yelyah - “blurred borders 20111024” electronic
If I write about it here I’m sure to not actually carry out the plan, right?
I want to do an overdub of Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run) for comedic purposes. Whether it will actually be funny remains to be seen.
Step 1: what are they actually saying?
Yeah, I’m currently kinda stuck on that one.
yelyah - “freitag 20111021” piano improv
Friday isn’t quite over at this point, but dare I say it?
My Friday curse is apparently broken.
So here are the stats:
- 4 Fridays IN A ROW something really bad happened
- 3 out of 4 were caused by things I had no control over
- none of what happened had even been something I had thought of previously
And the last bullet point led me to this bizarre game of my trying to guess every negative outcome (for instance, in deciding where to eat, I imagined that the place would get held up at gun point while I was there).
But see, because all of the other Fridays involved bad things that I never would’ve foreseen, by predicting all of these bad things today, it meant they wouldn’t happen… because I had already thought of them.
And by those very laws, it also meant that I was safe from having a heart attack or being diagnosed with a brain tumor.
All bets are off tomorrow though.
yelyah - “the other world 20111020” piano improv
I suddenly got in the mood to listen to some of my old stuff and it brought up the following question.
Am I really that flat or have I just been listening to too much autotuned crap?
Obviously, I must be somewhat flat to notice it at all, unless I can blame it on my being hypercritical of my own voice (a lovely thought in a way).
Autotuning kinda begets more autotuning. That’s the problem.
If I remember correctly, I’ve only ever autotuned my voice on one song. Part of it was convenience: I had inconsistent access to the software. And then part of it was that in 2009, I actually put it on my yearly goals to not use autotune all year long.
But on the one song I’ve used it on. The non-autotuned version… just ewww. It sounds lifeless and unenergetic. Dead. Something.
And so that’s the begetting problem. The more you use autotune, the more you expect autotune.
But then again, what about musical styles? Like, if we were to look at genres that focus on real instruments versus those that are synthesized. Theoretically, a “normal” vocal is gonna sit much nicer with real instruments because those instruments aren’t necessarily going to be pitch perfect either.
And even with electronic music, back in the pure analog days anyhow, there could be pitch differences from somewhat fritzing hardware or tape malfunctions.
But is autotune maybe almost mandatory in the days of synthesized, perfect-pitch music?
And here’s a side question, if I can tell I’m flat when I play something back, then why can’t I tell I’m flat when I’m actually singing and could do something about it?
I have perfectly good ears. Apparently it’s just that my brain shuts off when I sing.
Yeah, that’s my theory.
yelyah - “hello winter 20111019” piano improv
Winter is here.
I woke up this morning and my bedroom was in the 50s.
THE FIFTIES.
For reference, I kept the house around 60 last winter and was absolutely miserable. 50s are off the chart on the miserability scale (my spell check tells me I’ve made up a word).
I at least know something I didn’t know last year. It’s the key to surviving frigid indoor temperatures. Fuzzy blankets! And lots of them.
The problem of course is that then the only comfortable place to hang out is in bed. All winter long.
Why can’t humans hibernate?
yelyah - “musical noise 20111018” piano improv
Winter is coming.
I remember that I was still hanging on to trying to wear shorts all through October last year.
I’m pretty sure winter is coming way sooner than last year. One of these days I’ll actually figure out where to get some historical temperature data.
Until then, all I can say is dayum it’s cold!
yelyah - “one way mirrors 20111017” piano improv
It’s a car crash in musical form.
I was kind of dumbfounded when I goofed up as bad as I did. Ya know, that really long moment of “do I just crash or keep going?”
If you listen to this piano piece and can’t figure out where the car crash is, then I guess I can say that all of this improv practice is paying off.
See the conclusion I’ve come to when it comes to playing piano is that it’s not about striving for perfection. If you’re me, you’ll never get there. No, the goal instead is to sweep all of the inevitable mistakes under the rug.
It’s the art of “I meant to do that.”
yelyah - “broken in every way 20111016” piano improv
There I finally programmed something today.
The amusing bit was thinking that I’d use the midnight EDT tumblr upload deadline as a way to force me into productive mode so that I could announce the new feature in this post.
And then I realized that I hadn’t even installed my editing tools.
