Category Archives: music

Gratefulness gently triumphs over sorrow

Gratefulness, that I got to see my old friend before she went, grateful that something pressed me to make sure I kept our long overdue appointment days before she kept her last one. Grateful for a lovely, lesiurely meeting, it turned from 11:04 pm to 1:00 a.m. in the wink of an eye and I was bundling into my filthy parka and she was remarking that I looked like an explorer.   Grateful that she seems to have gone peacefully in her chair.

Grateful to have known her, and loved her, and to have been loved by her for so many  decades.   Grateful for the light she shed, and the love of her mysterious calling that she wore so lightly, and by her great example, taught me to wear lightly.  

Grateful that she laughed and agreed when I asked her if she’d mind if I began to hold myself out as her protégé.  She treated it as an absurd request I was playing for laughs.  I was, she had a great laugh, but I was also dead serious.  The woman was a major role model.

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They Had A Vision

I dragged myself to the workshop in a state of exhaustion this afternoon, half blind with fatigue for reasons too tedious to detail.  I arrived first, five minutes before the session was supposed to start.  Tim got there a few minutes later.  Luckily, the kids didn’t arrive until five minutes after they were scheduled to arrive.  It was an odd day, slight underwater feeling, everybody sort of floating around jellyfish-like.  I don’t think more than 20 frames were shot all session, the usual number is two or three hundred frames.

I called two kids over, gave them headphones and the three of us began making a soundtrack. I couldn’t get the wonderful new Audiobus interface to work, but I gave them a taste of the cool sounds and after a few minutes of futility, apologized for not having had time to learn it well enough before the session.  I shut it down and switched to garageband, which I know well, and which neither of these kids had used.

Within moments Lily was moving her hands purposefully on the touch-screen.  They recorded an adorable track of childish bickering, but neither of them liked it much.  I deleted it as they watched and they did it again, less contentious and still adorable.  They still didn’t like it.   I told them to leave it, we could mute it.  Lily dragged a drum loop they chose into the track.  I told them to listen to the beat and play along.  I urged them to play only a bit, since they could always add more on the next track, and it was impossible to subtract if they otherwise liked the track.   They pulled up another mic and began pounding the table in time with the drums.   They played a piano together.  I took my headphones off and walked over to see what the animators were up to, after muting the piano at their request.

When I got back I saw they’d deleted their adorable vocal track, along with the piano.  I was dismayed, and told them so.   They were too busy to pay much attention to my dismay, another girl was with them now, drumming on the table.  I put a pair of headphones on her and walked away to start cleaning up, as Lily’s twin brother laughed, headphones on, pounding the table.

As we were leaving I said to Tim, “that’s what happens when you let the inmates have complete control of the asylum, you get no input into the output.”   Tim commented that kids always find their own voices weird and distasteful when they first hear them played back, and that’s probably why they’d wiped out the adorable tracks.

I walked a good way with the heavy pack on my back, and a duffel bag hanging at the end of my arm.  I was actually too tired to stop walking, and as the temperature began to drop I paused to pull my hood over my head.  I sat on a bench.  I ate a slice of pizza and took Excedrin.  I eventually got on the subway and listened to Bill Moyers when I was not nodding out, and when I was.

Made it up to my apartment, took my clothes off and got under the covers.  Charging the iPad I decided to listen to the track, see what they’d wound up with.  I’ll be damned, they had a vision.  They weren’t going for adorable, it was the percussion they were after.   Two tracks of poly-rhythmic table banging, along with the drum track.  They had an idea they were going for.  I was impressed.  They hadn’t opted for any of the fancy gimmicks they’d tried in garageband, they were going for the real thing.   Playing the only instrument they had, the table, they jammed, creating a convincing jungle of percussion.

I Love Music (Just as long as it’s groovin’)

The O’Jays, a group of singers who knew a few things about how to work a groove, had a great hit called “I Love Music”. It’s here, for anybody who wants to hear it right away.  It speaks so well for me, as it pumps through the computer speakers,  that I have almost nothing to add here at the moment.

But it would not be like me to hold tongue or pen, especially now, trying to remain conscious not to speak ill of anyone, and having only good things to say.

