Oliver's transcendental musical diary

[heliac]

Very very cool to have retained the memory.

When i used to play the piano i would spend pretty much all day playing. I would literally play until i would start falling asleep. I would then give in and go from the piano, right into bed, and i would have the most amazing and original songs play in my mind right as i started falling asleep. As soon as i would wake up the memory would fade, it was very frustrating because it left me with one of those feelings where you have the memory of something on the tip of your tongue, but it didn't come back.

[Korpo]

Hey, heliac.

I'm actually quite surprised by the latest developments within myself in this regard. I love music and I always have, but that never got me to practice to get where I can work with these ideas. Now that I found out how rich in expression digital composition possibilities have become, the ideas started to flow. And I'm hooked, too! So, I certainly hope I can "pull over" some of those ideas.

Cheers,
Oliver

[Korpo]

It is impossible to put into words how happy music can make me at times. The ascending and expanding chorus during the Kyrie of Faure's Requiem is of such beauty, it just makes me happy. But today the wonderful harmonies of "Digging in the Dirt" by Peter Gabriel made me happy, too...

[CFTraveler]

In a completely off the wall observation (but I feel I must share) the other day I was thinking on how sometimes I can "see" the shape of music and how sometimes it can be round, and sometimes it can be sharphly angled. I don't remember what I was listening to but it had a "roundish triangular" shape to it, and the shapes formed in my mind as I listened. Then I wondered if anyone else "sees/feels" music like this, and I read Kurt's latest entries on his diary (The Human Culture Zone- or part of it, I had such a headache I couldn't continue reading) when he described just what I was thinking. It made me happy to see that someone perceived sound as I do, even though I qualified it such recently. When you described the music as "Expanding" it reminded me of this.

[Korpo]

Hey, CF.

In this case this is a feeling I have about the feeling and that can feel in my chest. I rarely have visuals in connection with music. I'm not a visual type, though, in general.

Cheers,
Oliver

[Korpo]

Two Pink Floyd songs gave me a bit of a TME each, "Learning To Fly" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".

The first one gave me a vision of a fighter or spyplane pilot (think U2) high in the stratosphere, spinning along the plane's axis, where the skies turn up and down and then there's space above, a feeling of freedom and being removed. This was related to its lyrics:

Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I

(Pink Floyd, "Learning To Fly")

The intro of the second one gave me the feeling of looking down on Earth, this shining blue diamond, with the darkness of space as background. (Not the topic of the song.)

The lyrics are beautiful, by the way:

Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the crossfire of childhood and stardom,
blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!
You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome with random precision,
rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!

(Pink Floyd, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond")

[Korpo]

Today I relistened to "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and for a moment I felt deep love for all of it - a very majestic sensation.

[darron]

In a completely off the wall observation (but I feel I must share) the other day I was thinking on how sometimes I can "see" the shape of music and how sometimes it can be round, and sometimes it can be sharphly angled. I don't remember what I was listening to but it had a "roundish triangular" shape to it, and the shapes formed in my mind as I listened. Then I wondered if anyone else "sees/feels" music like this, and I read Kurt's latest entries on his diary (The Human Culture Zone- or part of it, I had such a headache I couldn't continue reading) when he described just what I was thinking. It made me happy to see that someone perceived sound as I do, even though I qualified it such recently. When you described the music as "Expanding" it reminded me of this.

I sometimes taste the music, and I've experienced that geometric type thing also. And I'm loving this korpo.

[Korpo]

I reread the paraph about the crisis point between the 7th and 8th center in "Music and the Soul", "Disillusionment." Mentioned as a prime example for this was Tchaikovsky's last symphony, "Pathetique". I noted that I had already downloaded this one under my subscription because Abbado had conducted it. Kurt credits him for being able to bring out the qualities of many pieces he choses to stage.

Kurt's description is aimed specifically at the final movement, but I listened to the whole piece. I was left with several impressions. The more upbeat parts seemed to have a flat quality to them, as if life may have offered joys, but they may have been experienced as fickle, sometimes superficial and certainly not satisfactory or lasting. There was no sense of investment, of being really enjoying it, but more like amusements.

Inevitably every of these parts would be interrupted, sometimes even violently and dramatically. I had the impression of ship being suddenly clashed against the rocks. The joys seemed not to outweigh what seemed to be drastic assaults, a feeling of deep crisis. It seems like the interchange of these qualities seems to prepare for the final movement, the one where disillusionment is most apparent. Scored as "Adagio lamentoso" this finale seems to ask for rest. Not lacking in beauty it seems to carry that edge that says "Too much!" and a feeling of wanting to give up. And when being bitter-sweet it carries also some self-pity I would guess.

All of this adds up to a big feeling of "It shouldn't have been like that." but magnified as if written under the script of one's own life. Unlike Bruckner who always rescues us by passing into higher consciousness, transcending the human condition, Tchaikovsky wanders on without this final breakthrough. His symphony rather subsides into nothing rather than going anywhere. Kurt relates that Tchaikovsky died weeks after the premiere of this work.

[Korpo]

I got reminded of an older TME. John Williams composed the music for "Star Wars". His piece "Binary Sunset" (around the time when Luke gives C3PO the oil bath) is so full of deep longing, I felt like I sat on a planet I could not escape, as if there were things to do but out of reach. Powerful music.