Inflight Shutdown
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New Direction?
May 1, 2012
As an artist I always regretted that I could not just pick up a pencil and create. When truly pressed I can come up with a doodle that might convey some kind of basic information, but beyond that pencils and I are destined to deal only with the written word. By extension I’m not much of a painter or sculptor either – I just never got it all together enough to make these sorts of from-scratch mediums work for me.
This was the 4th try. Sad.
Photography has always been fun and rewarding, but I am ultimately at the mercy of my subject. I never much warmed to “creative photography” involving photograms or abstractions, so my camera work has always been about what I see in front of me. It has been a successful and fruitful way of working, but still lacks that sense of something-from-nothing that is at the heart of many other mediums.
I have been thinking about making some noises for years. Back in grad school I was still entranced with video but was discouraged from pursuing my path at the time, which was constructing video pieces using pre-existing music or soundtracks. Instead I was asked to start making some of my own soundtracks, which I did via a very clunky setup involving an aging synthesizer, my dad’s old reel-to-reel tape deck, and the powerful-yet-limited capabilities of my video editing software’s audio component. I came up with some faintly interesting pieces, though the process was awkward enough that I never resurrected it for any further serious investigation. I still like the work I did then, but I do wonder what might have come of that process had I really allowed myself the time to practice, experiment, fail, and learn.
Musically I have no noticeable talent. Listening to albums doesn’t really count, though it does help refine the ear in some cases. I took piano for a few years when I was younger but besides the basics none of it ever really stuck – my heart just wasn’t into practicing, which is always a recipe for disaster.
However, I have always been in love with synthesizer technology. On a whim my father purchased Perrey & Kingsley’s Kaleidoscopic Vibrations when I was just a kid, and I adored it. Many of the bands and musicians I kept an eye on all these years were at the forefront of electronic music for their time. I had a subscription to Keyboard magazine for many years, and though I never really got the chance to fool around with any serious electronic music setup, I loved reading about the new instruments and devices.
Just before the holidays I picked up an application from Korg called the iMS-20. It combines an emulation of their classic MS-20 synthesizer with a sequencer and 6 “drum” tracks that can have any stored patch assigned to them. It sounded kind of limited to me at first – OK, you’ve got a sequence of an old-school synthesizer burbling and booping away, and you can add some decoration to it. Big deal.
The reality is somewhat different.
Korg packed so many features into this little app that there’s always something else to try, another dial to tweak, another angle of attack to explore. Seasoned electronic musicians may lament the loss of options they grew used to on much more elaborate (and expensive) setups, but the clear benefit of my never having had any of those types of systems is that I don’t really know what I’m missing. Also, I have always believed that limitations are what yield the best creative results, not a glut of possibilities and options.
Going into it I was aware that there’d be not only a learning curve but hour upon hour of false starts and wretched results, but I was not prepared for the overwhelming desire to just keep plugging away and exploring. I’ve kept pieces (and deleted many others) since the beginning of this journey, and as I grow more comfortable with all aspects of the interface the work is already reaching a point of being “somewhat OK”. Doesn’t sound impressive, but at least I finally got past “fairly crap with hints of possibilities”. It won’t be long until I hit “not bad”.
Recently I am discouraged. I told myself again and again that it was going to be a long road full of work and practice, but still I am disappointed that I have not turned out to be an instant genius with fabulous finished works bursting from the headphone jack. If we use my photography education and path as a parallel, I estimate that I am still in high school with a few interesting minor works under my belt – I have not even reached college yet. Just have to keep going until I am.
Still, it is difficult to convey just how liberating and joyful it is to finally have a tool that allows me to truly start from scratch – just me and my sine wave; whatever grows out of it is due to my own manipulation and exploration of very basic building blocks. That’s pretty cool.
What does it all mean? Where is this all going? I don’t know, and I don’t really have any major plans to speak of. I’ve got a few neat ideas rolling around my frontal lobe, but they are going to have to wait until I have much, much more work done.
Hasn’t improved my drawing skills much, clearly.
(why don’t I have a clip or something posted here of stuff I’ve been working on? I always hated when people wanted to look at my contact sheets back in college, and that’s all I really feel I’ve got so far. drafts and possibilities, little more.)
CSS
September 23, 2010
makes me jittery.
Resurfacing
September 22, 2010
It has been a long time since I dusted off the blog and wrote anything.
It happens.
However, if you take a whirl past the CD blog you’ll see I’ve at least been up to something lately.
