In response to Prompt one’s five questions pertaining to Leslie Laskie
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I selected this prompt due to the memory of what I was feeling when I wrote it. A crazy and cocky confidence resulting from my founding of a company and excellent summer. A feeling of invincibility. University and this pandemic have par-robbed me of this feeling, but I know I’ll have it back. I know I’m meant to take on the world, I suppose I’m just not in the mind state to go about doing it right now. Anyways, the purpose of all art, whether it’s music, writing, or drawing is to capture an emotion in a jar so one can reflect back upon it, and for that reason I think the truth in this piece of writing makes it one of the best pieces I’ve written recently.
Looking back at the bones of my summer, I’m proud as hell. I engaged more with art this summer than maybe any summer before. This could be true, but it’s equally probable that what actually happened was a broadening of my definition of art. I created my first business, a coffee delivery startup called Early Bird YYC. This lead me to the realization that business is a form of art. The incredible creativity and drive lead me to a passion for business that rivals that of music. This realization also stemmed from reading, which I did a lot of. To paraphrase Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged, the only fool greater than the artist who hates the businessman is the businessman who thinks he does not deal in art. Awesome. I created a clothing line which was a fun time, and learned how to sew and serge short shorts. I began making my second album, which is by far my best work. To summer-ize my summer, I found Ataraxia through the arts of Business, Music, Philosophy, Bodybuilding, and Tailoring. I engaged art by reading, listening to music, and thinking critically about philosophical jazz.
Throughout the summer I did some reading about Stoicism and philosophy. I think as a result of it I have become somewhat removed emotionally from the world around me. The things that bring me joy are growing myself physically and mentally. That said, a perfect degree of independence from the world is never fully possible, and there are certain things that I consider powerful aside from myself. I am surrounded by brothers. My two bros are the best things in my life and I spend immense amounts of time with them. My family is powerful. I also have come to respect the power of nature, in its immensity and cruelty. It has no problem making passing attempts to wipe out civilizations that mistreat it. Fires around the world have covered my skies with smoke, which is I suppose the most literal example of something powerful surrounding me. Finally, my love for the city I come from is overwhelming. The first word I’d use to describe the people here is powerful. Calgarians are all broad-shouldered, rich and attractive. Sometimes when walking through our parks I will think of how thankful I am to live someplace so truly utopic.
This is lovely. This prompt coincides wonderfully with my current project, which is recording ambient night sounds for this album I am writing. The sounds of the night have always been somewhat intoxicating to me, and I’ve written about them many times. In Calgary the nature you can find in proximity to the city center is astounding. I can stand in a valley looking at the Calgary tower two miles away, and watch trout dance through eddies in a beautiful valley stream. While taking long, late walks, I seldom take my headphones out, but I did for this. The most fascinating thing I hear is just how frequently people will flex their engines. Calgary is a pretty car-crazy city, and that really comes out at night. The sound of silence accompanied by the very distant sounds of hustle and bustle has always made me feel so removed from everyday problems. I love this sound.
I can dig it, but it’s not my style so much. if we’re talking about free time, we’re talking about time as a commodity. No problem with that. But free time kind of means time doing nothing. I think free time is best to be marked up and sold – that is – filled up. If I have free time, I might start practicing an instrument. I would no longer consider the time free. Regimenting my day strictly with activities I enjoy makes me happy for some reason. Scheduling when I’ll work on music, when I’ll work out, when I’ll work on the company. I really do think that the essence of life is work, you simply have to find the work that feels freeing. I think it was Tim Ferris that said that you should not avoid stress and strive for leisure, you should avoid boredom and strive for excitement. Love it, Tim.
I thought Leslie Laskey was doing the most, but he no longer fits into my particular preference in art. While looking at his works, I was wondering what their purpose was. I once held the belief that art was self-evident, or that it explained itself. I listened to psych rock and liked abstract painters and I listened to ambient soundscape music. I’ve noticed a change from this. I started liking pop, and stopped seeing issues in the commodification and uniformity of pop music. In fact, I started to love it. I came to respect the art of creating music that appeals to large audiences, and realized that there was more inherent value in that than in creating super experimental music that nobody really likes. I’m on a bit of a pendulum swing between these opinions, as I held the former for a very long time, and am now extreme in my convictions on the latter. I’m sure I’ll even out, but Leslie Laskey Makes a whole lot of art for the sake of making it. I’m falling in love with the idea of selling it.
