Here you are.
- “Sound is Touch” and Beijing Opera
I’ve been trying to define what holds this blog together. I care about fabric, clothing and the processes that bring them to me. I love music. Music is like fabric, and vice versa. I guess that’s it, then.
I added something to that effect to my “about” page, and almost immediately, my coworker Brittany starts playing a segment from WNYC’s Radio Lab called “Sound is Touch”, from a show called “Musical Language”…
The show explores the relationship between language and music. Intonation and music. Chinese tonality and pitch-perfection. Music and the mind. Soooooo well done.
This is the stuff I’m here for.
[singlepic=90,200,,,right]The part on Stravinsky reminded me of my first reaction to Beijing Opera. Since I first encountered it a few years ago, Beijing Opera has been hard for me to appreciate at any level, let alone watch for 3 hours. It still sounds either harsh or cartoonish to me, or cloying. As far as I can tell, this is by no means uncommon.
Now for the experimental portion of this blog: Today’s postsong is a selection of Beijing Opera—an aria from Xia Jia Bang called, appropriately, “Mental Battle”. Listen to it after you listen to the sections of the above Radio Lab piece on Chinese tonality, and then the section on Stravinsky. What am I missing about this music (besides not understanding classical Chinese)? Why can’t I parse it yet, musically? Do I just need to give it some time to sink in?
For anyone who’s learning Chinese, teaching Chinese, blogging about China, doing business in China, studying in China, or going to the Olympics in China, you may eventually find yourself staring at a colorful Tom and Jerry scene, with masked characters howling, and someone you need to impress is asking you what you think. You should be honest, but maybe you can train your ear a little so you honestly don’t hate it.
There may be a few parts I’m starting to like.
- “Blog as Metaphor for Film” as Film Review
Someday, when I’ve reached the limits of traditional blogging, I will compose a post riddled with, if not entirely composed of, links. It will inspire dread.
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I will call it “Logic of Hyperlinks,” from a Slate article on David Lynch’s 2006 movie, Inland Empire
And not only does Inland Empire often look like it belongs on the Internet, it also progresses with the darting, associative logic of hyperlinks… a labyrinth of wormholes and worlds within worlds.
Like Inland Empire, “Logic of Hyperlinks” will make only disjointed sense, and it will be a masterpiece. Some visitors to carrotrope.com will stop reading after the first two paragraphs.
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Links:
- Elements of Several Things
Thrown together, something interesting happens.
- September Songs
Song 1: A song with wind on wires.
Song 2: An acoustic song, with improvised lyrics (did the vocals in one take). It turned out interestingly enough. Here’s what came out, as far as I can tell:
I’m so happy today I got my nurse a raise,
She was walking past me when I of a sleepless gaze:
Songs is so bizarre and I am not alone, you are not my song song.
Give me some, give me leave me alone.
I should get a haircut, maybe you will come?
Something touch me it’s been so very long,
And I can’t remember singing you this song.
I am happy without you,
but now that I’ve met you I can’t either be happy too.
You are my giraffe you have a sore throat on your back;
Your neck is long, your feet are tired, you haven’t got a loan.
You had a loan. I have a loan.
Lemme lend you money, let me make you biscuits and gravy.Song 3: Also improvised lyrics, less interesting though.
- Sketches for Songs
My songwriting process may need refining. I’ve belched out a couple long and unfocused something somethings recently (playing with my new Ableton Live software), frowned and grown sick of them before I could shake some sense out of them. For what it’s worth, here they are. Maybe I’ll come back here some day and mine them for something.
Sketch 1 (>6 minutes): Broken into a few distinct vocal sections. The first mumbles. The second, I seem to be pulling some kind of David Byrne thing, which decays utterly into gibberish.Sketch 2 (<11 minutes): Some nice melodic chunks here and there, some good fuzz. Few and far between.
- Songs
songs by Nathan Rosquist.
- Formlessness
by Nathan Rosquist
- Fragments
Songs to be, songlets, and fully formed half-ideas, by Nathan Rosquist.
- Songs ‘05
by Nathan Rosquist
