So I’ve had intermittent hypnagogic hallucinations for the past two years or so. They were really frequent two years ago, then became less and less but the experience was learned and now I don’t know when to expect them.
Continue reading There not thereAuthor: Scott D. Strader
Suite for Turntable and Piano — Expression
I’ve been.. a week? into the final movement.
The title is stolen from the giallo film by Sergio Martino, starring the classic giallo actress Edwiga Fenech, called Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key. Like all giallo it’s expressionist thriller, and this title comes from a previous film of his (same year, also Ms. Fenech) where a hapless victim receives a written message saying, without context and never explained: “your vice is a locked room.” We all have our creative byways.
End of Year, 2021
Today I finished the fourth movement for my suite for turntables and piano (coincidentally, but satisfying).
I’m terrified of 2022 elections and gerrymandering. We’re fucked.
I’m about to take a three month sabbatical from work. I am infinitely lucky I have the ability to do that.
Lisa is in Miami for a fooooot-ball game with Danice.
I’m at the start (~250 of 1,200) of Pynchon’s Against the Day (which I invariably translate to Gegen des Tages though I’m sure that’s nonsense-talk) whereas I started it a decade-or-so-ago and got ~300 pages in but stopped for some reason. I have an ever-expanding document of notes with character names and key events. It helps.
I’ve been back into Duolingo. Maybe it’ll take? I love those characters.
(Lily is a fucking bitch, though.)
I’m proud of what I’ve composed (this year I finished the symphony and string quartet), but have shame that I can no longer play what I had been able to. I use to be able to play an hour of my music, relatively cleanly and from memory; now I don’t play piano at all. I do have plans to ignore the deficiencies of hand dystonia and start playing again next year (this year (timestamp)).
We have made the condo much better this year. New bookshelves; new hallway lighting. Maybe even better next year. That makes me feel like an adult?
I created an @sstradermusic account in order to firewall my composer self from my personal Twitter and have new acquaintances (of a sort), but also gods-among-men individuals who I’m terrified of interacting with.
I bought some really cool artwork.
This is me tonight. I am 2021:
String Quartet No. 2 — First thoughts
I’m still a couple of months away from finishing the Suite for Turntables and Piano, and I never work on two pieces at the same time, but a specific subject and musical structure came to me a few weeks ago so it’s queued up.
Continue reading String Quartet No. 2 — First thoughtsSuite for Turntables and Piano — Four months in and finishing the third movement
I’m very metrics-oriented: how long have I worked on a piece? How much music has been written? I read of writers feeling in the-same-or-similar way regarding how many pages they write in a day (it’s always very few). It’s been four months and I’m at 15 minutes of music. I don’t think that means anything.
At this point, I’m not sure that the turntable can hold up as a solo or chamber instrument. That’s a self-canceling suggestion since any instrument can be a member of an ensemble, but I’m trying to balance my fascination for the instrument against the actual experience. So more than self-canceling it’s self-reflective. Half full?
