to develop different riff ideas into full-fledged songs. As much as I tried, I found difficulty in trying to make myself write during times when I was probably feeling more inspired to do something else. This often led me to dissatisfaction with many of the things I was coming up with. After accepting this, I decided to take a break from writing and again extend my attention outwardly onto New Orleans, hoping that something would spark my imagination along the way.

I left the house and resumed wandering around Uptown New Orleans. The places I found myself frequenting became more or less facilities for my creativity. While out seeking my morning cup of coffee, I would go to either the nearby gas station or Rue de la Course coffeehouse, where I would get my fill of coffee, sit outside and knock out my daily reading. From there I found myself hanging around outside a church down the street. I don’t know what it was that attracted me to this place. I have no religious affiliations of any kind and the church seemed very old and dilapidated but for some reason I was drawn to it. I would sit outside on the steps and jot down notes and lyrics and occasionally capture some field recordings of passing streetcars, church bells, pedestrians, and other general ambiance of the neighborhood. Eventually I found myself walking back towards my friends house and along the way pass by the neighborhood cemeteries, one in which I would later attempt to record music in. By this time I had some musical ideas brewing and when I got home, I tried to translate them onto guitar. Through this casual excursion, I began to find the parts to my compositions but had not yet realized the whole.

Later that evening, I found my friend Buster editing recordings on his laptop. Excited by my curiosity, he began to play me chunks of music from a rather prolific collection of songs that he had been working on. His music was largely based on 1970’s style Funk but with his own stamp on it, in which he recorded bass, guitar, drums, vocals and programmed horn and synthesizer parts. Although, the styles of music we make are very different, I felt inspired by his overwhelming enthusiasm towards what he was doing. I think it was at this point that I had finally caught the certain type of creative energy that New Orleans harbors. He had kept on telling me that along with other things, making music in New Orleans feels better than anywhere else. After he had left the house, I had taken over the living room as my personal practice space and spent the rest of the night, playing guitar and piecing together one of my compositions. I was beginning to understand what he meant.

That was one of the first nights when I chose staying in and working on my own music over going out to watching somebody else play music. Although I tried to make a balanced schedule that would include doing both things, my own music was certainly a priority during my stay in New Orleans. Although I usually designated my evenings for songwriting, my morning walks around Uptown became a part of my daily routine as well as a part of my creative process. I found it important to establish a work environment and and schedule in a place that was new to me and far from my typical comfort zone used for writing.

On a side note: Near the second half of my stay in New Orleans, my cellphone got nearly destroyed after being dropped onto the street after a concert. However, I was recently able to back up some of my data and recovered photos and audio from my trip. I will be posting some of those shortly. Stay tuned.

As if to be writing a postcard, I spent the week reading “Wish You Were Here”. This is a beautiful book that shows the reader around the different Arrondissements of Paris. Arrondissements are formally named neighborhoods in Paris. I read several of these sections before coming to Paris and have since reread the others and reviewed the arrondissements that mean something to me.

Aaron took Taj and I to see Le Tavern du Cluny to hear live Gypsy Jazz. Aww so beautiful.

I am getting familiar to Arrondissements one, two, five and six. The author of this book tells about the the ‘pockets of calm’ that can be found amid all the buzzing activity (15). This seemed natural to me that certain areas would be quieter than others but it really surprised me to hear the birds sing in the trees in front of the Eiffel Tower as if, and in reality, they own the treed area. I have found Paris to be completely developed but that there are still areas that belong to nature, preserved. When I stepped in to my room here I went to the window to see the view. I opened the windowed doors and peered out past the wrought iron railing and experienced my first ‘spot of time’. My window faces the center of the building and my view is of rooftops and a very small courtyard below. The walls are beige and the roofs light gray. The occasional red flower living in the window boxes are the only noticeable color. There is no sound of traffic unless there is reason for a police call close by. The soundscape here at my window is very different from the rest of Paris. It is the sound of birds chirping and the hotel staff chatting. There is a drone which I have identified as maybe a heating or air furnace. I can’t express the calming strength this spot has over me. How, with the population (over 2 million), is it possible to have this type of soundscape?