Two years of ignoring this one, though, has somehow made me a bit smarter about how I was doing things. With that in mind, you may notice some mess and chaos here and there throughout my web world as I undo old mistakes and polish everything up to a high(ish) shine. Don’t worry, I’ll get to all of it eventually.
Also, though I am skeptical of the Stalin-esque practice of removing old posts and info (though I did exactly that for just about everything I had on Facebook), I did remove a few later posts that simply amounted to “not blogging lately” as if that wasn’t obvious enough already.
At any rate, enjoy, there’ll be stuff here and over at The Red Book Standard every now and then, though I can’t promise it will be terribly frequent.
- Jim
New York, New York
April 22, 2008
Last night I got back from Northampton. The trip to New York was amazing.
Early Saturday morning we got up and packed into a cab to Springfield. Being neurotically early (my fault) left us wandering a little, and I took the above shot near the bus station. Not bad.
Eventually we made our way up to the train platform and took a seat. I look demented because I typically try to remember to do something to prevent the fat chin in these kinds of pictures. Ah well, not as bad as it could have been.
I had not taken the train down through Connecticut since before I can remember, so it was interesting to see the path it took. Some familiar, some not so familiar. Above we got to wander around on the platform for a little bit as they swapped out the diesel locomotive for an electric one in New Haven.
There are some fairly large gaps in here between the images and what we were actually up to, so you’ll have to forgive that. Above is of course the Metropolitan Opera House. The performance of Philip Glass’ Satyagraha was completely amazing. I was in awe the entire time. The tough thing about Glass’ music is that it requires such precision – although they did a tremendous job, it is tough to stay on top of the music as written.
The visuals that went with the performance were remarkable as well. Glass leaves this end more or less up to the director based on the thrust of the scene in question and the libretto, so each new production is a thoroughly new interpretation. This is the only performance I’ve ever been aware of (besides one in Tehran a few years back – wha?), though, so this will likely be the only interpretation I ever see. If that’s the case, then I’m awfully happy it was this performance – it was stunning.
After that we swung by the hotel to get our room and drop our stuff. Sensing that we were going to run into timing issues if we tried to go for a big meal we stopped by the hotel bar and pounded down a few beers and quesadillas. The food was decent, the service not so much so. What can you do.
Then it was off to the Cherry Lane Theater for a double bill of Edward Albee’s The American Dream and The Sandbox. Both were wonderfully executed, directed by Mr. Albee himself. Rachel and I had a few minor quibbles, but overall it was a very handsomely mounted production.
Sunday morning we got up and tried to figure out what the Pope was up to. Our hotel was right next to ground zero, and we walked through all the preparations the night before on our way back from Greenwich Village.
Of course, there wasn’t much to see out the window. Only a tiny crowd of people on one street corner was at all visible, the rest obscured by our neighbor. I went down to get coffee and received very firm direction from the Secret Service about where I could go, when, how, etc. I am of the belief that Secret Service personnel should be posted at all points where lines are a problem. They were very effective at making sure everyone got through Starbucks promptly.
After a quick text message to Ethan to find an ideal lunch/beer spot, we ended up just blocks from MoMA for a quick bite. Rachel was very good and had a Caesar Salad, I was rather naughty and had the meat loaf paired with first an IPA, then the beer sampler.
After a stop at MoMA (too many people, though the exhibit was great), it was time to head out to the train. We loaded on and both plugged in to our music immediately. Neither of us had enough rest to chat too much.
Things were progressing nicely until we hit Windsor Locks, CT and were informed that there was a medical emergency on the southbound train that was preventing us from getting past to Springfield. Gee, eliminating the second track on these lines was a real good idea, wasn’t it?
Mercifully Mike was able to rescue us in no time flat.
A great trip and a wonderful time.
Easter Weekend
April 22, 2008
I took a quiet trip back home to Ellington for Easter weekend.
Here is my Dad solving the great problems of the universe, or at the very least trying to establish why his transition in Premiere isn’t working they way he anticipated. We solved a number of problems over the weekend, not the least of which was isolating a faulty optical cable as the reason for his temperamental 5.1 Surround Sound issues.
It was a quiet Easter – the Hayes were collectively ill so the backed out of the event. My cousin Christine was working, so that eliminated her as well. It was great to see Robin and Ray, though, so it was a splendid time.
The rest of the images from Easter are kind of mediocre, so I leave you with pie. Delicious.