Choice Cut 2
What’s up with participatory Discrepancy?
Polacca introduces participatory discrepancies in a few ways. The first is to layer many of the same line over itself in recording, or have multiple instrumentalists playing the same thing. I suspect it is the latter. This is used with the singing as well as with the guitars. This for of discrepancy lends more to the feeling of participation than it does to the groove. It makes you feel like you are in a big lovely group of happy singers. The second, and my favourite way, is in having one rhythmic line that does not exactly stick to perfect timing. Quest love perfected it, and afro jazz hand drummers display it in my favourite way. This energetic syncopated drumming is found nowhere else these days, and I think it’s a shame because it conveys this incredible impatience and excitement that I love.
Spaced Cowboy starts with some drum machine that will provide a strict rhythm that Sly & his boys will undoubtedly violate. Firstly, the Hi Hat is just a little out of time with the machine, as a result of one being perfect and the other imperfect. A method of discrepancy used here that was not used in Polacca is the way that Sly sings. Its similar to the way Bob Dylon did it. This off-rhythm singing that feels very lazy and laid back or “spaced”. I think this is best used with narrative-driven songs, and Sly uses it to great effect to not only tell his story, but demonstrate in an abnormal yet effective fashion the feeling that goes with the lyrics.
Agua Que Va a Caer uses discrepancy in a way I may have only ever heard used in latin music, which is to rush the upright bass just a little bit against the rhythm. This makes the bass feel incredibly eager and energetic, in the same way the hand drumming discrepancy in Polacca does. The rushing of the bass seems to invite dance participation to me, as since there is an imperfect bass rhythm (and bass is what makes people get up an move, along with rhythm) to the music, there is little pressure to dance perfectly. There is also discrepancy in the drums as there was in Polacca.
I have to say, I’d thought about participatory discrepancy before this – albeit not knowing that name – but never before as a manner of making the listener feel as if they themselves are a part of the performance. This idea spoke to me. It could be interpreted as a sort of party, where you are invited to sing along and dance and drum, but I chose to interpret it in a different way, in a way that makes the performance more intimate with the listener, with a calm and welcoming feeling. I recorded this snippet on the fly, and used as many tracks as I thought to, all of which are compressed heavily to bring out the room noise and the delicacy of all the sounds. Instruments are layered three or more times to make it feel as though you’re in a room with an amateur performance group. There is also some slight discrepancy in the tuning of the guitars, which I think furthers the feeling of being with amateur musician friends. The lyrics mean nothing! I’ll maybe write some that mean something later, but for now they hold the melody well. Here is my song.
Choice Cut 1
What are the ethical Dillemas included with only listening to/performing other’s music
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How would you react if all the old music went bye?
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Listening to music exclusively from the past used to seem to me like a token that you knew what you were talking about when it comes to music. I still believe that this is how the masses interpret music taste, with people who prefer modern pop over bebop jazz being crowned as having a “superior music taste”. This happens with genres and culture as well, and I’ve noticed that there is a well known hierarchy of musical taste that even those who don’t fit into its mold accept. Pop, country and trap are seen as “low art” while other, seemingly arbitrarily chosen genres are seen as fine arts. No identifier is more widespread, though, than is the era of the music we listen to. The fetishizing of old music is nothing new. Every generation has been sprinkled with nostalgia and reverence for the distant past, along with a rejection of the recent past, with outdated music being deemed “uncool” since our parents listened to it. This treatment of music is too predictable and is boring to me. As a result, I slowly began weening myself off of my Pink Floyd, Bee Gees and Coltrane, and shifted my focus almost entirely to music from within the last decade. As such, my response to the question posited about the disappearance of all antiquated music would be generally apathetic. Removing the ability to hide behind time-tested pop hits like the Beatles would stop people for being revered for rejecting their era, and would force each and every person to actually listen to and consider what music they enjoy for themselves. Listening to old music does nothing for the industry. Ancient record labels rack up stacks from the rights to the songs of dead artists. Listening to new music furthers our art not only by funding the creation of new music, but by discovering the sound of the next generation, and trail blazing into the future of music. I hold disdain for those who practice only the music of others, and great love for those who birth art from their minds without more than a thought.
As an example, I’d present Greta Van Fleet. This band is pretty well known for having a sound that seems to emulate to a degree that of Led Zeppelin. This is a surefire way to become a popular band. They are great performers and good at what they do, but have not introduced anything new to the music scene. They knew they’d be a success before they began, because people already liked their music.
