11-11-11
Welcome to my blog! Today is 11-11-11, also known in the USA as Veteran's day. Some call it Armistice Day, or Courduroy Day, or Nigel Tufnel Day.
NExt year will be the last time in a long time that we get a repeating sequence of the same number (12/12/12) for the date and time (at 12 past noon). I'll be excited, though, for March 14, 2015, at 9:27, which I'll call pie time: 3/14/15 9:27.
11-14-11
As a long time vegetarian (>10 years), I take a lot of flack from many of my friends, coworkers, and even my family for my choice of lifestyle. Most people are highly accomodating in practice, yet seem to behave as if they are threatened by the notion of not eating meat.
Today, once again, I heard "Where do you get your protein?" As if there was never a plant in the world that contained any dietary protein.
So I asked back, "Where do you get yours?" not because I was curious, but rather to state the point that we all get our protein from the food that we eat. All plant and animal organisms contain protein, carbohydrate, and fat.
11-15-11
When it comes to shred, which deserves more glory - speed or substance?
I'm a firm believer in trying to develop technique, but at some point, a song turns into a demonstration of technique. My old approach to songwriting was to take whatever technique I was practicing, and put it in a song. Great idea, but the execution has to be done carefully, so as to make sure that the song doesn't exist solely for the sake of the technique.
I think that there is too much glory given to some of those songs based around a technique. Some of the greatest songs were originally recorded with very basic technique, yet they have stood out based on their deeper value.
One thing that can seem quite sophomoric to me is when people say things like, "That's just noise." Typically I hear this in reference to music in nonwestern scales, odd meter, or alternate tuning. I think that there are too many westerners who are unwilling to accept nonwestern music as a true form of music. It is amatter of taste, to some extent, but I feel more like it is a stubborn child who will not eat his peas because he is more comfortable eating mashed potatoes. In the west, we are heavily programmed by hearing all of our music in major, minor, and dominant tonalities; in 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4 meters, and in 12-EDO. I happen to really like all of the above, but there is a much larger universe out there, and some of it is very well established.
On the other hand, I do realize that there are snobs out there who won't give a song a chance if it is in 4/4 time in the key of C major.
Just remember that the unique loses something of it's uniqueness unless it is juxtaposed with something more mundane. Also, the mundane things have a beauty of their own, not to mention the noble purposes they serve.