Songs without Words

My onset of and recovery from a robust adverse reaction to pseudoephedrine has been marked by three main periods of sleep – Sunday night, Monday morning, and Monday night (I’ve basically done nothing but sleep for the last 36 hours).  Strangely enough, instead of having a series of unrelated dreams as I usually do when I am trapped in REM sleep, each period for me has been accompanied by one dream “idea” that keeps reiterating itself.

Sunday night — this dream consisted of an enormous microfluidic device divided into four quadrants, each with thousands of tiny channels.  My arms and legs were ordered around by experimenters based on the connections they were trying to test, and I would move these limbs in accordance to the channel flows.  Needless to say, this was very exhausting and I woke up much more tired than I had started out.
Monday morning — this dream was set in a gigantic museum devoted, I believe, to diabetes, except it was empty.  The building had about eight stories or so, each floor having a particular “cut-out” shape so that you could see floors below, but the shapes themselves were pretty random, based on French curves and circle bores.  The material of the entire building was a ash-gray / off-white faux-granite, probably plastic, and that was all there was.  We took elevators up and down but each empty floor looked about the same, except for the shapes.

Monday night — I had an iterative dream in which a nation tried to successively reorganize itself through a mass event in which the people would redistribute themselves based on the land that they were best suited for (i.e. a person who liked fishing would relocate himself to the coastline).  This process would occur over and over again, each time yielding better results and happier people.  I watched the process from an overhead map detailing each person (it was a very complicated map but only in black and white with outlines of claimed territory) but also had a separate “pane” in which I could listen to the conversations of the people as they tried to talk each other into taking up certain roles in society.

See full bracket here
An analyst said that all the 2 seeds are really strong this year, but I don’t think I agree.  Of the 2 seeds, Michigan State has been most solid coming down the stretch, but even they had some ridiculous losses early on.  Duke won the ACC tournament but has a history of underperforming in the NCAA tournament – I think Texas has a legitimate shot at beating Duke in the second round.  Oklahoma has had a great season, but towards the end, they had losses to teams ranked below them, even with Blake Griffin back.  I think if Syracuse makes it to the Sweet 16, there’s a good chance of them beating Oklahoma.  Calls that Oklahoma will lose to Clemson seem iffy to me, though – Clemson is a strong team but inexperienced in the tournament and with a strong dependency on outside shooting that is not a good strategy for consistency.  Memphis has the distinction of 30 wins and 2nd place last year, but against teams that count in their schedule – Xavier, Georgetown, and Syracuse – they lost all three.  In the NCAA tournament, every team is bound to be behind at some point, and if a team hasn’t built up in-game experience to handle being behind, there’s a risk of premature exit.  SI’s Seth Davis says that Missouri is overrated and never had to play OK and KU to win the title – that’s correct, but there are many ways to get to the Sweet 16 and Elite 8, including the “clearance” of tough teams by early-round upsets.  We’ll see.

Final Four – I have Michigan State, UConn, Nova, and UNC.  Louisville is strong but to have to potentially get through Ohio State, Wake Forest, and Michigan State is a tall order.  People say Memphis deserved the last No. 1 seed rather than UConn, but why?  UConn’s losses consist of an early loss to Georgetown, then two losses to Pitt which is hardly relevant because that establishes that UConn can’t beat Pitt, which they wouldn’t have to do unless they met in the title game anyway.  And the 6-OT loss to Syracuse was a loss, but the last OT’s scenario, given all the fouled-out players and fatigue, is hardly to be extrapolated.  Saying that Memphis will beat UConn requires Memphis to make it to the Elite 8, which I don’t think is guaranteed.  Maryland, for one, can mess things up if it plays a few of its top games.  While they don’t have any chance at getting past the Sweet 16, I think they can do some damage before exiting.  Pittsburgh is good but they have a lot of pressure on them because very few people regard Louisville as the “overall top seed” – as the Metro put it, they’re definitely the most disrespected overall #1.  I think Duke, Villanova, and Florida State are all potential upsetters.  In the South, well, I have to pick my own team.  But besides, this is comparatively the weakest region, and UNC is playing in Greensboro and, if it advances, has to move all the way to … Tennessee.  Gonzaga tends to overperform as a cinderella and underperform as a single-digit seed, and the lower part of the bracket has Clemson, Oklahoma, and Syracuse which are all strong and matched teams and which may potentially wear each other out.

I associate sets of colors with particular characters.  Here are the strongest associations that I have, presented as 6-color palettes:

While the colors can be associated with a character’s hair color or eye color or preferred clothing color, they tend to be chosen in the first place because of the connotations of the colors.  The hair color, eye color, and clothing colors are subjectively reflective of internal personality.  I also form color associations for real-life people, but because so many people have redundant color schemes, it’s not a terribly useful tool except for those who have more eclectic wardrobes, or who also think primarily in terms of colors.