This is the view from my room

It may sound like I’d never leave my I room but of course I did. I am gawking at every turn of a block. Just before leaving home I began realizing that after I cover all of the wonders of Paris I would feel let down, that the wonder was no longer there, that I’d seen all there was to see. Like when you spend too long at Disneyland and the magic disappears. This city has so much to offer in the way of new experience that it will not happen. It is so refreshing to know that there is somewhere in world that can capture my attention infinitely. This may be due to the vast and varied visitors the city.
This area is about 6000 years old. A Celtic tribe settled here to fish along the Seine and called this lle de la Cite. About 300 years later the Romans took over and changed the name to Lutetia. After about 200 hundred years the name was changed to Paris (after the local tribe). Paris was eventually invaded by Childeric the Frank in 464. 300 years later Vikings invaded and took their turn pillaging in the 9th century. It wasn’t until the 12th century that Paris began to take shape with the Notre Dame cathedral being built, establishing a center of religious and government life (16, 17).
With so many stories about how Paris was first established I couldn’t possibly cover them all so I’ll tell about a most beautiful place, the Place de l’ Opera. I think think the people of Paris wanted it. I always thought of Napoleon as a ‘bigger than life’ type of person, giving France its reputation for the continued lavish lifestyles of the rich and noble but then I learned about the building of Place de l’ Opera. It was built during the fall of Napoleon and during the Franco-Prussian war. To make matters more difficult there was a subterranean lake beneath it (made famous by the “Phantom of the Opera” play). There were other difficulties but nothing that stopped the building. Velvet, marble and gold were gathered for the building and cherubs and nymphs were carved. The grand staircase was completed in time for the inauguration in 1875. I think this enormous effort speaks to the wishes of the people of Paris. Apparently, Napoleon wasn’t the only one that liked things to be grand.

One other tidbit I learned about this opera house is that in1993 there is a man called Opera Honey who needed a place to keep his beehive until he could take it to his home in the country so he put it on the Opera house rooftop. A week later he discovered that it was overflowing with honey. Now they sell Opera Honey in the gift shop (139).

I hope to see this place sometime this week.
Rai
Measom, Christopher. Paris: Wish You Were Here. New York, NY: Welcome, 2008. Print.

Chapter Five: The Melodic Process of Chord Generation: Seventh Chords

Melodic Function (of a chord): Not all chords have strong melodic functions; some are stable consonant chords which have primarily harmonic significance. Melodic function is described in terms of the motion of a dissonant note.

Resolution: The obligatory progression of dissonant intervals to consonant intervals. Dissonant notes always resolve by step (usually in descending direction) to the nearest consonant note.

Secondary Dominant 7th Chord: See secondary dominant chord in the last post.

Minor 7th Chord: The II^7 in diatonic major mode, and the IV^7 in the diatonic minor mode.

Half Diminished 7th Chord: II^7 in the minor mode. It tends to serve as a dominant preparation.

Major 7th Chord: Exemplified by IV^7 in the major mode.

Dominant 7th Chord: Because 7th chords are derived directly from triads, the basic harmonies, they constitute the first and most important class of dissonant chords. Because the dominant 7th chord is derived from a primary triad, it is the most important representative of the entire class of 7th chords. The addition of a 7th does not alter the function of these chords (in fact, it makes their function more apparent). This principle can be applied to all 7th chords: Harmonically, they behave exactly like the diatonic triads from which they derive. They do, however, serve to expand the harmonic content of a progression and make the harmonic direction more specific.

Overlapping: A cadential chord introduced at the end of a phrase which is then carried over to act as the initial chord of the second phrase.

Chapter Six: The Inversions of the Seventh Chords

Transferred Resolution: The carrying over of a dissonant note from one chord into another (usually the note is taken up by a different voice in the second chord) before being resolved, as in II^7 -> V^7 -> I.

Passing Second Inversion: The implementation of the bass note of second inversion of the dominant 7th as a passing note.

Exchange of Voices: The repetition of a passage wherein the voices parts are exchanged (such as in a round).

