[This](https://phys.org/news/2016-07-music-musical-cultural-hardwired-brain.html) article is one of many that claim that consonance and dissonance are cultural traits. Exposure to western music has trained most of us to veer towards perfect fifths and similar rot. Perfect fifths have their place, of course, but just not in the helpings that I'm usually presented. This concept of **subjective** evaluation of music bothers some people, especially those of the fundamentalist strain. I'm using the word *fundame...
Dani tasked me with writing the sountrack to his new short film **Sheriff**. I'd've picked a less mundane name, but it's his project and I only assist, not interfere. My idea is to create a series of 9 - 12 miniatures between one and two and a half minutes each. #### Thus the complication arrives. My sense of musical movement is been set in gear that spins cogs at a glacial pace. I'm listening to *Possible Planet* by **Steve Roach** as I type and imagine he'd have the same problem that I have. The firs...
The first *mid-hump* of **Dobruška and her Piglet** (since, as I mentioned in a previous entry, Dobruška is certainly not a dromedary), gave me problems for epochs upon epochs. I used recapitulations of themes, new themes, lack of themes, and ululating white noise for the section, all of which resulted in jarring transitions on both of its borders. Inspiration finally struck last Sunday, which should be ever celebrated in the future as the day that Flamenco humped Dobruška. Christian, who I consider a fet...
*It's a wonderful world - it's a real crying shame* croons David Sylvian as I begin the short journey from one end of a dense thicket to another. The thicket, or, in other words, this entry, is as yet only vaguely known, as it should be. The process reminds me of my *compositional strategy* over the last three years. ### What *strategy* is **that**, Herr Underling? Like a savage thicket, or *woods* if you are of the more civilized ilk, pieces of music appear in my mental landscape amorphous and untamed. I...
I perused an article this morning. I won't mention the source to that article since it won't be around any longer after the **heat death of the universe**, during which most of you will be reading this, when my writings become the only remaining **literature** that gives that **warm** feeling that harkens back to the **olden days**: the days to which we should return. Lap up the words, serfs, as you grovel. The article concerned **traditionalists**. That's not the word the article used, but it is more prec...
Ritual appeals to conformists and conformists perpetuate ritual. The idea that *everything goes as planned* and *everyone behaves in a predictable manner* is another facet of familiarity. It is tied with safety. Within a cultural bubble, a *safe* form of art is a form of art that stays within boundaries predefined by years of repitition. The art itself is a ritual. All improvisation must remain within the boundaries. Whilst arbitrary boundaries themselves can be used to help an artist approach material with...
I talked with the gypsy loving douchebag Christián yesterday briefly about my dislike of **noodling** and how musical structures that only serve as a receptacle for guitar (or any other instrument) improvisation aren't really to my taste. I prefer when the structure, or harmonic, rhythmic and melodic **form** of a piece is on the altar and all instrumental parts serve to enhance its body. When a body of work as vast as a *folk* music exists, such as flamenco, I always pause to worder why there is so little...
I'm listening to **Shambal Lies Supine Part 2** on Musicoin, as I have submitted it to a *contest*. I laughingly call it a contest, as Robert Calvert laughingly called one of his songs an **enunciation** or somesuch. I predict a maximum of seven people (or groups) entering the contest and the winner not being **Flavigula**. **Flavigula** should win, however, not because I am vainglorious, but because in contrast to the other music that will be submitted, **Shambal Lies Supine Part 2** will stand out. It wil...
The type of art that has appealed to me since my days living parched and shackled in a hovel in West Texas has always been the art of the outlier. The origin of this affinity is only semi-clear. I obviously had no love for my shackles. I obviously had no love for the conservative bubble my parents constructed around me. I obviously had no love for the lack of preforations in that bubble. There were a few preforations, however. I didn't consciously turn to outlier art, and especially outlier music. It seeme...
A friendship only on one of the participants terms isn't a friendship at all, actually, but more like a business contract. Anyone familiar with my blog entries will know that I am not the biggest fan of **business contracts**. They reek of artificiality. They are the stagnant film on the surface of relationship's pond. Fuck um. As I grow ancient, I notice more and more **friendships** that edge closer and closer to said contracts. My initial impressions of reasons edge towards knowing people becoming more ...
I am on a plane that spans the vector spaces of Bilbao and Brussels. I'm listening to Nektar. The latter is far more important. I *spoke* to Christián earlier (and I use the word *speak* in a very idiomic sense) about art. Or it is always a possibility that I interpreted our convetsation as one about art. He could have interpreted it as a mini epic about the default settings of the multiverse. I cannot know. The quote I wish to reference is thus: > i always end up back to the idea that art is the nexus o...
