Poetry in technicolor

It’s past my bedtime (got back late from interviews), but I did want to blog today, so here’s some buckshot from the hip. I don’t think I’ve blogged about this yet; if I’m wrong, well, shoot me.

I want to talk about the right to bear arms.

No, just kidding — I couldn’t help it what with all of that gun imagery. I’m generally nonviolent, though (with the exception of scrubbing hard water deposits off the tub), so I’ll get back on track with my original planned topic: modesty. In other words, the right to bare arms.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I’ve got a humor category, but I need to add a “pathetic humor” one. ~sigh~

My real topic is songwriting. And ironically, I don’t have much to say. Or at least much time to say it in. (Come to think of it, I always have something to say. Conversation ex nihilo, that’s me. But I digress.)

So, I’ve missed songwriting and composition — it’s been over two years since I last wrote anything — and I want to start up again. Songs are far easier to write than novels, I think. Heck, I could write a song every day for the next year.

The stumbling block I’ve been blaming for why I haven’t been doing that is that I don’t have a piano in my apartment. Sure, there’s one in the lounge at my complex, and several at the church, and hundreds on campus. But that’s generally too inconvenient for me. (I don’t think I would have been a very good pioneer.)

And yet a piano really isn’t necessary for composition. It helps, to be sure, but I honestly think my music will be better if I write it away from an instrument. And I’ve discovered that my phone has a 30-second recording dealio, where I press the button, sing into the phone, and then it saves the screeching to a wavefile which it then sends to me via e-mail. (I do this when nobody’s around, of course.)

Granted, I can only record 30 seconds at a time, but that’s okay because I’m not sure if my poor little brain can hold more than 30 seconds of in-process composition at a time. Then again, constraint-inspired stretching might expand my memory’s capacity, and that’s cool.

Anyway, I came up with a few bars of music and lyrics which I hope to develop into a real song in the near future. For me, the combination of lyrics and tune is a delightful symbiosis, like poetry in technicolor.

I really must get to bed now, but if you care to read more of my thoughts on the process, see my comment over on Brooke’s blog. And hopefully within a few days I’ll have a song to blog about. (Knowing me, though, my mood will change to book design or 3D art by tomorrow morning and I’ll have to wait until the music muse visits again, which could be anywhere from a few days to a few weeks away.)

Well Ben, I posted this on Brooke’s blog. I think that you would have fun with it too:

Brook, here is a fun game to help you break the mold and compose. Make copies of your favorite music and sort them by key signature then by time signature. Next draw a colored line below the staff to indicate the bottom of the staff. Take all the music in a sorted stack and cut it up into measures. Put the pieces in a container and draw them out one at a time and place them on a board that has a light coat of artist’s spray mount on it. (If this is a party activity, have the person who drew the measure hum or sing it.) You now have a raw composition that will work because it is in the same key and time signature. Play the piece through. Can you find a melody or interesting motif? Build on that with variations on a theme. It is fun, it’s simple and you’ll find that your silly symphony will help you break the mold and become a better composer.

A couple of additional comments:

#1. Try Lysol Professional Disinfectant Toilet Bowl Cleaner on your tub, sink, tile or anything that has hard water stains. It is a thick liquid so gently spread it so that it stays thick on the surface. Let it sit for about 15 minutes and the stains will wipe away with no effort. (A trick I learned while managing an apartment complex)

#2. Bears have a right to their arms just like the rest of us… I’ll assume that we agree on this one. (Sorry Ben, I just couldn’t help it:))

#3. It is also fun to print your music out on transparencies so that you can try playing the retrograde, inversion, and retrograde inversion versions of the piece. I vaguely remember my professor mentioning that the music to Star Wars was a retrograde inversion of some opera. I reserve the right to be wrong on this one.

LOL, thanks for the music idea. And I’ll definitely have to try that Lysol disinfectant next time we have cleaning checks — I spent forever trying to clean our tub and shower last time. In fact, I’m still waiting for the skin on my knuckles to grow back. :P As for the right to bear arms, I think what it actually means is that we humans have a right to procure the arms of bears — you know, like chicken thighs and buffalo tongue. I’ve never eaten bear, come to think of it. Perhaps a little paprika or oregano… And as for the inversions and such, man, I really miss music theory! I took it in high school, then taught a few classes of it on my mission, but since then I’ve done zilch with it. If only I had more time! :)