Songs without Words

I think that my writing to reading ratio is rather high because it takes only a little bit of reading to send my desire to write clear through the roof.  Reading a few fanfics my girlfriend recommended to me has inspired me a great deal (heehee, I love dating a fellow nerd ;) ).  Incidentally, I have also been inspired by the sheer coolness and manliness of Gurren Lagann, the new Gainax anime that I was hesitant to watch.  It is the polar opposite of Lucky Star, with a focus on action, machines, drills, power, and most importantly, the importance of will and guts.  I highly recommend it – it’s no Evangelion, but it’s better, in my opinion, than This Ugly and Beautiful World and perhaps on par with Furikuri (any Gainax fans out there?).  I think girls would enjoy it, too … the girls I know, anyway.  Just have to look past Yoko’s bursting chest … to see Kamina’s rather nice, muscular topless body ;).

Anyway, I’ve begun writing a story, but I should probably check out of my now-clean room first before they start hounding me down for that key.

The new story will probably not achieve any new ground in terms of deep emotions and lengthy prose.  Almost every line starts with an indent, and I doubt that will be changing.  This is a sequel to the old story “Triumvirate” that I wrote, featuring the same main characters after they return to Catleya.  Patrick and Sonya are the royal children (the country is always unnamed, but it’s taken to be Justinland).  Their mother is Queen Jessica, who is stern and distant (but used to be very spunky and rebellious before she became a widow).  Beya (Belladonna, beautiful woman) is an “alien,” but human, formerly a priestess on the secluded, devout planet of Xishebelle (beautiful flower).  During the golden age, humans settled many planets – that was circa 8000 years ago, and the downfall of humans led to loss of communication with the outer colonies, one of which became subjugated to a fanatical religion – that being Beya’s homeland.  After the defeat of the three false gods, the various convents and monasteries were disbanded and Beya decided to emigrate to Catleya with Patrick, with whom she had fallen in love.

This story picks up right after Beya completes her xenosanitization procedure, which is the modern way of clearing a person of alien pathogens, nucleic-acid based or otherwise.

Me: {bending down and picking up Saran wrap strewn over the floor, plus champagne bottles / thumb tacks / computer paper} Sorry, I’m just trying to clear a path to my room.

Neighbor: Oh, don’t worry about it. The only people I pity right now are the janitors.

* * *

This mess is INCREDIBLE. And by that I mean if you had told me about it before, I would have called you liar liar pants on fire. I came by earlier and asked if I could move my stuff into the lounge while people moved out, and the reply I got was, “If you put it in the lounge, the janitors will throw it out.”

Uhh … so you guys (actually, girls) left apples rolling on the floor and ironing boards and peeling shoes and printers and textbooks and Mickey Mouse dolls all over … the floor and the tables?

As my neighbor aptly put it, keep up this mentality and the janitors are apt to pull out rifles on us.

I’m not a terribly clean person, and I just took out some paper towels and soap and wiped down the sinks to get rid of the stains and crumbs. I haven’t moved the plate, silverware, and cup that are sitting there, gathering dust … yet.

The fuck? Ever heard of leaving a place the way you found it?

Summer vacation always feels like such a letdown to me.  Somehow, my creativity and drive seems to be coupled with the influx of knowledge, even unrelated knowledge.  I draw effusively when listening to professors or writing papers, yet it takes such a great activation energy to draw when it is something I could be doing all alone.  Is it that multitasking was not a strategy for me, but rather, a necessity?  That the inter-wiring of sections of my brain is so thorough that it takes co-stimulation to activate any particular region?

In any case, it’s definitely shower time.  I’m sleepy but so calm that I do not feel like sleeping …

Am I the only one who blogs profusely at times like this?  My e-mail has gone dead silent (even the spammers stopped sending stuff … or actually, I just configured the mailing list to delete all non-MIT e-mails without asking me first) … everyone else’s blog seems to be silent, too, as if finals sent them down a deep, dark black hole and the blogs appear to be stuck at the event horizon.  Or perhaps, with less work, I perceive time to pass at such a slow pace that other posts are infrequent only in relation to my own point of view and/or post count?

There are many formal definitions of counterpoint, but in driest terms it involves composing two or more lines that operate vertically and horizontally according to good taste. Now, just forget that definition completely. I have seen thousands of these so-called “species counterpoint worksheets” and I cannot imagine any of those examples being anything resembling art.

True counterpoint is more than music – it is an expression of Nature itself, much like a martial art. While one traditionally starts by observing the conventions of Western Harmony, modern counterpoint could care less about tradition. The core of writing lines that are vertically and horizontally harmonious and natural is not avoidance of particular intervals or leaps, but the conception of intertwining melodies that alone sound beautiful and together sound even more beautiful.

The one golden rule of counterpoint is thus:

No note shall ever be written without serving a purpose towards greater reflection of the intent or nature of the whole.

If you wish to know the old rules of counterpoint, you can read about them anywhere, including Wikipedia, which has quite an extensive and detailed treatment of the subject. From now on, I will be posting short “lessons” with examples in single lines and ideas which someone seeking to learn true counterpoint may toy with on his or her own. Then, I will post several renderings of other voices and continuations, which I will comment on. I do not pretend to be perfect at this, nor do I believe that perfection can ever be achieved. But I will try my hardest to follow my stated one golden rule.

