Tag Archives: haydn

Hurry Spring   (2017Feb21)

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Tuesday, February 21, 2017                                             4:06 PM

Well, today settles it—I get maudlin towards the end of Winter. I start writing poems, I start playing piano in a minor key, I write bitter diatribes with far more than my usual cynicism. My taste in music gets a little weepy, a little dirge-y—I read more than watch TV. It’s a whole ‘Spring-better-show-up-soon’ depression-fest.

Also, I tend to write a lot more personal stuff—half of what I write this time of year is either too personal or too depressing to post—and I go on and on about stuff that I’m pretty sure isn’t driving the throngs to my blog—but that’s February for me. I’m fading fast—and I need some sunshine.

Well, things have settled down a bit—I’m used to either rooting for a Democrat administration, or I’m worrying about the one, really-big mistake that a GOP administration is currently making—I’m not used to purely dysfunctional—that’s a new one on me—and, I suspect, on all of you as well. But normalization is inevitable—short of storming Penn Ave, we’re stuck with the Clown until 2020—and the more avidly we stare, waiting for an impeachable offense, the less likely one is—‘a watched pot…’ and all that.

I’m still getting used to an America that is not actively trying to exceed itself—I’ll miss that forever, or until it returns, whichever comes first. Never before has a candidate won an election with a message of despair. “Make America great again”—I’d like to punch that fucker right in the mouth—the only thing that isn’t great about America is your benighted ass, you fucker, and the cowering, feebleminded jerks who voted for your sick agenda.

But let’s not get ourselves all worked up, every damn day, over the same old tragedy. What’s done is done. The odds on Trump sitting his whole term are long—one definite drawback to not knowing what you’re doing: you don’t know the rules. And while Trump may rubber-stamp some of the GOP’s worst legislation, they will find it hard to actually work with him—everyone does.

Fortunately for the Republicans, their platform was already custom-tailored for wealthy bastards with no public conscience—but they will inevitably try to mollify their base with something—and that’s where they and Trump will part ways. Trump’s penchant for blaming the establishment will ring rather hollow in 2020, after four years of being the establishment, so it’s hard to see him pull this off a second time—unless he actually does something.

But like most of his kind, Trump’s greatest ally would be military strife—even Bush-43 looked more dignified with Americans dying all over the place. Thus, it isn’t that I don’t want Trump to do anything—it’s that I’m afraid his ‘anything’ has some dark options waiting. Improving education, creating jobs, fixing our infrastructure—these would all be laudable accomplishments—if Trump can improve anything on such fronts, I’ll be glad to reevaluate—but I’m not going to hold my breath.

As much as I look forward to the coming of Spring, it will be all the more bitter for being a time of rebirth in an new age of tyranny—for 2017, T. S. Eliot will have got it right: “April is the cruelest month….”

Today’s poem and videos all contain cannibalized artwork from my one and only book of illustrated poetry, “Bearly Bliss”. It may seem ironic that my hand-tremors make me unable to draw, yet I still try to play the piano with the same hands—this is because I’m used to sucking at the piano, whereas I was once pretty good with a pen.

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I’m Already There   (2017Feb13)

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Monday, February 13, 2017                                             7:11 PM

Actively dysfunctional—is that a thing? Do some people go through life thinking that their job is to screw everything up? Is it possible that people realize the fragility of the status quo—and some are actively making it as bad as possible? I mean, you wouldn’t think so, would you?—because it wouldn’t make any sense at all. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

People do lots of disruptive things—and for a wealth of rationales: to strike back at ‘authority’ (whatever ‘authority’ may mean to the disruptor—and whoever is picked as its representative)—or simply to feel empowered by being capable of disruption—or to use disruption as a diversion for something else that won’t bear close scrutiny.

This is something I don’t think a lot about. I’m overly earnest in thought and deed. It would never occur to me to kick over an apple-cart, because that would just mean someone had to pick up all the apples. I’m all about cooperation and efficiency—thinking otherwise, for me, is a trip across the line into insanity—but I’ve come to recognize that we all have our own sanity. Just because I can’t think of a reason to put a knife between my ribs doesn’t mean no one else is thinking about it.

Surely you have wondered, like I do, how we can reconcile the incredible powers of communication, where people from twenty distant parts of the globe can interact as if in the same room, with a globe that is such a shit-storm—how can this be? How can we have reached a point where we can do momentous things, as if by magic, but we don’t do any of them—because of the rules we’ve set up? What crimes do we commit against each other in our enslavement to Capitalism? Beyond poisoning the planet, that is—I’ll leave out the obvious.

