09.08.08
Underground
Well, it hasn’t started yet, but it will, so I’ll head it off now:
I’m not dead yet 
From time to time, I really have to stop what I’m doing and focus on my music. Right now, I’ve started some preliminary work on my fifth Jamendo album. However, I’m nowhere near ready to run with it.
This summer was hard on me. I’ve moved to another state, and now, I’ve started teaching at a new school. For that reason, my posts here on WordPress have been kind of scarce.
Whenever this happens — and it has to happen, or the music won’t improve — I get mail from folks who are concerned about what happened to me. It’s ok.
I’m somewhere beyond the Woodshed right now. I call it “Underground.” (A bit of a sight gag, since my new studio is on the 4th floor of our townhouse.) As in, “I’ve gone underground with my music.”
I’m shooting for something special. When I look back at my albums, the most popular one so far has been handmade. However, the one that really sticks with me is La vie sous la mer. There are some songs on that album that take me away to another place.
I want that again.
See, there’s a reason I do Creative Commons music. It’s about freedom. I may not make much money at it, but I have the luxury of not caring. I do it to make something new and worthwhile.
And until I’m ready, I’m underground.
Like a sequoia seed.
08.16.08
Playing
The title above has two meanings, today: playing music, and playing Go. (I posted a bit more about the process to Dandelife earlier.)
This is the end of my summer vacation. There wasn’t much to it: I spent just about the entire time moving to Virginia, getting settled in, and looking for a new job.
The good news is, I found a position as a middle school science teacher at a local school. The better news is, when I say local, I mean local: the school is only two miles away from my house.
The flip side to that is, here I am, at the end of my vacation, with little time off to show for it. In a way, I’m starting off exhausted.
However, in another way, this is very exciting. New hires to the district had an orientation meeting on Friday — it was fantastic. Inspiring even. Then I got a look at my new school, and it’s very sensibly organized. The people I’m going to be working with seem to be top of the line.
It’s the big leagues, now. It’d be hard not to be excited.
On the musical front, this means my time will undergo its usual relativistic contraction as my life approaches lightspeed. I’m working on my fifth Jamendo album. Right now, all I’m doing is developing song ideas. When I find the right ones, they will begin to speak to me, and I’ll be able to hear them settle into final forms.
One of the things that has been inspiring me is playing Go. I’m not sure how the two are related — I’m not writing “Go music.” But somehow, the act of learning the game is making me much more creative. It’s kind of like the concentration serves to open some hidden door, and the inspiration rushes in through the portal.
Therefore, I owe some thanks to three online places to play Go. I mentioned them last time, but now that I’ve become more familiar, I have a bit more to say.
OGS, the Online Go Server
Here, I’ve managed to attain the relative rank of 25 kyu. I’ve finished 25 games, and have 10 in progress. For me, this was the easiest place to establish myself in, and there are a number of ways to get further involved — ladders, tournaments, and even a discussion forum.
DGS, the Dragon Go Server
I’ve been playing on DGS as well: 9 in progress, 2 finished. The folks on DGS seem to take the turn based principle fairly seriously, and my games have been moving along more slowly than at OGS. However, this is good in some ways — all along, I’ve been improving. There is at least one game where I started out fairly poorly, but finished strongly because of what I’d learned in the meantime.
KGS, the Kiseido Go Server
Unlike the above, KGS is realtime. Originally I had problems running cGoban 3 — the client software — because I’m on a 64 bit computer. It’s not KGS fault, really: cGoban requires Sun Java, but Sun hasn’t ported Java Web Start to 64 bit yet (or at least, it hasn’t made it to Kubuntu yet).
My workaround: I always have a second bootable partition on my main computer. Generally this is for experiments and special software builds. Right now, my second OS is Xubuntu — the 32 bit version.
I’ve tried to keep my system dual boot with both Kubuntu and Xubuntu. If ever I’m having to run an application with a need for speed and CPU time, Xubuntu is my choice. I chose the 32 bit version for compatibility with software that’s only available in 32 at present (for example, Renoise, which requires the 32-bit version of Jack to work optimally on my system).
Once I got started at KGS, I found it was a wonderful place. The site is divided into different rooms, each with a sort of specialty angle, and I’ve found the people to be friendly, the games to be exciting, and the software to be excellent.
Other places
I recently updated my “Where am I?” page of links. I’m on goproblems.org and GoDiscussions.com as well. These aren’t places to play, but are still places to learn.
08.10.08
The Way to Go
Years ago, I learned to play the board game Go.
I was never very good at it. I learned to play quickly, but reached a plateau quickly as well. I would win battles, but lose wars.