Diminished 7th Chord: An entirely dependent chord derived from an inverted dominant 7th chord by a change of only one note. The diminished 7th shares no notes with the chord of resolution, and every note of the diminished 7th resolves stepwise. It may be thought of as interchangeable with an inverted secondary dominant 7th chord. The diminished 7th is associated with a feeling of greater intensity.

Internal Dissonance: The dissonance created by a tritone within a chord (such as a dominant 7th chord).

Obligatory VII^6: I’m really not sure about this one. It might be the rule that VII chords only progress by 5th.

Chapter Seven: The Soprano Voice and Harmonic Progression

Voice: The succession of notes performed by a single human voice or solo instrument.

Basic Melodic Progression: The term “melodic” is often a somewhat loose term used to designate any succession of notes, regardless of interval. A basic melodic progression is one that moves by 2nd, or by stepwise intervals. Thus we say say that the 2nd and the 7th are melodic intervals, and all other intervals are harmonic.

Metrical Arpeggiation: A melodic movement which skips up or down to harmonic intervals. Each note has the duration of a metrical unit.

Compound Melody: The expression of a single voice of more than one melodic progression. For an example of this, click here.

Transient Skip: A local event, a skip from one line to another and an immediate return. It does not influence melodic structure of a longer span as compound melody does.

Circular Melodic Progression: Departs from a note and has as its goal the same note.

Partial Closure: When a line descends to scale degree 2 over V we say that the progression is a partial closure. Both the melody and harmony are directed strongly toward a cadence, yet the progression is not fulfilled.

Melodic Sequence: The immediate repetition of a melodic pattern at a different pitch.

Counterpoint of the Outer Voices: Counterpoint means note against note and refers to both the interval which two notes form and also the rhythmic relation between them, in this case the relationship of the notes performed by the soprano and bass voices.

Principle of Rhythmic Grouping: Rhythmic patterns are the variable patterns of duration and accent which are superimposed upon the constant metrical pattern. The principle of rhythmic grouping is the organization of chords which belong together based upon rhythmic accents.

Principle of Metrical Placement: A metrical pattern is one of equal note values grouped together by a regular accent pattern. The metrical patterns of a composition are defined by its time signature. It could be thought of as the regular “pulse” underlying a composition. The principle of metrical placement is such that the goal harmony should fall on a metrically accented beat.

Harmonization Procedure: A soprano voice alone can have several meanings depending upon its harmonic context. Therefore, the structural meaning of the soprano is always defined by the bass and harmony.

Minimal Harmonization: The employment of only diatonic triads in fundamental position, plus the dominant seventh, and VII^6.

Principle of Harmonic definition: The chord must be selected with regard to its function in the harmonic progression as a whole and with regard to its definition of the soprano note as a point of departure, melodic goal, or metrical embellishment. The triad should be complete in four parts, with certain exceptions (such as the omission of the 5th in the fundamental position of 7th chords). Parallel 5ths and octaves should be avoided. The principles of metrical placement and rhythmic grouping should be observed at all times.

Sound has the ability to move and flux according to the environment and it’s inhabitants. Music has the same affect and can progress even faster traveling from state to state, changing and growing depending on the audience and residents of a state, city, town, venue, house, etc. The importance of networking is prevalent in any city, but more so on a smaller scale such as Olympia, WA.

May the 4th was a great example of networking in a city of this size and again it revolved around the Rhythm and Rye. Monday night Jazz night was happening and The Cool Jazz Nonet was playing with a heavy horn and rhythm section. Monday Jazz at The Rhythm and Rye brings in a very decent sized crowd, ages around 30-70 with fellow musicians in the audience supporting the community and keeping Jazz alive and well. Many members of the audience were recognizable from previous Jazz Jams at Traditions Cafe, as well as choir members from The Olympia Peace Choir. Other community musicians such as Vince Brown and Andrew Dorsett were around and offered pleasant conversation with new venues to gig at and a friendly exchange of piano lessons (reading lead sheets for learning ragtime).

I was also able to meet and talk with Danielle, the trumpet player from DBST and soon to be The Pine Hearts, and learn a bit about her music and insight towards playing in different cities. Even though DBST has a great turn out and fantastic audience here in their hometown, Olympia, they still have an audience to build in Portland and Seattle. They recently played in Portland and the audience wasn’t as large as they had anticipated for a couple of reasons. The different pairings and possibilities for openers and main acts is an aspect of live shows that relies heavily on society and reflects back to the performer(s).