I’ll grant you the fact that imposing order is easy if you don’t care about people’s rights or feelings, and a just organizational plan is far more complicated than trying to rule the world by fiat—but with modern organizational tools and our ability to transport materials and communicate with each other, it remains a mystery how we could be so shoddily led by our government, or all the world’s other governments, for that matter, absent a tremendous lack of will—or possibly even intentional disruption. I’d like someone to explain to me how we can make progress in every avenue—except that which makes government more efficient and transparent, life less scary, or people less helpless.

The whole world sits around while Aleppo is bombed into rumble, for years on end—and yet the whole of the world’s nations can’t summon the will to defy those two or three countries for whom all the deaths and blood and suffering are part of some cold calculation of power and profit. We have the technology to watch the whole thing on TV, in real time—but we act like it’s fucking Twain’s weather—everyone talks about it, but no one does anything about it.

And when the helpless women and children come crawling from the ashes—do we spring into action then? Oh no—those people are a threat—they might blow us all up at any minute. Let’em suffer.

I tell you—I wrote a blog the other day about how I am still embarrassed to be white—but I think it’s becoming more pervasive than that—I’m about to become ashamed to be an American. Too late—I’m already there.

I’m still in love with the idea, the history, the memory, and the dream of America—but I’m living in a country I don’t recognize—a country where hate and fear have become, somehow, popular—popular enough for them to elect a modern incarnation of Hitler. Truth itself—and Science, are both under attack by forces that can only be bent on disruption. America may recover some day—I haven’t given up—but I still don’t know how we got here—so how will we ever get back? It’ll take more than a twitter-war.

You think Trump is crazy now? Just wait until they try to tell him his term is over.

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Pete and I   (2016Oct10)

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Monday, October 10, 2016                                               9:25 PM

My good friend Pete came by today and we talked briefly about the presidential race and the disgusting Donald. We had a wild session today—I’m still not sure exactly what happened, but I’ve edited the videos, so you can decide for yourselves.

Right now, however, I have a big back-log of musical offerings. Some were delayed by waiting for fresh baby pictures of the princess—there are several improvs and a Haydn piano sonata. Then there are five song-covers and one improv, from Pete and me collaborating this afternoon. All together, it’s quite a concert—but don’t feel like you have to watch it all at once. A lot of production work, after the actual recording, goes into these videos, so I’d prefer they be savored, wherever possible.

Between the inspiration of becoming a grandpa and the turmoil of the campaign season, I’ve had all my buttons pushed lately—and I flatter myself that it’s coming out in the music. I’ve been doing satisfying stuff lately—not all of it recorded and posted to YouTube—but I like to think that what I do post is representative of my recent work. Pete encourages me—so blame him, if you like.

“Wrong Guy”

“Four (4) 60’s Covers”

“MacArthur Park”

 

“Music Room”

“Haydn-and-Improv Hash”

“Philosophical”

“Cautiously Optimistic”

“Sight-Reading a Haydn Piano Sonata”

“Storms May Come”

“A Phoenix, I”

“Mickey’s ‘Mama’ Song”

Be The Government   (2016Jul03)

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Sunday, July 03, 2016                                              5:46 PM

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Well, this is embarrassing—I wrote my Fourth of July post yesterday and now I want to write something else—but it’s still the day before Independence Day, so what am I supposed to do, pretend it’s not happening and just write about random stuff? Yeah, that’s the plan. So much for topicality.

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Oh, it’s funny—and kind of exhilarating—when you look back at stuff that pissed you off and had you all off your game and under the weather for days—and you realize that your memory isn’t good enough to really remember what all that was about, so who cares anymore. If I can’t interface with the Internet without somebody getting in my face, then I just play Snood for a while and the whole thing’s forgotten—I’d like to take the credit, but honestly, it gets forgotten whether I like it or not.

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Sometimes time moves too fast (usually) and sometimes time moves too slow (that’s the worst so I’m glad it’s the rarer of the two). Sometimes time seems to stand still—but if you wait awhile, you’ll need to go to the bathroom eventually. For me time has always been a little too elastic—my musical friends are always trying to encourage me to use a metronome—but that really just makes it worse—I get confused about the time between the clicks. So I made a deal with myself long ago—that even though music is primarily about rhythm, it was okay for me to do everything without a good rhythm, anyway—we’ll just call it an overabundance of rhubato, that’s all. It’s not that I don’t want to be rhythmic, it’s just that I can’t—time won’t let me, as they say.