This was over eight years ago. In the meantime, I took up music. Now, I play a wide variety of instruments, and even have four albums available on Jamendo.
It’s time for a fifth.
However, I’ve found that in order to create, I need to also be learning something unrelated. I’m not sure how it works, but recently, I looked back through my music notebooks (I’m on #20, now). Every time, my periods of greatest creativity came when I was studying something else, something non-musical. Over the years I’ve studied French, the Python programming language, the Napoleonic Wars and the Age of Sail, Discrete Mathematics and symbolic logic, and countless other minor projects.
So this time, I’m returning to Go.
The online world has changed quite a bit. Here’s what I’ve found so far:
Places to Learn Go
Years ago, the American Go Association had a decent site, as well as Kiseido (a Japanese publishing company focusing on Go related products.)
They are joined by an absolutely amazing site, Sensei’s Library, which seems to operate in a similar spirit to Wikipedia. Like most collaborative sites, the information flows in a sort of tidal wave — or tsunami, I guess I should say — and I still haven’t finished navigating even a tenth of the site. However, the quality of the information is very good.
Places to Play Go
In the old days, there were a few online Go servers, but there was a problem. Back then — you youngsters may not remember this — there was this irritating thing called a “dialup” connection ;-) This rather tenuous connection to the internet ran at a slow speed, and sometimes collapsed entirely, usually during a crucial operation such as a download or a pitched battle in an online game.
Well, in the year 2008, the internet is a bit more sane in many places. Further, the online sites have had enough experience dealing with disconnect problems that the elements are already in place to smooth out irregularities.
That being said, there are still two fundamental options for playing Go online.
Turn-Based Servers
The games take place in a manner similar to a web forum — you post a move, then your opponent posts a move. The advantages of this method:
- Plenty of time to think about your moves.
- No software to worry about — it’s all handled by a web browser.
- Dropped connections not a problem. Nor are unexpected interruptions to your game.
I am signed up as ‘bmccosar’ on two turn-based servers: Dragon Go Server (DGS) and the Online Go Server (OGS).
Realtime Servers
Here, the choices are legion. However, I have one factor that weeds a lot of them out: I don’t use Windows. I’ve been running Kubuntu Linux for months now, and I’ve been using Linux in general since about 2001.
Many of the realtime go servers require some sort of software client. Few of them have one which can run on my OS easily.
However, the one which is the most open, the most welcoming, and the most Linux-able, is IGS, the Internet Go Server. Because their interface is public (you can even log in and play via telnet), there are many quality clients available, and there are many options for Linux users.
The one I’ve used, so far, is ggo. It has worked pretty well.
As of yet, though, I’ve only played one realtime game.
Endgame
Remember the concept behind my playing Go? Ah, yes, to be able to make better music. It’s much easier for me to play a turn-based game. I can log in, move, then switch back to working on music projects.
Also, frankly, at this stage of the game, I need time to think between each move. There is an old Go proverb that says “Lose your first 50 games as quickly as possible.” Well, there’s losing, and then there’s losing. I see no point in just zipping into a game, plunking down stones without deep thought, then marking up another loss. When I lose, I want to have actually gained something from having played. That way, in the global sense, it’s not really a loss at all.
See? This time, I’m focusing on winning the war, not the battles.
08.04.08
Jammin with Jamendo (and Python, and Bash)
Recently, I had a casualty: my computer died. I had to get a new one.
One of the things I lost was my vast music collection. I’ve been downloading music from Jamendo for some time (in addition to being an artist there). I don’t know exactly how many albums I had — certainly over 100.
Well, looks like I’ll be downloading them again over the next few weeks.
At the same time, I’m discovering new music. I’ll have more to say about that in future posts, as I accumulate listening time.
But I had a problem.
Jamendo lets you download the entire album as a zip file. When you unzip the file, on Linux, it generally sprawls the contents all over the current directory.
Not good. I put a lot of effort into organizing my directory structure. After my computer disaster, I lost none of my personal data, and none of the original tracks for my music. The secret is frequent backups. But these backups become much easier when your home directory is properly ordered.
Large files, like music files, are already compressed. It makes no sense to archive them on those huge .tar.bz2 DVDs I compile. Also, if an album is available for free download from a reliable source (such as Jamendo) I “offload” my backup responsibility upstream. That is, if I lose it, I just pull it down again later.
So I have a separate partition on my hard drive called /mnt/common. All the large files are stored there — easy to back up, easy to identify. If I need a set of files close at hand, I just drop a symbolic link in my home directory.