Key to the above sets below the break.
Continue reading ‘[704] Color Palettes’ »

Pinch pinch!  >_< I hate it when people pinch me ........ I've recently been really into the art of kzm (Website: Tamagokake-gohan http://www.kawachi.zaq.ne.jp/tamagokakegohan/index.html), whose style is a mix of manga, pop/street art, and logos.  His drawings consist of a series of images of particular girls only referred to by letter, and there is some degree to which the subjects are characterized, but moreover there is a reproduced, bizarre use of recurring slogans and logos that tie all of the work together.  His style first struck me because of the thick, angular lines and flat shading. When you use shading - whether smooth or cel - sparingly, it is like restricting the use of vibrato.  You really expose the true nature of the image you are portraying because you distill the subject from the effects of lighting.  This is the 'eternal form' of the subject, which is unchanging regardless of the environment it is placed in. [edit: fixed an issue where careless transparency turned some of the lace green ..]

Sometimes the simplest of songs wrenches the strongest of emotions out of you, because of the regret that those beautiful times will never come again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNdy1eGUFZo (“Sakura no Ame” (Cherry blossom rain) by halyosy of the three-man band “absorb,” sung by Miku Hatsune, with subs provided by pKjd)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHi8aXP_YoA (same song, sung by 262 people halyosy recruited on the street)

I have the original score as a PDF, if you’re interested.  It’s three-part chorus and piano accompaniment.

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Somewhat relatedly, there’s an interesting phenomenon of “Miku” songs being covered by real people (note that the above is Miku covering a song by absorb, not the other way around).  I think this is really the goal of Vocaloid: fledgling songwriters too obscure to hire a singer put out a ‘demo’ in the form Miku, and then real singers pick up on it and turn it into a real song.

Here’s one example:

Last Night, Good Night by Miku: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiQC9WCgmIA&feature=related
Cover by Choucho (female): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCVoW5t8yDo&feature=related
Cover by absorb (male): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8ugmrxD-cI&feature=related

I’m really impressed by all the talent here, actually – the original song was already amazingly written, but the expression on the part of both singers really carries the emotion a step farther.  And for absorb to attempt – successfully – that refrain is just gutsy!

There are several chord progressions that define the majority of contemporary music, e.g. IV V I, iii vi ii V I, IV V iii vi, and V IV I.  Here, I wish to compile the examples I’ve accumulated of one such progression, i IV/III V/III III (also interpreted as vi IV V I in major).  It’s a beautiful chord progression representing hope and cycles of happiness and sadness, wavering endlessly between triumph and sorrow.  Of the four-chord progressions, it loops perhaps the most naturally.  Astute observers will notice that it is merely I vi IV V displaced by one metric unit.  However, just a listen should convince you that it sounds nothing like I vi IV V (the YMCA theme, for example).

The first time I was cognizant of hearing this progression was when I played Final Fantasy X – it’s the core of one of the themes, entitled “To Zanarkand.”  In this video, the theme appears at 0:42: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLnZ5jcsRpc .

Of course, Nobuo Uematsu was far from the first to use this lovely chord progression.  The earliest example I know of – and I invite any of you to supply a precedent – was pointed out by Derric, a friend of mine.  Czech classical composer Antonin Dvorak uses i IV/III V/III III as a repeating harmony in the trio of his famous Humoresque, Op. 101 No. 7.  The trio appears at 1:19 in the following solo piano performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmAZoexenx8&feature=related .  “To Zanarkand” rips not only the chord progression but the melodic structure (scale degrees 6 1 5 3 in major or 1 3 7 5 in minor) from this masterpiece.

Old-school anime fans may also recognize Trunk’s Theme, “Hikari no Willpower,” which features the chord progression as the intro/interlude theme as well as the refrain at 1:26 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wENJI9dMKRQ).

A more mainstream example is British boy band Blue’s 2003 hit (#4 UK Pop Charts) “U Make Me Wanna,” which is practically a passacaglia on vi IV V I (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i565p-UKT7Q).  It was subsequently covered by Taiwanese star Elva Hsiao (with Blue singing partly in Chinese as backup): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz5YbaMG_Fw&feature=related.

ef – a tale of the two, a rather artsy anime work, shockingly features what is a rather derivative piece, although the violin solos make up for it (somewhat).  You can listen to “Eternal Feather” played by this girl on the electric violin.  I don’t think I need to point out where the chord progression occurs, but definitely check out the solos around ~2:00 – 2:22.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FXbjHdGo3Q

And finally, I should include Derric’s first encounter, Yukie Nakama’s “Makenai ai ga kitto aru” from Megaman X4 (1997) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUEY2_uqN7c], which also happens to include my favorite chord progression, IV V iii vi, which I think I’ve already written about, but if I haven’t, I will one day … and if I have, I’ll probably write about it again!  :D  Yukie Nakama would indeed be a perfect segue, since her other single of 1997 has a IV V iii vi vamp all the way through!