Songs without Words

will be written soon ..

A bunch of us first-year MD/PhD students got together this morning to have brunch. It turned out to be a much more all-out affair than I was expecting, thanks to a rather pervasive (and previously unknown) cooking talent. We had pancakes with tons of fresh blueberries (Sylvan), french toast made from dehydrated challah (Mike), maple flavored bacon and sausages (Yian), mushroom, pepper, onion, and ham omelettes (me), Indian style scrambled eggs (Vineeta), hand-made zucchini chocolate bread and cranberry nut bread (Katie), green tea mochi (Wendy), fresh fruits (Divya), and v. 7 of Wen’s famous cheesecake (with hand-whipped whipped cream and chocolate shavings, and graham crust) to celebrate Mike’s birthday. We ended up unbelievably full to the brim.  I also managed to collect a few more “stories” about people which will help with my planned gag caricatures of the class, pending a few more quirks or juicy tidbits.

I made more omelettes today than I had previously made in all my life, I think.  I prepared 7 omelettes, totaling 19 eggs and probably two and a half pounds of filling, and I think people enjoyed them.  My technique for flipping and folding them has definitely improved, although there’s still a ways to go before I’d consider it perfected.

Recently, there have been articles lambasting the spending on the Oscars ceremony as being excessive and insensitive.  While it is a pity that so much is pouring into the posh of the few who don’t need it, I think that the argument that being frugal will benefit the economy is misguided.  The economy thrives on consumer spending, and if everyone in the U.S. now suddenly stopped buying goods, that would for certain spell the doom of the market.
In my view, it makes little sense to throw money into the management and administrative ends of businesses.  If you want to revitalize a crippled American car economy, why bleed money when the government could buy off the endless inventoried vehicles and put them to use in one way or another?

While I’m not spending a ton of money, I’m also not spending much less than ever before.  Economic plans focus on unemployment and big “key” companies, but there must also be an effort to keep the small owners’ businesses alive, and that is most easily achieved by simply patronizing those businesses.  Consumption tends to be a self-sustaining process since quality goods promote further business; the endpoint of tax cuts has to be in this realm, and if people just hoard their money, nothing is going to change.

A related article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/business/worldbusiness/22japan.html?_r=1&hp

Released just over a week ago, Luka MEGURINE already has quite a few songs to her name (I can’t imagine such a quick turnaround unless users already had synth tracks prepared long before Megurine’s release).  Despite the fact that Vocaloid2 “raw” technology has not improved dramatically since the release of Miku HATSUNE in 2007, composers and arrangers have been able to apply more and more realistic editing techniques while also identifying unique niches for Vocaloid which capitalize on effects that cannot be achieved through the human voice (such as the blending of Vocaloid with synthetic background and extended range or stamina).  Below are a few links to Megurine songs that I liked:

Lost My Music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=JP&hl=ja&v=4nfmkDe1Rk0&fmt=18

A cover of the Suzumiya Haruhi insert song, remixed in a really nice bossa nova style.  This song, while not an original, exemplifies what you can achieve through careful sound editing.  Just typing in some notes and words does not yield anything near this quality of voice emulation.

Reality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAu0T2dIc84

One of the more unique aspects of this third iteration of Vocaloid2 is the shift towards a more mature voice, and correspondingly a company-suggested shift in repertoire.  Noticeably, while Miku Hatsune controls the bubblegum pop / techno niche, Megurine’s voice suits the character of jazz and rock more comfortably.  I think this song is well-done.

Ave Maria
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3yewffHPB8&feature=related

This is a bizarre and haunting “remix” of Schubert’s Ave Maria, capitalizing on the main “new feature” with Megurine Luka, namely English support.  Realistically, what this means is that she’s able to terminate on consonants, which was not previously available.  This arranger, who also did a curious arrangement of Debussy’s Reverie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0leOP6W-6Co&feature=related), focuses on the grand effect rather than the shooting for the lofty goal of convincing the listener that the singer is human (which is near impossible at this stage).

Neighbor Lawn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG0K5iTRD34&feature=related

The ‘video’ to this song is really beautiful, which is my main reason for including this song here.  I like the chord progressions, although the voice touch-up quality is rather poor.

Transient Future
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfoIYrqrqPE&feature=related

Pretty standard Vocaloid pop fare, but like “Lost My Music,” I think this is among the best examples of sound editing to come out.

I’m really excited about the new story project I decided to work on.  The idea struck me this past Saturday morning, and I jotted down a few pages and a preliminary character sketch.  At this point, I have the beginning, middle, and end pinned down, with the two emotional climaxes still in the works.  Since the last completed story I wrote – way back in June of last year, if you can even remember that – was rather plot-driven, I decided to let this one unfold in a more character-driven way.  It is a story about fraternal twins growing up and coming to terms with who they are, starting at age 5 and ending at age 23.  The “main character” is not the narrator, which was a difficult decision to make, but I felt that it was necessary in order to help the audience relate to some of the subject material.  At the same time, this mode of storytelling sacrifices a lot of opportunities I would’ve liked to explain the thoughts and feelings of the main character which instead have to come indirectly or through dialogue.

While this story is not terribly long, I thought it would be fun to go back and tabulate the longest stories I’ve written, in terms of words.  This list should be definitive, except for two stories which have the potential to be in the top 6 for which my computerized versions have been lost, “Cell Wars 0” and “Emptiness in My Heart.”