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I hatched a plan today to create a series of songs for my friends, most of whom are in England. I made a start today by finishing a track I began yesterday and dedicated it to Jamie, a friend of ours in London. Not sure why, but the piano melody reminded me of him and then that gave me the whole idea. Having a person in mind when crafting a tune really seems to give the sounds a shape and purpose.
I think that I created a particularly nice bass instrument on Garageband for the song and wanted to share the technical details here. Unfortunately I can’t work out how to use Grab to capture images of the Garageband instruments so I can’t show the settings – the EQ and synth boxes disappear whenever Grab is clicked on.
Anyhow nearly all the samples were created by Nu:Tone, available at Loopmasters. I have only used the free demo samples at this stage and I was amazed by the quality. I will definitely consider buying the complete set.
It could do with some more work in the mixing, but I’m pretty happy with it, especially as I knocked it together in about four or five hours from auditioning sounds to mastering.
Listen to it here.
Next up: Suzanne.
A little while back I was moaning about WordPress not hosting video and mp3 files unless you cough up. Admittedly it’s not very expensive and I do love WordPress, but I have NO money at present.
Accordingly, I’ve set up a website on Freewebs to host my photos, music and video. I’ll be using it alongside this blog, at least until I upgrade my WordPress account.
Find it here.
After a good Sprinti
I wouldn’t normally write about my dreams on this blog, but I remember them so infrequently these days and this one is really quite interesting.
The character is a young English woman on a gap year, possibly in La Paz, working as a volunteer teacher. She is talking to ‘camera’ explaining about how she has coped with the altitude and can now ‘run around with my iPod’ because she’s been doing this local, and very ancient, sport called ‘Sprinti.’
Basically it’s a bit like a big Inka game of tag. You are given a coloured thread by someone and told to run and take it to a specified person in such-and-such a part of the city. You deliver the thread to them and add another, which you have to find on the way.
That recipient then has to deliver both threads to the person you specify. And so on, building up more and more threads and connecting more and more people.
Towards the end of the dream it was explained that the runner wears the threads on their wrist and that they represent some form of notice to the community, a bit like a kind of charity run for a cause, so people might say: ‘Ah, there goes so-and-so on a Sprinti for the Kid’s Hospital.’
The dream seemed so realistic that I almost wonder whether Sprinti isn’t real – perhaps it’s a message from the Aylllu unconscious, or maybe it’s a reference to Khipu runners. Who knows?
Nice idea though. Next time someone asks if you play a sport you can say – ‘Sure, I do a bit of Sprinti every now and again.’
Going through my Google Reader articles and find one entitled ‘Pass me the nautiloid, nurse‘…
My heart leapt – at last Nature Magazine is referring to my blog!
Alas, the article is about something much more important, namely whether allowing hospital patients to handle museum objects could help speed up their recovery and alleviate suffering.
Great idea. I know I’d like it.
This Futurismic post is fascinating. It cites an article by Kevin Kelly about a disk that has been imprinted with a record of the world’s languages in ever decreasing font size, right down to the microscopically tiny.
It sounds like something Borges might have cooked up, but is a brilliant way to maintain decipherability across human languages, many of which we are losing at a depressing rate.
Freesound is a website offering user-made samples, ‘focusing on sound not songs’, all free to use by anyone and licensed under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus License.
It is a fantastic resource.
I’ve been going through Dan Simmons’ entertaining and strongly opinionated series on ‘How to Write Well’. I highly recommend it if you are interested in reading advice on writing from someone who does it brilliantly and knows what he’s talking about, and who makes you laugh (and cringe possibly a bit too…)
One of the key things Simmons recommends is that we read the great classics, not to imitate them (god forbid!) but to deepen our appreciation and awareness of style, language and technique. I couldn’t agree more.
In fact, I’ve decided to ‘take him on’ and broaden my reading diet, particularly with the classic novels. Madame Bovary seems to be a particular recommendation of Simmons, who argues that it represents a fictional fault-line, a before and after moment for the novel. So, I thought that might be a good start – I know, it’s unbelievable I still haven’t read it. Have you? I downloaded a free copy, well-rendered as a PDF, here.
Simmons also highlights Henry James as one of the greatest stylists in modern English, managing to capture vast import and subtlety into what he says and, above all, what he doesn’t say.
I happen to have a copy of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw to hand and I decided to give it a go. It has some fine and chilling moments of horror, as well as an intriguing is she/isn’t she psychological plot-puzzle that has kept readers and critics entertained ever since its publication.
However, in my view, the style is somewhat opaque, particularly the dialogue, and is not a great model to learn from (except perhaps for what not to do). Nineteenth Century people may well have thought and spoke in the strangely periphrastic, stilted, and at times incomprehensible way that James makes them do here, it is hard for me to judge. But I’ve read Wilkie Collins and Dickens, and MR James for that matter, and their characters don’t seem to, unless it’s a particular trait and is fully intentional.
Simmons writes amusingly of his undergraduate attitude to Henry James and his layered style (he tried to avoid reading him as much as possible), but notes his growing appreciation for him as a master of deep and complex prose as he got older, and more experienced, as a writer.
I’m sorry to say, though, that I am still not convinced. So, in the spirit of fun, and to illustrate my problem with The Turn of the Screw, which I’ve heard so much about, and which has frankly disappointed me, I give you a sample from a lost early version of the story:
Whether he saw now the measure of it, or I of myself, was now no longer to be the question. If only, I forced myself to concede, it were. But no, that thought was merest whimsy, no more of the slightest possibility, or of even the grossest supposition or manner. Now, I was only too painfully aware, only the merest trace of what might not have been said or known was there left, mingling too unkindly with the sighs of the frosty evening air. But had I not known of it always? Was it for him, in that monstrous moment, to be vouchsafed that I, as it were, not from the want of it, but alone, as though at once, should perceive, in the most exquisite detail, the knowledge that he, were he only to share it with me in the merest instant or breath, to be? Was I that condemned? I think that if I had, at that precise instant, but paused a moment longer, to accept within myself the truth of it, then I would truly have been lost, As it was, the anguish of the instant all but rushed in upon my soul, and I confess I broke, with all the pent up fury and anger and hatred that the pettiness of not having known of it before could have meant, to him, for he it was, I understood that now, and I ran. Out into the silent garden, its cold embrace and bare winter branches seeming only to mock me now, and I flung myself down upon the close-cropped croquet lawn, and I wept. For how long, I shall never now recall, it might have been an eon. But at last, the sobs subsided and I returned, with slow and dreadful steps to the drawing room to watch a bit of tv.
There’s lots like that. Of course, I’ll give James another chance, and I’m aware I’m being very silly, but he’s lost some points with this story… unless the joke is on me and I have completely missed the point…
Perhaps the style is supposed to be like that as it reflects the state of mind and confusion and repression of the heroine. Oh dear… D**n you Henry James! You win again!
Chemical Chords
This is a few days old, but worth reporting.
Stereolab have signed to 4AD and they have a new record
The Moon!
Cliff Burns has completed a second dark and desolate novel for free download. It is called Of the Night, and follows on from So Dark the Night.
I intend to devour these as soon as I can, though I do have trouble reading on the computer screen for long periods. Perhaps devour is the wrong word, maybe it should be ’snack voraciously’…
Thanks for sharing your work Cliff.
Polluto
At the risk of simply copying everything Matt Staggs posts (he may have to take out an internet exclusion order or something), he has an excellent and intriguing interview with Adam Lowe, editor of the frankly irresponsible and horrid-sounding magazine Polluto.
I strongly advise readers of this blog to RESIST this kind of immoral filth with all their might (don’t click that link…)