As a foil to this band, I’ll present my favourite band, Islands. They have repeatedly presented really weird music, none of which the likes of has been seen before. Orchestral country grunge infusion on one album, techno folk pop on another, I don’t even like half of their stuff. The thing is, I decided that I liked this band, and that I disliked some of their songs. They are not well known, so people who hear their music are more often than not hearing it without having heard that it is well like or disliked, and as such make their own opinions on whether or not the music is righteous free from outside bias.
I have stated before what I believe to be the greatest and most important style of music. Pop is the only genre of music that is not really a genre at all, it simply represents what the people of the world choose to listen to in their own time. Unlike the canon of 18thcentury European composers, the list of popular music is constantly changing, with new music coming in from different cultures and perspectives. At one point, the music of 18th century European composers was popular, and thus it would make sense for that music to be at the forefront of education. Nowadays few people outside of the academic music system choose to listen to Bach, and I’m willing to posit that his practices no longer have a large bearing on the popular music that is made today. I would further say that most of the few who do spend the majority of their time listening to the music of “geniuses” from ancient Europe do so as a direct result of being introduced to them by a system they entered because of their love for all music. The solution here seems simple to me. Teach the practices of those who get platinum records. Not only would this broaden the music school’s audience to those who have a universal love for music and lessen the amount of students with narrow musical perspectives, it would have infinitely more bearing on an actual career in music. As far as I know, if one wants to become a popular musical artist, the music school is the last method you would use to try to achieve that goal. Education based off of popularity and understanding the actual science of music (physiological dissonance, the experience of rhythm & the mathematics of tuning and continuous time systems) would encompass every musical culture, and to further this, required electives with options for diverse musical cultures would seek to broaden the horizons of already open minded students.
Author’s Afterword
Music is politics, and politics is music, where the only constants are change, and flux. I didn’t notice when I wrote this how politically charged it really is. I see this paragraph as an illustration of one of the many portals between the worlds of art, life, and science. I believe the three are inseparable, and should be pursued concurrently. Life without art is dull, lives with nothing but art are too whiny.
Prompt 1
Looking back at the bones of my summer, I’m proud as hell. I engaged more with art this summer than maybe any summer before. This could be true, but it’s equally probable that what actually happened was a broadening of my definition of art. I created my first business, a coffee delivery startup called Early Bird YYC. This lead me to the realization that business is a form of art. The incredible creativity and drive lead me to a passion for business that rivals that of music. This realization also stemmed from reading, which I did a lot of. To paraphrase Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged, the only fool greater than the artist who hates the businessman is the businessman who thinks he does not deal in art. Awesome. I created a clothing line which was a fun time, and learned how to sew and serge short shorts. I began making my second album, which is by far my best work. To summer-ize my summer, I found Ataraxia through the arts of Business, Music, Philosophy, Bodybuilding, and Tailoring. I engaged art by reading, listening to music, and thinking critically about philosophical jazz.
Throughout the summer I did some reading about Stoicism and philosophy. I think as a result of it I have become somewhat removed emotionally from the world around me. The things that bring me joy are growing myself physically and mentally. That said, a perfect degree of independence from the world is never fully possible, and there are certain things that I consider powerful aside from myself. I am surrounded by brothers. My two bros are the best things in my life and I spend immense amounts of time with them. My family is powerful. I also have come to respect the power of nature, in its immensity and cruelty. It has no problem making passing attempts to wipe out civilizations that mistreat it. Fires around the world have covered my skies with smoke, which is I suppose the most literal example of something powerful surrounding me. Finally, my love for the city I come from is overwhelming. The first word I’d use to describe the people here is powerful. Calgarians are all broad-shouldered, rich and attractive. Sometimes when walking through our parks I will think of how thankful I am to live someplace so truly utopic.
This is lovely. This prompt coincides wonderfully with my current project, which is recording ambient night sounds for this album I am writing. The sounds of the night have always been somewhat intoxicating to me, and I’ve written about them many times. In Calgary the nature you can find in proximity to the city center is astounding. I can stand in a valley looking at the Calgary tower two miles away, and watch trout dance through eddies in a beautiful valley stream. While taking long, late walks, I seldom take my headphones out, but I did for this. The most fascinating thing I hear is just how frequently people will flex their engines. Calgary is a pretty car-crazy city, and that really comes out at night. The sound of silence accompanied by the very distant sounds of hustle and bustle has always made me feel so removed from everyday problems. I love this sound.
