November 4ths

11/4/1914

Wittgenstein diary: "Be sure not to be dependent on the external world, then you don't need to be afraid of what takes place in it. It is easier to detach oneself from things than from people."

11/4/2008

Summer-like warmth, 75 degrees

Went to Obama rally in Grant Park with S. A mass of well-behaved young exuberant people. We stayed on the periphery, but still exciting. Queue was almost 2 miles long—Congress south to Roosevelt and east to Lake Shore Drive. Prediction: GOP will revive Reaganism in a new form.

 

 

11/4/2010

Playing music is a way to be genuine.

[11/4/2024: Playing music for 3-5 minutes clears my head. I’m with Daniel Levitin that music can be pharmaceutical (adjective).] Quincy Jones: "Music was the only thing I could control. It was the one world that offered me freedom. When I played music, my nightmares ended. my family problems disappeared. I didn't have to search for answers. The [greater] than the bell of any trumpet in my scrawled penciled scores. Music made me full, strong, popular, self-reliant, and cool."

11/4/2016, Friday

Cubs victory parade—perfect weather.

 

11/4/2021

Over the past few weeks, I have been spending a little bit of time (still) trying to find something interesting and useful in AI music. The one that I used that was kind of interesting is called Boomy. It creates tracks by selecting genres, sub-genres, and instruments, and then you scroll through until you find something that you like. This is the way that I think AI works at the user level, in which it generates permutations and then you select the shots that you want, not unlike going through a video and selecting Stills....

[11/4/2024: There have been some good developments in AI and more artists might be using the tools. But I find myself frustrated with endless tweaking rather than working. It’s the big-box store of AI–perhaps a form of mindless entertainment, but you can’t decide on what mindless entertainment to watch. I see it all as screwing up the mind and soul].

11/4/2023, Saturday

Pleasant, 60 degrees and warm sunshine.

As I was working on Disaster Movies this morning there was a protest happening on Harlem and took a video to capture the audio: 

Stop their suffering
Stop their pain

The end of the world (Disaster Movies) will be a meme come true.

 

11/4/2024

Quincy Jones dead at 91. "Music was the only thing I could control. It was the one world that offered me freedom. When I played music, my nightmares ended. my family problems disappeared. I didn't have to search for answers. The answers greater than the bell of any trumpet in my scrawled penciled scores. Music made me full, strong, popular, self-reliant, and cool." What's remarkable about artists who live into their 90s is that they never stopped doing things they like to do, or having a desire to do them. I've never fully understood the person that is "just being". Perhaps there is still a desire but is transcended. They're still making artwork, but the art is their life. Jones could work both of those ways. 

This is why music has a natural mystical quality, and can be used in tandem with a spiritual practice. I've been trying to figure out a way to do this while still retaining my artistic freedom without the constraints of it being necessarily mystical music, ambient or new age, which I don't necessarily want to do all the time. Interesting: Jones learned piano from his next-door neighbor. That's how it starts--where you're in proximity of someone who has an instrument in their home and you're magnetized and galvanized. This is how it happened with me, first an acoustic guitar, then a Wurlitzer organ, then a guitar with only 4 strings, then a bass].