Below, I’ve written a utility script in Python that:
- Automatically takes an arbitrary number of downloaded Jamendo .zip albums;
- Unzips them into your preferred location, organized in directories based on the artist’s name and album’s title;
- Fixes the names of the artist and album so they avoid spaces, single quotes, and double quotes.
The script takes the unusual step of not actually doing the work itself, but instead writing a Bash script that does the actual moving and unzipping. This is a sort of safety feature I’ve developed over the years — you can proofread the Bash script to see if the operation that’s going to be performed is the one you want.
Here’s a brief tutorial:
- Make a place for your downloaded albums. For example, I’d use /mnt/common/Jamendo
- Edit mrfixit.py (below) so that this is the location pointed to by the JAMDIR variable (line 5).
- Run the script in the directory where you’ve downloaded your .zip files (mine usually end up in ~/Desktop ). You can catch the output as a new shell script, for example:
python mrfixit.py > jammer.sh - Look through the automatically generated script just to make sure you’re not about to do something insane. Then activate it using
sh jammer.sh
The archives should be moved and unzipped in a nice, hierarchical directory system. For extra fun, be sure to check out Amarok . . . .
06.01.08
Points of Departure (the song), uploaded.
I’ve just uploaded the original tracks to “Points of Departure”, the title track to my recent Jamendo album. It looks like I’m finally caught up, here on WordPress, in writing that series of articles about each song. So, today, the penultimate set has been posted to ccMixter:
05.30.08
The Wind of Distant Planets (part 1)
I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my fourth Jamendo album, Points of Departure. This is about the seventh track, The Wind of Distant Planets.
I was born at the end of the Apollo Era. In 1972, when Apollo 17 left the Moon, we had no idea that would be the last visit. In first grade, I imagined that one day there’d be cities in space and bases on the moon. I actually planned to be a starship captain.
Then, the world let us down.
The U.S. gave up. Instead of exploring new territory, instead of inspiring new dreams, we turned inward, choosing to throw money at old problems that haven’t gone away in 10,000 years of civilization.
I only had one last bit of hope remaining from that era. We gave up on sending humans into space. Instead, we sent machines.
Now, this was before the internet. It was before cable television. In those days, there were only three main TV networks, plus PBS and a few wack-o independent stations. When the Voyager space probes went by Jupiter, I waited months to see the photos — they only appeared as passing stories on the news.
Where they were best was in National Geographic. Of course this was a magazine, with a months-long lead time before a story would actually make it to print. So I would wait long months to see those first photos from a distant world.
The cloud bands of Jupiter were amazing. And each of its moons was like a miniature world. Throw in that strange, phantomlike ring, the Great Red Spot, and the nightside lightning bolts, and you can see this was something spectacular — not really a visit to an alien star system, but darn close: a visit to a miniature solar system.
This song, then, is dedicated to the four space probes that first explored the outer planets: Pioneer 1, Pioneer 2, Voyager 1, and Voyager 2. I felt strongly enough about this that it even shaped my concept for the album’s cover art, which is based on the Pioneer plaque.
Maybe the world lost its imagination, but in certain small corners of the solar system, the spirit of exploration lives on.
05.29.08
Casualty of the Battle of the Bands (part 1)
I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my fourth Jamendo album, Points of Departure. This is about the sixth track, Casualty of the Battle of the Bands.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
Well, my world, at least. As they say at the Torchwood Institute: “the 21st century is where everything changes.”
We are in the process of selling our house. We have a buyer, and we are busy going through the maze of processes and procedures that complete the deal.
It’s happening. By July 7, 2008, I will no longer live in Florida.
The entire Points of Departure album is about this event, and about similar turning points in my life. The sixth song is one of the hardest to write about, and that’s what has been delaying me.
In 2004, there was a time when I was playing in three local bands at once: a jazz band, a piano pop power trio, and a more conventional rock band.
But all things come to an end.
I wrote about these events once, on Dandelife. I don’t think I’m up for a repeat performance. Instead, here are the links to the parts of the story reflected in the song:
- Assembling a Band
- Rhythm Method
- Leonardo’s 706
- Common Grounds
- Christmas Practice
- V-Fest
- Leonardo’s 706 (#2)
- The Shamrock
- The Savannah Grande
- Common Grounds (#2)
- Civic Media Center
- V-Fest (#2)
- Starfish CD Release
- Dark Side Summer
- The Social (Orlando, FL)
- A.J.’s (Jacksonville, FL)
- The Battle of the Bands
- The Star Sets
- Back to Life, Back to Reality
And so I awoke, and found me here on the cold hillside.