Lesson 1.  What counterpoint is not.

1. Counterpoint is not melody and accompaniment. Each voice is an important contributor, and each line must be melodic (while accompaniment need only be harmonically sound).

2. Counterpoint is not writing the best notes to go with each note in a given line. It is finding the compromise between where a continuing voice wants to go and where the given line wishes to go. When faced with the difficult decision of which priority is higher … it really depends on the situation. While following the given line will give more beautiful harmonies, following the continuing voice is truer to the objective.

3. Counterpoint is not purely intellectual. Without emotional instinct, counterpoint falls flat on its face and sounds pedantic and dull. Contours and shapes, colors and textures – are all just as important here as in any type of expressive music.

Now, here is exercise 1. The goal is to write one voice below the given one.

Click here to view three of my samples.

Sample 1. Old-school counterpoint. Recognizing C major is the key, 1-2-3 can ALWAYS pair with 3-2-1. There are too many 10ths in a row, but they won’t sound bad (just play it). Bar 3, third and fourth eighth note: dilemma: A down to D sounds better than A to F in terms of harmony, but the lower melody likes F better than D. I chose to honor the melody’s tendency.

Sample 2. Chromaticism. Parallel thirds at the quarter note that ascend by step allow for the possibility of inserting chromaticism. The third measure is the most fun.

Sample 3. Mini-canonic moment. The voice at the unison tends to enter where the first line becomes a third away from home. Voice exchanges in measure 3, where notes are switched off between the two voices.

Lesson 2. The clues.

Clue 1. If the given line has repetition or sequence, the countermelody can also have repetition and sequence.

Clue 2. If the melody seems to have a general shape or direction, underline it with a linear or chromatic line, esp. a descending one, whenever possible.

I’ve decided that I feel like making two short “tutorials,” possibly completed before I go home on Monday.  The two topics will be 3D modeling and 3-voice counterpoint.  Hmm, sound interesting?  No?  Haha, making them is fun enough for me, even if no one wants to read them ^^;;; I would be a bad teacher, ne ~~~

After eating lunch today, I noticed a green thing moving below my plastic box. This was on a table inside the student center, mind you, so the moving part was a bit strange, although I was so out of it (from exhaustion and melancholy) that it took a long time to register, and even then I didn’t so much as glare at the mobile lettuce.

It turned out to be an inchworm, probably startled at being smacked by the clear lid from above. It had a small narrow head, elastic body, and two stubby prolegs in the back that sort of grappled rather than walked. It was a strange little fellow, being green and all (we know that it isn’t easy being green ..). What really struck my attention, though, was this thin channel traversing the entire dorsal side of the geometer moth caterpillar. At a rhythm of maybe one per second, a dark green fluid would build up in the hinder regions and then pulsate through towards the head. It was subtle but definitely real, and definitely consistent over several minutes as I watched it crawl. Was this an inchworm heart? Does an inchworm even have a heart?

Note: the inchworm was subsequently safely deposited beside a tall tree next to Kresge Oval.

Gratuitous picture of a disciplined caterpillar army: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Processional_caterpillar.JPG

Lounging around in the … lounge … splashing water, faces in fan, sipping water.  A little paper fan marked “2,” passed around for good measure.

Such a gentle, subdued time, with an entrancing dinner (and scrumptious food), pretty lights of orange and green and blue miniaturized in glass candle-holders and lovely conversation.  Walking across the bridge with the river half-white half-black like glass over the abyss, dichotomous, half-frosted and half perfectly transparent, and standing straddled over two different Smoots in time and space …

Lounging around some more … in the lounge … tripping up “oh no” “oooohhhhhh Yeaaahhhh.”

Improvisations on two treble instruments = sweetness.  Deepest conversation I’ve had all year … too bad it had to end so soon.

2.718

An important person picked up the phone and talked to me

so I became happy and spread Biscotti around the floor.

Now I am studying happily as well.

Today:

10:15-10:45 – return borrowed stuffs

10:45-1:00 – study for 20.330

1:30-4:30 – 20.330 exam

5:00-7:00 – get cart (package arriving) and start packing.  Move Trunk Room boxes first!!  These need to be in before 8 pm today.

Boxes/items eligible to go:

– all classwork prior to this semester (~4 boxes)
– the small shelves
– the two large crates below my bed
– winter clothes, w/ winter jacket.  Keep 2-3 long pants

Boxes that will go to new room.  Each is equivalent to 1 box.
– desktop
– printer (pack tonight after printing out the last of the exam prep materials)
– Corningware set
– cooking supplies (pots and pans), utensils (1 large box)
– rice cooker
– water pitcher
– keyboard (musical)
– external hard drive (pack last)
– art supplies
– laptop + accessories
– Midori
– medicines
– bookshelf
– books on bookshelf
– violin
– suit + tuxedo
– water boiler
– large fan and small fan
7:00 – 8:00: dinner
8:00 – 12:00: finish lecture half of 7.23 study sheet
tomorrow:
8:00-11:00: finish reading remaining 7.23 materials and start outlining book
11:00-1:00: packing/moving stuff to trunk room, if necessary

1:00-4:00: do the practice exams (fly through them!!)
4:00-7:00: supplement outline as necessary.

Sometimes, a mushroom is all it takes to make someone’s day.