I can dig it, but it’s not my style so much. if we’re talking about free time, we’re talking about time as a commodity. No problem with that. But free time kind of means time doing nothing. I think free time is best to be marked up and sold – that is – filled up. If I have free time, I might start practicing an instrument. I would no longer consider the time free. Regimenting my day strictly with activities I enjoy makes me happy for some reason. Scheduling when I’ll work on music, when I’ll work out, when I’ll work on the company. I really do think that the essence of life is work, you simply have to find the work that feels freeing. I think it was Tim Ferris that said that you should not avoid stress and strive for leisure, you should avoid boredom and strive for excitement. Love it, Tim.
I thought Leslie Laskey was doing the most, but he no longer fits into my particular preference in art. While looking at his works, I was wondering what their purpose was. I once held the belief that art was self-evident, or that it explained itself. I listened to psych rock and liked abstract painters and I listened to ambient soundscape music. I’ve noticed a change from this. I started liking pop, and stopped seeing issues in the commodification and uniformity of pop music. In fact, I started to love it. I came to respect the art of creating music that appeals to large audiences, and realized that there was more inherent value in that than in creating super experimental music that nobody really likes. I’m on a bit of a pendulum swing between these opinions, as I held the former for a very long time, and am now extreme in my convictions on the latter. I’m sure I’ll even out, but Leslie Laskey Makes a whole lot of art for the sake of making it. I’m falling in love with the idea of selling it.
Prompt 2
My first sound I would put on the golden record is the song WAP by Cardi B. This is currently one of the most popular and influential songs on the top hits chart. I don’t like it all that much.
The reason I choose this song is because there is no objective way to categorize or quantify the quality of music except for popularity. All else is subjective, and can be argued. What cannot be argued is that this song resonates with people more than any other in measured terms. In addition, it shows the social climate right now, with female empowerment, and would provide the aliens with some interesting anatomical facts.
My second sound would be inner city ambience. I am familiar with this sound, so are many others. The sound of cars racing by, busy industrial sectors and chit chat among the populace.
If we are trying to give the aliens a sense of who we are through sound alone, again we must go with what the majority of our world experiences sonically. A human life nowadays is noisy, and city ambience most likely takes up an incredible amount of out attention through our lives. The sounds of the technologies we have created to envelope us would be my second candidate.
My third sound would be the song onefourthree by Hermitude. This song HITS. it makes me want to move like no other i currently know. I reccomend watching the video, it’s hard work.
Obviously since Musk chose me to curate this golden playlist, I have a pretty incredible taste in music, and as such at least a third should be afforded to my excellent taste. Also to note is that all humans have a taste for music, and the popularity of a song is only a conglomeration off all the people who have individually chosen that they like the particular song.
Prompt 3
Variatio 1 a 1 clav
The first thing I notice while contrasting the two recordings of this variation is the tone of the piano. As a result of the recording gear and the piano, as well as the confidence in Gould’s hands, the piano in 1955 is significantly more dampened. This makes for a less rhythmic and more slurred recording. In the ’81 recording, the rhythm is far more enjoyable, as Gould slows it down, and makes each note more concise and clear. It comes across to me like this: in ’55, Gould seemed like a kid at a recital, trying to show how quickly he can play a piece, while in ’81, Gould has obviously done his share of playing at warp speed, and has selected a more tasteful and unique way to display his proficiency through the medium of this variation. In ’81, he introduces what could almost be a considered swing into the piece. I love it. The use of this sound also hearkens to the intended instrument of the piece, as in smacking the keys hard as he is, Gould is replicating to an extent the buzzy, harsher tone that a clavichord may produce. The result sounds to me a little bit like a Honkey Tonk piano, which I am rather partial to. These are the creative choices of Gould, who, as the performer, is limited as to what he may change in the piece. The aspects he cannot change are harmony and melody. Regardless of the timbre and performance, the harmony and melody will be the same. He can, though, change the way that consonance and dissonance are perceived by the listener through changing the timbre. Notes with higher frequency content (harder plucked strings) emphasize certain dissonances. I think this is a great thing since the only dissonances used in the piece are very pleasant and worth emphasizing.