Now my time in Gainesville is at an end. I’m moving beyond the horizon. What will I find? Will I keep making my own music, or will I find a band to play in?
I honestly don’t know. The dice are still in the air.
05.19.08
In Memory of Dorothy Blair (part 1)
I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my fourth Jamendo album, Points of Departure. This is about the fifth track, In Memory of Dorothy Blair.
Dorothy Blair was my first grade teacher.
My father was in the Marine Corps; our family moved around a lot. In 1974, we were living in Albany, GA. The place I grew up, my “home town”, was the Marine Corps base. Even today, I think of regimented streets, numbered buildings, control towers, and radar dishes as home.
The base kids went to school at Mock Road Elementary. There were two first grade teachers that I recall . . . I was lucky, and I got Ms. Blair.
Now, I wasn’t an easy student to have. By the time I was in 2nd grade, I was already reading novels meant for adults. Dorothy Blair is the one who encouraged me. Some teachers “stick to the program” with every student, regardless. She didn’t. By the end of my first grade year, I’d already worked my way through all the language books and was up to the sixth grade books — the last set I could get on campus, actually. She let me go to the library and get new books any time I wanted.
She set me free. From that moment on, I knew if I wanted to learn something, I could get the right materials together and figure it out for myself.
So in that way, I owe her for my music career — I’m almost entirely self taught.
When you grow up a Marine dependent, you move a lot. Even after we moved away (in 2nd grade), Ms. Blair kept in contact with us. We used to receive Christmas cards from her each year. One time, in 1985, when I participated in a summer program called Governor’s Honors, we went by Albany and visited her.
But the years passed . . . and then, the Christmas cards came no more.
Today, I try to carry on in her memory. She’s just one of the many teachers who inspired me, but she holds a special place: she was the first.
So, this song is dedicated to her.
05.06.08
In Memory of Dorothy Blair (uploaded)
I’ve just uploaded the original tracks for “In Memory of Dorothy Blair” (the fifth song on Points of Departure) to ccMixter.
05.04.08
Love and War / World on Fire (part 1)
I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my fourth Jamendo album, Points of Departure. This is about the fourth track, Love and War / World on Fire.
You may be able to tell when you listen: the third song (Let It Burn) and this song are very closely related. Actually, when you put the two of them together, you begin to see the outline of the original composition.
-1-
Love and War is the first part of the song, that plush, cinematic synth intro. It’s about my wife, really. Gentle as she is, it may surprise you to learn her favorite television series of all time is Band of Brothers.
No surprise, really. Even though my wife and I are only two years apart in age, my father is a Vietnam veteran . . . and hers is a World War II veteran.
But more than that. This move of ours to Virginia is a tough time. I’m finding it hard to keep going. Music inspires me, and pulls me out of the worst periods. For Hannah, the story of Major Winters and Easy Company is inspirational.
My take on it in this composition (which is much shortened from the original) is that war, one of the ugliest things human beings can do, can set the stage for its exact opposite: the greatest heights a human can rise to.
And in parallel: this move, one of the worst times of my life, has actually seen me gain all sorts of abilities I didn’t know I had (like being able to put in a hardwood floor almost flawlessly).
-2-
World on Fire is the second part of the song, a rocking piece at 152 bpm with that wild, driving guitar line I came up with. In the background, you can still hear the synth from the first part. When I hear that sound, it appears in my mind like a shimmering curtain of fire — maybe a rapidly flickering aurora borealis, or even a rolling prairie fire.
The basis for this part is the struggle humans have against their worst natures. I see it every day, from the broad, nasty strokes painted on the world news, to the fine, aimless doodles of the petty conflicts I see at school every day. People like causing trouble. Maybe the Shadows were right.
-3-
I discussed Let It Burn previously. These three parts were composed together, but in the end, they fell into a natural grouping of (3, (1,2)). Every time the transition point came up, it seemed like one of the songs ended, and another began.
I realized the tempo change wouldn’t fit — I was trying a clever shift from 92 bpm 16th note feel to 152 bpm eighth note feel, what I call a beat ratio shift of 23:19 (don’t ask). I’ve only got that sort of shift to work once before, in Hypothermia / The Illusion of Warmth (from La vie sous la mer). Simpler shifts on this album worked fine — Vale Avis Tenebrica pulls off a 2:3:2 (straight 8th, swing 8th, straight 8th), but that’s close enough to a standard compositional element it’s really not an exception.
Next
I’ve focused on the actual composition of the previous four songs. The next one, In Memory of Dorothy Blair, has a long story behind it, which I’ll start after the Tuesday upload.