 

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I mean, I can feel an anger inside me—but through a combination of not remembering and not wanting to go there, I really have no idea why. Lots of things make me angry—I have an itchy trigger finger and a short fuse. Must be the Irish in me. Back in the day you could pick one thing to be angry about—the War, or Nixon, or Nuclear weapons, or the Ecology. But now there are just too many things going on, both good and bad—not getting angry is becoming an important skill, because the media will latch onto to that and make you watch TV all day or surf around the Internet until your eyes bleed.

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Yes, there are problems out there—it’s time we stopped getting scared about it, or angry about it, and started getting serious about leadership instead. We are about to have an election in which a miserable, dangerous candidate has a shot just because people are so angry and so uncomfortable—and so poor. And that’s on our establishment, no question about it. They’ve been lying down on the job—doing everything but their job. It’s time we elected new people—but not the worst person in the world, just because he sees an opening.

We need to elect local officials who are not wealthy or corrupt, who have public service in mind. Then we need to do that with our state officials, then our congresspersons. Only when we have regained control of our political infrastructure can we do anything about the big dogs—the governors, the senators, vice-president, and president. Those things are just shiny objects for us to jump up and reach for while all the real work gets done behind our backs.

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A vote won’t do it. People have to start going to town meetings, state party meetings, I don’t even know what kinds of meetings—that’s the sad part. The NRA’s zombie army all have the itinerary—surely the rest of us can start to realize that the crazies need to be beaten back at every river ford and mountain pass, that the lobbyists need to face down protestors outside their offices and in the halls of government. The reason we have such bad government now is because we have taken it for granted—but it needs work, just like your house or your yard—and they are overdue for a lawnmowing.

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We don’t get paid to participate in our government, local, state or whatever—we may not even get what we want, personally, by participating. But if we think of it as an appliance that works when you push the button, then we get a government that has no brain, no heart. Only when large numbers of regular people show up will our government ever resemble our desires, or even our needs. We don’t need smaller government or bigger government—we need to be the government.

It’s The Little Things   (2016May02)

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Monday, May 02, 2016                                            3:02 PM

When it comes to the fine arts, we are always prepared to follow the examples of those how have come before—in spite of also recognizing that past artists are of a greatness few can match. Thus we end up with grade-schoolers trying to emulate Mozart or Da Vinci, which is all well and good, especially if the youngster in question has a spark of talent that needs fanning into flame. But, as I have often put forward before, I believe the arts should not be a fenced-in preserve for the talented.

When we are in kindergarten, or even K-thru-3, we often sing songs together—this is both educational and fun, and little notice is paid to a lack of rhythm or tonal ear by any one child—though there is often material there for a critic, to be sure—and greatness is put to the side. Entire schools would gather for ‘auditorium’, which usually ended with a sing-along.

Later on, as early as high school, ‘choir’ becomes a class subject, weaning out those with little interest or ability. That’s fine—that’s understandable—it is school, after all, and they’re there to learn. But are all those other children meant to spend the rest of their lives without a song? That seems rather unlively to me. So I have been a one-man protest movement for music—aided these last ten years by YouTube, which allows my amateur efforts to reach far beyond the few people that walk past our house and sometimes hear tinkling inside.

Lately, I’ve had a few good improvs—but they’ve only lasted a minute or so. I have had to teach myself to sometimes be satisfied with that—there is a temptation to keep going, to create something of awesome architecture, like the musical greats of the past. But I am not a ‘musical great’—I’m not even a ‘musical so-so’—so if I record a mere minute of something nice, I try to accept that with good grace rather than try for something more traditional. And you would be surprised, as I have often been, by just how slowly the seconds tick by when you’re trying to be creative at the keyboard—a minute of decent improvisation is no small feat, not for me anyhow.

Also, while improvising, the longer one plays the more likely one will fall back on old tropes, familiar filler that one has used before—and one edges away from true improvisation and turns more towards rehearsal of the familiar. This is okay once in a while, but it should be recognized as such, or one’s improvs will come to sound like a familiar refrain. One’s personal musical style will make that problem enough without willingly pursuing the familiar. I’m proud that my daughter has told me that she can always tell it’s me at the piano—but I’d feel much differently if she had said I always sound the same.

Anyway, here are today’s selections—two very short improvs and one that is longer but is really three separate improvs (in different keys) in one video. Then there’s a long one that isn’t quite audience-ready—it’s a sample of the practicing of classical composers that I do to help keep my improvs changing and growing. One of my favorite songs is the old classic by Spanky McFarlane, “Sing Your Own Kind Of Music”—lyrics to live by, I’ve always thought.