Here at 2:27 goes that great guitar, sallying into the mix like a saxophone.  I’m no expert, but when I hear a mix like this I know what moves me– and I’d spin this disk again just to hear that guitar break.  Then at 4:19, presumably that same guitar player starts making with the jazzy riffs.   Hot damn, the bongos and everything, that percussion section, the piano, bass– all kicking in to make that joyful noise.  Here come some strings and the vocalists come back, everyone leaving room for the others.

I started off nodding along to a mix of a recent jam session very well recorded in a basement in San Francisco, wondering idly where this love of a groove comes from.  Part of the answer is this track by the O’Jays, it seems to me.  Also beloved to me, that space in between the instruments, where they put their parts down against the others, listening intently as they dream their own dreams.   Best image I know of the best way to live your life.

Sekhnet’s edit

She had a good idea, which others have also mentioned to me over the last year.  Keep a log of cool things the kids do, one or two a week.  Keep people interested in the unfolding story of a remarkable project.   Here’s her edit of a recent post:

At the end of a hectic animation session I assembled the wild little animators around me on the carpet to do the soundtrack.  A wonderful multi-track looper app was open on the iPad, a five-way headphone splitter plugged in.   Four kids and I put on the headphones.

I had them listen to the beat, which Amza had tapped in to set the tempo for the metronome.  My only instruction:  do something along with the beat when I point at you.  I realized quickly it was best to give each a track of their own, to be able to fade things in and out and get rid of any noise, while preserving anything that might be great on its own track.  It also kept the rest of them quiet and allowed the one making the track to hear him or herself think.  It is crucial to be able to hear yourself when making music with others.

“When I point to you, say how old you are” and I pointed to Amza who rapped out, “I am eight eight eight eight”, and then to Natalie who sang “I am Te-ehn!” and around the circle it went, Kazu, who deadpanned “I am ten” then Auden, “I am eight eight eight eight” and so forth.  Amza then sang a ditty right out of the history of Afghanistan, where his mother is from.  Natalie sang a wild and melodic loop that sounded like “Magical Purpose” sung three times, but which I realized, after 1,000 listenings during overdubs, was probably “Magical Puppies.”  Headphones were rotated to kids who didn’t have a chance to record.  The others all kicked in manic parts, I said goodbye, and they were off. 

When I got home and began mixing it down I was struck by the variety, the creativity, the fact that they were all singing in the same key, and none of them did anything that conflicted with the beat.  I was amazed. It was rocking.

Music Sweet Music

At the end of a hectic animation session on too little sleep Thursday, ignoring a couple of the fathers, who were waiting to pick up their kids after the workshop, I assembled the wild little animators around me on the carpet to do the soundtrack.   Loopy, a wonderful multi-track looper app was open on the iPad, a five-way headphone splitter plugged in.   Four kids and I put on the headphones.

I pointed to the clock, it was 4:55.  Not enough time, I noted, we really needed the 25 minutes I was trying to get while they were ignoring my attempts to get the room cleaned up and ready, but anyway…

I had them listen to the beat, which Amza had tapped in to set the tempo for the metronome.  My only instruction:  do something along with the beat when I point at you.  I realized quickly it was best to give each a track of their own, to be able to fade things in and out and get rid of any noise, while preserving anything that might be great on its own track.  It also kept the rest of them quiet and allowed the one making the track to hear him or herself think.  It is crucial to be able to hear yourself when making music with others.

“When I point to you, say how old you are” and I pointed to Amza who rapped out, “I am eight eight eight eight”, and then to Natalie who sang “I am Te-ehn!” and around the circle it went, Kazu, who deadpanned “I am ten” then Auden, “I am eight eight eight eight” and so forth.  Amza then sang a ditty right out of the history of Afghanistan, where his mother is from.  Natalie sang a wild and melodic loop that sounded like “Magical Purpose” sung three times, but which I realized, after 1,000 listenings during overdubs, was probably “Magical Puppies.”  The others all kicked in manic parts, I said goodbye, and they were off.   I stayed behind to finish cleaning up and then took my assistant for a burger.