Prompt 4
Listening to music exclusively from the past used to seem to me like a token that you knew what you were talking about when it comes to music. I still believe that this is how the masses interpret music taste, with people who prefer modern pop over bebop jazz being crowned as having a “superior music taste”. This happens with genres and culture as well, and I’ve noticed that there is a well known hierarchy of musical taste that even those who don’t fit into its mold accept. Pop, country and trap are seen as “low art” while other, seemingly arbitrarily chosen genres are seen as fine arts. No identifier is more widespread, though, than is the era of the music we listen to. The fetishizing of old music is nothing new. Every generation has been sprinkled with nostalgia and reverence for the distant past, along with a rejection of the recent past, with outdated music being deemed “uncool” since our parents listened to it. This treatment of music is too predictable and is boring to me. As a result, I slowly began weening myself off of my Pink Floyd, Bee Gees and Coltrane, and shifted my focus almost entirely to music from within the last decade. As such, my response to the question posited about the disappearance of all antiquated music would be generally apathetic. Removing the ability to hide behind time-tested pop hits like the Beatles would stop people for being revered for rejecting their era, and would force each and every person to actually listen to and consider what music they enjoy for themselves. Listening to old music does nothing for the industry. Ancient record labels rack up stacks from the rights to the songs of dead artists. Listening to new music furthers our art not only by funding the creation of new music, but by discovering the sound of the next generation, and trail blazing into the future of music. I hold disdain for those who practice only the music of others, and great love for those who birth art from their minds without more than a thought.
Prompt 6
I have stated before what I believe to be the greatest and most important style of music. Pop is the only genre of music that is not really a genre at all, it simply represents what the people of the world choose to listen to in their own time. Unlike the canon of 18thcentury european composers, the list of popular music is constantly changing, with new music coming in from different cultures and perspectives. At one point, the music of 18th century european composers was popular, and thus it would make sense for that music to be at the forefront of education. Nowadays few people outside of the academic music system choose to listen to Bach, and I’m willing to posit that his practices no longer have a large bearing on the popular music that is made today. I would further say that most of the few who do spend the majority of their time listening to the music of “geniuses” from ancient europe do so as a direct result of being introduced to them by a system they entered because of their love for all music. The solution here seems simple to me. Teach the practices of those who get platinum records. Not only would this broaden the music school’s audience to those who have a universal love for music and lessen the amount of students with narrow musical perspectives, it would have infinitely more bearing on an actual career in music. As far as I know, if one wants to become a popular musical artist, the music school is the last method you would use to try to achieve that goal. Education based off of popularity and understanding the actual science of music (physiological dissonance, the experience of rhythm & the mathematics of tuning and continuous time systems) would encompass every musical culture, and to further this, required electives with options for diverse musical cultures would seek to broaden the horizons of already open minded students.
Prompt 7
Polacca introduces participatory discrepencies in a few ways. The first is to layer many of the same line over itsself in recording, or have multiple instrumentalists playing the same thing. I suspect it is the latter. This is used with the singing as well as with the guitars. This for of discrepancy lends more to the feeling of participation than it does to the groove. It makes you feel like you are in a big lovely group of happy singers. The second, and my favourite way, is in having one rhythmic line that does not exactly stick to perfect timing. Quest love perfected it, and afro jazz hand drummers display it in my favourite way. This energetic syncopated drumming is found nowhere else these days, and I think it’s a shame because it conveys this incredible impatience and excitement that I love.
Spaced Cowboy starts with some drum machine that will provide a strict rhythm that Sly & his boys will undoubtedly violate. Firstly, the Hi Hat is just a little out of time with the machine, as a result of one being perfect and the other imperfect. A method of discrepancy used here that was not used in Polacca is the way that Sly sings. Its similar to the way Bob Dylon did it. This off-rhythm singing that feels very lazy and laid back or “spaced”. I think this is best used with narrative-driven songs, and Sly uses it to great effect to not only tell his story, but demonstrate in an abnormal yet effective fashion the feeling that goes with the lyrics.
Agua Que Va a Caer uses discrepency in a way I may have only ever heard used in latin music, which is to rush the upright bass just a little bit against the rhythm. This makes the bass feel incredibly eager and energetic, in the same way the hand drumming discrepancy in Polacca does. The rushing of the bass seems to invite dance participation to me, as since there is an imperfect bass rhythm (and bass is what makes people get up an move, along with rhythm) to the music, there is little pressure to dance perfectly. There is also discrepency in the drums as there was in Polacca.