Yeah, technically I could’ve just used vi at the command line, but damn I be picky. So I grabbed MacVim and found my backed up vim configs and did manage to get everything going. Well, after all of the yard bus errors trying to get middleman installed (which I “fixed” by switching to ruby 1.9.3rc1 where it managed to install).
As to the new feature? In and of itself, it took about 30 seconds to implement. But it was all of the surrounding tasks that I was procrastinating on. Like finding my old ssh keys and fun like that. Really, this whole thing was just about kicking my butt into gear by doing something.
The new feature on earthquakes today is a tiny little map to show you where the specific quake was.
It’s a small step forward for the site but a huge step forward for me out of the procrastination zone.
I hope.
yelyah - “slick socks 20111015” piano improv
Probably the biggest downside of losing my primary computer for a week (while it was being repaired) was the fact that I completely lost the programming roll I had been on.
For some context, programming seems to be something I pick up every so often. In between, I seem to completely forget how to program (or at least I think I’ve forgotten), so it becomes a big deal to try to pick it back up again.
I did have access to another computer during the repair, but it didn’t have any of my tools installed. And yeah, I could’ve gotten everything up and running, but there’s this whole issue of trust for me. Like, there’s a reason why my 6 year old studio computer stays in the studio and isn’t used for anything else. Trust.
It’s that trust that allows me to know that I can fire up the studio computer at any time when an idea strikes and (pending a hardware failure) not have to worry about computer problems.
So that was a big part of the problem with trying to switch everything over. Plus, for whatever reason, this computer beachballs a lot. It’s no fun trying to get work done on a system that randomly stalls (or at least it feels random).
I’ve got my computer back now and (knock on wood), everything is fine. With the exception that I decided to take the plunge and do a clean install of Lion. I kinda figured I might be asking for trouble.
Well, so far the trouble hasn’t been Lion itself, but the Xcode 4.2 install. Not that I really understand it all, but Apple replaced the default GCC C compiler with this LLVM C Compiler. In 4.2, they completely removed the old GCC compiler.
Now, I’m guessing that if you already had an install of straight GCC, that 4.2 doesn’t actually remove it, but one thing is for sure. Without it, a whole lot of stuff doesn’t want to compile.
My solution which appears to be working so far… I found the Xcode 4.1 install on my other computer. Now I can actually install Ruby, hurray.
So in addition to that fun, I’ve just been trying to build back momentum. And get inspired again.
My cycle seems to go like this:
- get hyped up about solution X
- actually start building something with solution X
- grow bored with solution X
- get hyped up about solution Y - repeat process
Which is why it was such a killer for someone like me to have something other than my actual damn self kill my progress on step 2. I mean, to me, it’s not surprising that I started falling in love with WordPress again once I was thrown out of my programming roll with Ruby.
I did come to a conclusion with WordPress finally. I mean, it’s the same conclusion I come to all the time: I’m not in love with it enough to actually start writing PHP again.
The plan was never to replace Ruby though. It was to learn WordPress specifically for building content sites.
But now that I know (once again) that there’s no future for WordPress and me (until 6 months from now), I’m back to trying to figure out how to reignite the flame with Ruby.
Or web development at all for that matter.
And speaking of cycles, every so often, I go through a cycle where I think I’m actually a designer. One of these days I might actually prove it. But only if I can actually manage to make it into the BUILD IT phase.
yelyah - “frozen in time 20111014” piano improv
So much for breaking the curse.
I’m now on my fourth Friday IN A ROW where something really bad has happened.
Today was the triple D day:
doggie digestive disorder
We’ll just leave the details at that. Lots of cleanup and a sizable vet bill later, the doggie is hopefully fine. Or will be soon.
And I’m left wondering what mysterious bad thing I have to look forward to next Friday. Hurray.
yelyah - “tginft13th 20111013” piano improv
(Thank God It’s Not Friday The 13th)
Given my streak of bad Fridays, I was shocked to learn that today is the 13th.
I wouldn’t consider myself a superstitious person but I have to admit that tomorrow has me sort of worried. On some level.
If something bad happens, it will be the fourth Friday IN A ROW where something really bad has happened.
Ya know, Mondays are supposed to be evil. Not Fridays. It just puts a nasty hex on the rest of the weekend. Not fair. FML and all that.