When I got home and began mixing it down I was struck by the variety, the creativity, the fact that they were all singing in the same key, and none of them did anything that conflicted with the beat.  I was amazed as I began to dub a bass track and some more percussion to go with the metronome that was on the track.  I added an electric piano playing a simple pop chord change.  It was rocking.

Then the devil got into me.  I couldn’t stop.  There’s a piano playing the theme, then a bluesy riff that goes against the beat and the bass line.  It was impossible to resist adding a guitar part, inspired by Stochelo Rosenberg by way of Eric Clapton, then another, then a tenor ukulele.  Every time I listened to the finished track I thought of something else that needed to be added.  And I went back and added it.

Played back against the already frenetic animation, it’s useless as a soundtrack.  Very good to listen to while walking a few miles, as I intend to do presently, but relentlessly hectic, preventing the mind from focusing on what it is watching, turning the animation into a nightmare of over-amped wildness, instead of a cool melange of new and groovy ideas.

Oh, well.  The technique works beautifully, and augurs well going forward, even if not the hopped up use I put this first experiment to.  As I told a kid, who sounded truly shocked to hear it, we learn the most by trying something and failing– and then trying it again.

I know whereof I speak.

Creativity

You may not consider creativity very important, but think of a world without it.  No music, comedy, repartee, great food, no movies, books or even articles, no television worth watching, no mischief, nothing worth laughing at, no cause for that deep cry that is lurking always.

Creativity is mandated by educational bureaucrats nowadays as a possible remedy for the torpor of failing school children poised to leave schools in record numbers.  We now hear terms like “critical thinking”, “higher order thinking” and “problem-solving” bandied by these dead souls.  All of these involve creativity– you have to imagine possibilities that are not in front of you and then imagine where those possibilities will lead.

The kind of creativity I love involves a certain amount of spontaneity.  It is play.  John Cleese captures a great deal about the conditions necessary for it here.  The five factors he talks about are:  place, time, time, confidence and humor.   If you are too serious your fingers are stiff, you will not play fluidly unless you surrender to the joyfulness of playing.  Singers often smile as they sing, it helps to relax the face and vocal chords.

For young children, who are naturally creative when given the slightest chance to be,  I’ve reduced the formula to this:

Have fun and help each other.

You can’t have fun if people are bothering you.  Don’t bother anyone.  If you can’t help, don’t hurt.

When it’s time to be quiet, be quiet for a minute or two.

Cleese locates the creativity, you need a space to do it.  How about a room filled with art materials and a camera stand to shoot frames?  With a recorder to make soundtracks and a computer to assemble the animations.

Cleese discusses the importance of a time set aside, a time with a beginning and an end, ideally about two hours later.   He points out that it takes up to a half hour to leave the pressures of life outside and begin to play.  With luck you will play 90 minutes or so.  Then play must end, as play always does, because it doesn’t feel like play forever.   This is exactly what happens in the animation workshop.  For ninety minutes the kids have all the time in the world.

The other aspect of time is patience, taking your time, having a block of time you can use for play or to dream up ideas for play.  You cannot be creative while watching the clock, just like you can’t productively meditate keeping an eye on time.  You have to let things develop in their time, comfortable with not much happening sometimes.  Asked what she liked best about the workshop, the Idea Girl said “it gives you plenty of time”.    

Confidence is necessary, because if you think you can’t dance, or sing, or draw, or animate, you probably won’t be able to.   What gives a person confidence?  Another one smiling and giving a thumbs up when the idea is presented.   What takes away confidence?  A logical asshole positing failure as a real possibility at every stage of an undertaking.  There is no shortage of such superior, logical creativity underminers.  They believe they are speaking the truth and this gives them license to piss on things they have no insight into.

The last part, humor, well, what can we say about that poop?  A laff clears the mind, and it can come from many places.  I try not to laugh as I picture the horror on the seven year-old’s face, and it is kind of disgusting, in a way, but the favorite moment of a prolific young animator?   “That time I farted in Max’s face,” and I nod, with the faintest smile, and try not to chuckle at the recollection of it.   This is called sound pedagogy.

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