In Which The Hero Has A Narrow Escape   (2015Nov24)

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Tuesday, November 24, 2015                                           8:00 PM

We got new chairs—they’re classy, made out of unpainted wood—not folding chairs, which have been our go-to chairs, mostly. It’s good to have chairs—that way you can have company—uh-oh! Company? Wait a minute….

I started to write a post today, then about three pages in, I realized I was mistaken in my facts. I had to walk away—I hate when I realize I’m wrong about something—it’s not like it happens every day (more like every other, but never mind).

But I walked away with a cigarette burning in the ashtray. I came back just now, hours later, and the smoke-eater ashtray is still on, wasting its batteries, and there’s a butt that’s gone out on the newspaper that I use for a mouse-pad, with a little burned-out circle in the paper. I almost burned my house down because I got upset about being wrong.

It’s partly the chairs’ fault—you don’t usually get a parade of new chairs coming through the front door, which I’m sitting next to. So, stunned by being wrong and confused by a shower of furniture, I walked away from a lit cigarette—but I was lucky. The house abides.

Then I misspelled “Haydn” on my video graphics, and had to go back and correct all that—it’s just my day for screwing up, I guess. Day after tomorrow is Thanksgiving—there’s a pressure (for me at least) building from the approaching holidays—opening ourselves to feelings, in the tradition of the season, makes the thought of trouble more intimidating. When things go wrong during the holidays, they don’t just go wrong—they ruin the holiday. Not that I expect things to go wrong—but bustling shoppers and stressed-out parents and heavy store traffic, all together, just need a little complication, like bad weather for example, and the whole thing becomes a nail-biter. I kinda feel like ducking, until January 2nd makes it all go away—I love January 2nd—it’s like that day you come home from vacation—the good times are over, but it’s nice to just settle in again.

Well, next blogpost, I hope to know what I’m talking about—if that was ever the case.

The Mists of The Mayflower (2015Jul03)

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Friday, July 03, 2015                                                9:31 PM

My mother’s side of the family boasts sea captains and pirates from New England and doctors from New York, even going as far back as Elder Brewster, a passenger on the Mayflower. Her mother created a circular genealogical chart—scans of pieces of which I’ve included in the video—the technique was so effective that a local Camden, ME reporter wrote an article about it back in the seventies.

Family trees are notoriously difficult to arrange due to the doubling effect—every one person has two parents, four grandparents, eight, sixteen, thirty-two great-great-great-grandparents. You can see how it’s hard to make the list fit without having ten-foot-wide paper. Gramma Duffy’s idea was to start with yourself in the center of a circle, then put your parents’ names on both halves of a thin ring outside that center circle. The next ring out will have their parents on the four quarters. Conveniently, the circles get concentrically bigger as you begin to need more room for all the names. Pretty tricky, huh?

Because of their heritage, my mother’s mother and her female ancestors had membership in the DAR, until my grandmother quit back in the thirties. She, like many other women, was following Eleanor Roosevelt’s lead in protesting the DAR’s refusal to allow Marion Anderson to perform a recital (for an integrated audience) at their Constitution Hall in Washington, DC. Mrs. Roosevelt (and her husband) arranged to have Ms. Anderson perform on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday 1939. That began a tradition that culminated with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech on the same steps three decades later.

According to my research, The Daughters of the American Revolution is a far cry from the close-minded group that tussled with our most famous First Lady. Today they are inclusive and community-minded, as far as I know. But my mother and sister have never felt the urge to join. I can see why—it’s not very American to have a sense of entitlement because of your bloodline, even without the racism.

Today’s video was played on a Yamaha electric piano. My Yamaha has a Record function, so I needed some video to go with. I chose my mom’s family history because I’ve always meant to make a video of the records.

Also, here’s a video from yesterday that shows the popular hedges outside our kitchen window—apparently favored by the local bumblebees.

Oh, and here’s some video of me sight-reading Haydn—it’s pretty sloppy, but there you go.

Four for Sunday (2015Apr26)

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Oh, and here’s one from yesterday…

Have you seen my Youtube channel?

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Have you seen my Youtube channel?

There are various genres of music represented–including my improvisations, which I think of as daily meditations more than musical works.

Please note that I have several Playlists that include some of my generation’s most evocative pop hits, some of my favorite classical pieces (including “Sad Class”, which is my demonstration of the theory that ‘having the blues’ can also be treated with classical music).