The size of Olympia may present a false perception of music in a city as well as a biased notion depending on what venue and genre one may be continually looking for, but the size is really in it’s favor. The community of musicians and music lovers is strong seems to be expanding. The Olympia Jazz Central group offers new jazz jams and upcoming events with local musicians.

Earlier this week I attended a show at Dickerson’s BBQ (The Pig Bar). The stage was on the same level as the audience and the space it self was small and intimate, offering opportunities to socialize as well as be attentive to the performance. The environment there was relatable and friendly, and I was surprised that I never went to any shows there before. A lot of people I knew that were there, knew someone in the band, or were supporting a friend of a friend.

This brings me to a question of the ratio of audience members who attended to support the band and audience members who attended because they knew there would be live music/pig bar is their home bar. And yet another questions, is music available to all or is it exclusive? Furthermore, what role does technology play in the accessibility of music, and how has it increased or decreased in the past five years? What are the different levels of engagement between the music in a city and the soundscape of a city, and how is it successfully stimulated?

I hope to answer more of these questions as the week progresses with plans to go to Live Wire, a radio variety show in Portland. There I will see Chuck Palaniuk, Janeane Garofalo, The Helio Sequence, and more.

I also plan on visiting some venues that are known to have ragtime and jazz shows and dropping off a sample of my music for more gigs.

No one can go a weekend in Montevideo without hearing drummers parading from roughly eight to midnight or one in the morning (ending earlier on Sundays.) The word “candombe” literally means “pertaining to blacks” in Kikongo, the Bantu language of Congo. However, in Montevideo the adjective pertains exclusively to the drums typically used and tradition of playing them thrice weekly in the streets.

The first time I saw a group on Saturday night, when the most people are out playing music, I assumed that they congregated in a set place and paraded through all of Montevideo but I found out that the happening is much more spontaneous; the groups form hanging out on the streets in each individual barrio (neighborhood). More people filter into the streets when they hear the music approaching to join in or spectate.

The night begins with some people gathering on one corner, socializing and playing the drums, maybe cooking some meat over a fire. The sound is a signal to come down with some wine or something to cook on the fire and say hello to your neighbors. Eventually, two corners are occupied and, before you know it, the intersection is filled with drummers and dancers who’ve arranged themselves in lines without saying a word about it. Based on how the dancers and drummers communicate (using dance and rhythm) when to stop and start moving, there appears to be an unspoken hierarchy based on experience. The dancers dance in front of the drummers, and the lead dancers dance backwards in the back of the group in order to be closer to and facing the drummers, the most experienced of whom are in front. The one or two lead dancers signal that it’s time to start or stop moving or playing and the lead drummer plays a rhythm that lets the rest of the group know. There’s few things in music more attention getting than a good, clean ending and these spontaneous musicians have it down better than many groups I’ve seen who know each other well and play together regularly.

The rhythm is always changing without ever missing a dance beat. You probably won’t notice it’s changing unless you pay close attention. Most are playing the same rhythm with some adding accents of their own. For the most part, the rhythms are in call and response format slowly morphing into different calls and different responses. Oftentimes, the entire call and response will conjugate into one call with an entirely new response. One drummer may add a radically different rhythm (meaning noticeably different in its context to the untrained ear) and no one else will join him but two repetitions after the new rhythm stops, someone will pick it up again and others will join in the second time hearing it.

Here is a clip to give an example of rhythm and the size of the group:

IMG_4924

Candombe began when slaves of African decent gathered on Sundays and other holidays to make music together as a form of community self-help. Hundreds of years since slavery ended in Uruguay, people young and old of all different colors in every barrio drum and dance to lift their spirits.

