December 15ths (Tiny Pollocks)

12/15/1966

(Beatles Studio Diary)

By the end of the evening, the remake of “Strawberry Fields Forever” had taken on an intensity of almost frightening proportions. With its frantic strings, blaring trumpets, very heavy drum sound and two manic exceptionally fast Lennon vocals it was far removed from the original, acoustic take of one of the songs recorded on 24 November. Would John be satisfied with it now? For the time being, at least, it was labeled, “best” and was thus subjected to more remixing.

[12/15/2024: 1966 was a sea change year in music, particularly with Revolver. The art world had its major shift probably beginning with Dada and Les Incoherents in France in the 1890s, so it was several generations behind. The end of World War II created a zeitgeist where Norms were changing and they weren’t seen as norm violations. It was when postmodernism became popular]

12/15/1999

Prediction:  In 10 years we'll be creating music on systems with thousands of tracks, each pixel on a screen will be a separate zone that can be recorded into and edited. But the problem will be finding the patience to sort through it all and make a compelling work of art. Like making giant sculptures out of toothpicks.

Applying visual metaphors in the creation of music is an interesting idea and allows non-musicians a chance to design sound, but to be a true musician you have to know how to use the tools, and not be afraid to get your hands dirty by applying pitch, sense of rhythm, scales, and so on.

[12/15/1999@25: The current track limit on ProTools is 256–still a lot compared to the 24 I was using in 1999, 16 ADAT and 8 in DigiDesign (ProTools). The issue is more about the over-complexity of software than the number of tracks. Music has been gradually becoming less about music since the 2000s. I was watching a talk yesterday by a music professor who was saying that music students now are more interested in the politics of music–which is a metaphor of sorts].

12/15/2000

Idea: Write specific music for photos so that when you experience either one, the other is evoked in your mind.

[Essentially Photographs For Music]
 

12/15/2002

Went to custom framing shop to get frame ideas for photo series. They had a tiny 4 x 6 print of a Jackson Pollock painting. I thought it was ironically interesting that someone would even think of doing it—something so huge and textural and culturally significant in a tiny gallery frame with a huge mat—like putting a Chuck Close grid portrait on a postage stamp. Idea: Buy prints of huge paintings and put them in tiny frames, black paintings in small frames. 

Lavender Mist