Inez

To do: some sort of presentation of her. Maybe here.

Piano heaven, immersion and affect in music

I had the opportunity to play piano properly today for the first time in years and years. 2 1/2 hours lost in blissful concentration at Will’s. It was unheated, but even chilly me didn’t pay attention to that until when I finished, and realised my hands were like ice.

I have missed the particular headspace that comes with playing music so much lately. I started out with some two-part inventions by Bach (that I used to play), then into that Satie Gnossienne I like – no. 1. A simple piece, but it has a hypnotic quality that I love. Some Chopin, but I only just dipped my toes there.

I got rid of a bit of the dust that has settled on any remaining ability, but I obviously need to play much more – I am quite rusty.

I have been thinking about immersion in music a lot. Cai woke up at some ungodly hour, and my brain started ticking so I lay awake for quite a while, thinking about it. Much as I’d rather have stayed asleep, I do like nighttime thinking.

I guess what guides how much someone gets emotionally immersed in a musical experience to a degree depends on their aptitude for arousal. For some, the more soothing end of the spectrum may be more attractive. For others, the more rousing, the better.

At any rate, just like in any other immersive ‘environment’, it seems that the balance between chaos and order is crucial. If order is precision, structure and clarity, and chaos is dissonance, free-form and distortion, then maybe I can sketch something out that makes sense. Do bear in mind that I predominantly write from a dancer’s, not a musician’s or producer’s point of view. For me, it is a matter of hearing, feeling and expressing in physical form.

I have often felt that music needs to be ‘textural’ in order to really move me on an emotional level. With textural, I mean a sound that feels a little hairy, hoarse or ‘gritty’. Say, the sort of sounds you expect to hear for example in blues, tango, fado, flamenco – and of course baladi. I recall reading about the recording of Candi Staton in the 70s – apparently, the producer got her to sing so many times that her voice started breaking. You can hear it, and the slight distortion of her voice is definitely part of what gives those recordings a sense of emotional urgency.

Looking into this, I have come across descriptions of this as distortion – adding ‘grit’, warmth or texture. It seems both odd-order and even-order harmonics are involved, and although odd-order has a bit of a bad name, it seems to be more about taste rather than objectivity.

Overtones seems to be closer to what I actually mean. This Wikipedia article on dissonance, consonance and resolution is very interesting. Dissonance and resolution is analogue to build-up and release of tension, so contributes greatly to the emotional expression in music.

This article on distortion technique says it rather well. There is more stuff on that site (musicalratio.com) that looks worth looking into. There is an interesting article on affect and one on musical communication that come excitingly close to what I am trying to communicate about the creation of immersive experiences. Take this, for example:

The human brain needs the condition of constant or stable irregularity for it to remain alert and attentive. Irregularity produces a state of alertness and attentiveness. And constancy or stability eliminates the feeling of discomfort which chaos, the erratic and irregular, often creates. The balance in tension between the feeling of predictability which constancy (stability) provides and the feeling of anticipation which irregularity and unpredictability creates is a state of Entasis.

The last time I heard the term entasis was when studying history of architecture, but of course it – tensioning – makes wonderful sense as opposed to my arch-dislike: stasis.

It is the musical analogue of why it just doesn’t work to use a ruler to draw straight lines in a drawing. Exact is too exact. This lies close to the concept of ‘uncanny valley’ in CGI. What we need is cross-disciplinary, aesthetic awareness. Maybe it is not such a bad thing to be a bit of a jack-of-all-trades..? My chequered past, put to good use.

I love Spotify!

I do I do I do. It’s fantastic to have all that music at your fingertips. I am even paying for Premium now. Hurrah for Spotify: I feel love!

A cold, cold day in a live-in fridge

Had no power from midnight to 4pm today. It was like living in a fridge. In this place, no power means no cooking, no hot water and no heating. House full of children. A frigid chaos.

Thankfully, friends and neighbours stepped in with kind offerings of cups of tea, refuge from the cold, distraction for the kids, and even warm beds for the night if the problem wasn’t fixed by bedtime.

Luckily, it was. Geoffy alerted me to the fact that it was definitely an electricity board job, as the problem was somewhere before the fuse box. Rob sorted that one out, and Mr. Man from Seeboard turned up at 3pm.

It turns out someone who shall remain unnamed put a screw through the floor boards in the hallway in an attempt at stopping them squeaking. It must have been close to some crucial wire, and when he stepped on the very spot at midnight, it shorted the entire circuit.

It was a 100A fuse. Enough for a six-bedroom house. I saw the screw (I urgently adviced same said gung-ho DIY person to remove all those screws) and the tip was melted. Quelle surprise.

Same said person also saw it fit to leave the house at 9.30am to attend a Tai Chi course, leaving me to deal with 3 kids in a live-in fridge. Thankfully I have a friendly landlord, great neighbours and good friends.

It felt good to get out of the house and go to Christabel and Geoff’s for Sunday roast. (I was by then very hungry, but that wasn’t the only reason.) The 21st century is a great time to live. Luddite refuseniks can keep their romantic views of the middle ages.

Sam took the girls to C&Gs in the MG while Twig, Matt and myself walked. Mia was there, and we talked future plans and comnections lots. She’s lovely. I sensibly took the girls and left at 8pm. M and A are on their way to Essex and there are two sleeping, beautiful children in bed. Cat Power crooning softly on Spotify. Nice and quiet.

Secret wishing well

Formulate a secret in your mind, blow on the water, receive a whispered secret in return.

Zu – no more??

Oh dear, there was going to be a Jonathan Kay workshop at Zu this weekend, but apparently a situation with “the new landlord” prevented this happening, and the event had to be moved. This leads me to wonder if we have seen the best of Zu hospitality…

LEGOFESTO

Woah, this is a highly original (and very effective, I think) form of news commentary – LEGOFESTO.

This is one of the tamer images, on the Northern Rock meltdown. Do check the site out. There is some fairly intense stuff to contemplate there.

Perfection is not a worthy goal, just a headf**k

The second you enter motherhood, you enter a realm where nothing else than perfection (an ever elusive concept, defined in many different ways by different people at different times) is good enough. Interestingly, you apparently also become responsible for the behaviour of everyone around you and the child/ren – because it is to you people look, and to you they comment, insinuate, pass on ‘advice’, show concern, and other mental oil spills.

Many, many women buy this con, and bend and twist themselves out of shape to try and live up to expectations from all and sundry – presumably to be rewarded with a saintly halo and everyone’s approval (including that of their children, their partner/spouse, family, etc.), but in the process shooting themselves in at least one foot.

Because that neurotic approach to life almost guarantees that approval is the last thing you will get. People will instinctively identify a sucker – and a responsible, capable, load-bearing sucker to boot. Who better to pass on unwanted tasks, extra responsibilities, lurking discontent or a random grumpy mood to?

On top of it, neurotic near-perfection is a very lonely place. And who can blame others for avoiding the living, breathing reminder of their own imperfection and slackness when they wish to share the more agreeable aspects of their nature, and instead seek more fun, feelgood company?

It can be lonely to opt out of this M.O. too. But at least you have a bit of authentic self for company when it finally is nice and quiet.

Experimental psychologist collecting photos of feet

Laurie Santos, experimental psychologist who studies monkeys, is also collecting photographs of feet (animal and human)

Mallika Sarabhai on TED India.

Another from TED talks – Mallika Sarabhai on TED India.