The song is complete and the shot list is completely organized and is in the middle of transcription. The song came out to 26 pages and will last about 28 minutes. It uses three tempos across four sections to create a sequence tempos. The bar is set at 75bpm, followed by a slow tempo(60bpm), then fast(90bpm), then the sequence ends with a return to 75bpm. The video will run the same amount of time and also has four sections that line up with the sections of the piece of music. Instead of 75-60-90-75 the tempos in the film go 120-60-30-15. The huge change in tempo will make it so that one beat in the first section will be .5 seconds while in the last it will be 4 seconds. I think that the piece will come out to somewhere between 500-750 shots. The shots in the first section will range from .5 seconds to 5 seconds. In the last, anywhere from 4 seconds to 40 seconds. This will create an intense slowing from a manic barrage of visual information down to a contemplative, slow, mindful stare.

I imagine that the combined effect of the music and the video will be hypnotic. The viewer might find them self drifting in and out of focus as the piece directs their dreamlike thoughts. For me the pacing of the shots create a feeling similar to the effect that spending time in a new city can have on a traveller. The new pieces of information, abundant and easy to look at, add up so quickly that they fade away. To quote Roy Batty’s amazing improvised line in Blade Runner for an apt metaphor, “All those moments will be lost… like tears in rain.” But as we become more comfortable and begin to approach these new pieces of information more mindfully we find new ways of seeing  and collecting our thoughts about the world around us. This trajectory is mirrored in the video and we are able to use our stronger, more attentive observational senses as the film becomes slower and slower.

Chance operations dictated the majority of the early organizational aspects for both the music and the video. When I was presented with the task of putting 2 things in order I would flip a coin and put the element that the coin chose first. With 3 things I would toss 3 different objects onto a piece of graph paper and the order that they landed from left to right would determine the order of the 3 things. With 4 things, as an homage to John Cage, I would consult the I Ching (throwing 3 pennies and reading them [all up is 1, 2 up 1 down is 2, 1 up 2 down is 3, and all down is 4])  and then I would put them in the order that the pennies told me to. I had no groups of 5, 6 or 7 things. And finally, for groups of 8 things I would consult any digits immediately available to my eyes (such as the numbers on the bar code on a pack of cigarettes [0034916483599273 would become 3, 4, 1, 6, 8, 5, 2, 7] or the amount of people sitting on the benches in the plaza [3 on one, 7 on the next, 1 on the next, and so on until a complete series of 1-8 has been found]) or any source of numerical information I could find.  This practice frees one dimension of the music from intentional micromanagement and instead, through chance, allows the decision making powers of the universe take control.

I then refocus my attention from the parts as individual pieces (elements) to the next level of organization, cells. Cells are groups of 1 element from each group of elements (ex. duration, timbre, and pitch [ex. 10 beats, quiet to loud, high B flat]). The cells are usually grouped into packages (cell groups) of 4 cells. It is at this point that I begin to take the liberty of making intentional decisions. I create patterns out of the cell groups that illustrate their overall structure. One part of the overall structure is like a group of triplet siblings. Their parts look similar from far away but up close every little element is different. I used variations of stacking and repeating as well as other creative organization techniques to create the patterns.

The combined practices of chance based decision making and intentional decision making is much like the textile artists process of smashing pieces of glass and tile and assorting the broken parts into a mosaic. The artist knows that they have clear, red, purple, and light purple pieces of glass and tile and though they cannot control the outcome of the smashing process, they know that in the end they will have a clear, red, purple, and light purple mosaic. The difference between a mosaic and my piece is that a mosaic is (arguably) static in time whereas my piece moves through time. This vital element of movement (which includes complete replacement [ex. a shot change]) is what allows me to generate conflict between the parts or, as Eisenstein would call it, montage. As they move through time all the specific elements work in cooperation and in conflict to generating a flow of implications, ideas, and feelings. Some of these implications, ideas, and feelings will be obvious and others more mysterious. Some will be universally understood while others might resonate with as few as one person (ex. me).

I will give you a quick update on what my plan for the future is. The next week will be spent visiting all of the wonderful sights of Barcelona while shooting the video. When I return I will record the music in one of the studios on campus with three singers. This will likely take a week or two and during that time period I will also edit the video. Hopefully, my total pre-emptive organization of every single element will speed up this process. If I’m unlucky I wont have a completed project by the end of the quarter. If I’m lucky, I will have part of it completed by. And if I’m very lucky I will have a completed piece to show you all when week 10 rolls around.