Auld Lang Syne 2020 — on the Kite Guitar

All this year, I've had a note on my task list to write about how I've been continuing lessons with video chat (so far sticking to the free/libre/open tool Jitsi Meet instead of Zoom or other proprietary options). I have a lot I could (and will later) say about this whole situation. It's been working out surprisingly well, continuing with most of my students and adding new students who are local, out of state, and even overseas.

Of the many reasons I haven't gotten around to writing articles about video lessons, one issue is the time and energy I've been putting into the Kite Guitar! This new system of guitar fretting and tuning fulfills a dream I've had for 20 years to be able to play more harmonious chords and expressive melodies in a flexible-enough, practical way. I will be publishing much more about that soon.

In honor of the New Year (and played extra slowly so that astute listeners might notice the special qualities of the tuning):

I'm resisting the urge to go on about the guitar, the tuning, the arrangement, my process of updated video production (using all free/libre/open software), and more. It will all come in due time. Looking forward to a productive and prosperous 2021, and sending my love and well-wishes to everyone in the world! Happy New Year!

I Finally Wrote Another Song

Summer 2018. A couple years into fatherhood. Still holding onto all sorts of creative dreams but making little progress. I was juggling compulsions, goals, responsibilities, thoughts, worries…

I was getting into mindfulness meditation. I dabbled in meditation since childhood, but I had not previously made it a routine practice. Meditation now is among a slew of efforts toward getting my routines and life in better order.

One day in August (2018), I took a break from some chores. I put on some random music. I heard some singer-songwriter stuff I liked well enough. I felt inspired (and perhaps also looking for an outlet to procrastinate and push away some stress).

I picked up my guitar, and a new song came out. It was just a bunch of thoughts that had been on my mind. Thoughts about my relationships, my compulsions, my procrastination. I recorded a better take a couple days later. Now, in early 2020, I'm finally posting it:

I was a guest on Music Manumit podcast

I was honored to be the recent guest for a podcast called Music Manumit, a show focused on Creative Commons music. Check it out: http://www.musicmanumit.com/2015/10/aaron-wolf-151005-music-manumit-podcast.html

I regret that I didn't specifically name the folks I mentioned in passing. My teacher I referenced was Steve "Oz" Osburn. The barbershop songwriter friend I mentioned who used a Creative Commons license is the wonderfully talented Paul Olguin (who I need to help get his own website up sometime!).

I mentioned also my barbershop arrangement of Copying Is Not Theft. More significantly, this podcast prompted me to finally get more of my old recordings posted. I had some up before, but now I'm finally sharing more thoroughly and specifically updating my old music under CC BY-SA license. For a start, I posted my 15-year-old album, Conspiracies & Racketeering on Archive.org along with some of the source files (MIDI tracks). I hope to post more albums and other backlog of music soon…

Copying Is Not Theft: Barbershop Arrangement pt2

see part 1 to check out the original song and the context that inspired my version

Announcing my first published barbershop arrangement:

Copying Is Not Theft by Nina Paley

The song is licensed Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 (as is my entire website). This means I have full legal right to do anything I want with it as long as I credit Nina and I license my version the same way. Lots of people have already made tons of variations of the song from jazz to punk rock versions.

I made my barbershop arrangement using the free open-source music notation software Musescore. This software not only produces great looking results, but it supports fine tuning of pitch. I adjusted all the pitches to match just intonation tuning to 1-cent accuracy. If you play the file in Musescore, the harmonies are all well tuned to get nice pure barbershop harmonies (though the sound is a saxophone sample). [side note: to play back with swing rhythm in Musescore, go to the menu display>Play Panel]

Download the Musescore file. Or Download a PDF.

I made a quick audio recording by overdubbing my own singing and created fast-paced and slightly slower versions, an old-timey mix with virtual vinyl record crackles and such, and dedicated learning tracks for each part (with select part on one side of stereo and the other three on the other side).

Here's an embedded audio player:

All the files are available to download at the best free, non-profit media sharing website: archive.org/details/CopyingIsNotTheftForBarbershopQuartet

Archive.org automatically creates many file formats, so you can download any format you like of the audio and do whatever you want with it (just include the CC-BY-SA license and credit both me and Nina if you release any modified version).

I really hope some talented animator is up for creating an old-timey cartoon, maybe inspired by Nina's original cartoon but with a quartet singing… And I hope barbershop quartets out there choose to learn the song and perform it and perhaps make new recordings.

Whether for a video version or for live performance, I have some ideas about choreography. The way I arranged the song, the idea is: the lead sings the first phrase alone, but the baritone jumps in and cuts off the lead for the second phrase. Then they copy each other and sing the third phrase together, splitting into harmony at the end, and then the whole quartet joins in.

Overall, the arrangement follows very traditional barbershop harmony, full of all the little embellishments and with a new tag at the end. I added a decent amount of complexity that makes it more advanced than the most basic arrangement might have been, but in the end I stuck with mostly accessible stuff.

So go copy this! Have fun! Change it! Perform it! Whatever! I'd love to be notified when anyone does something with this, but there's no legal requirement to do so.

In harmony,
Aaron

P.S. I added just the "Copying Is Fun" tag to the wonderful barbershop tag collection at barbershoptags.com.

Brain Parts Song VIDEO (and Creative Commons discussion)

Several weeks ago, I posted a recording of my new Brain Parts Song. I mentioned then that it called for a video, and I realized later that I couldn't rely on someone else to do it. But that doesn't mean I had to create everything from scratch. Thanks to the internet and Creative Commons, I was able to put together a very effective video:

The player above is from YouTube, but I also uploaded to Vimeo
and to Archive.org, a great media site that is free, open, and non-profit! I also posted files with chords at that link.

There's so much in this video packed into 3 minutes, so I highly recommend repeated viewings/listenings for anyone wanting to use this song as a memory/learning aid. The song lacks the exact repetitiveness of much pop music, but it can be pretty catchy after hearing it enough.

I was concerned about my original audio-only recording for learning purposes because the brain parts are not the words being rhymed, so they could be wrongly mixed up and the song would still work musically. I think having the associated video content solves the problem. I'm a bit disappointed how the mistake/joke about the Anterior Cingulate Cortex isn't as surprising and funny as it is with audio alone, and other hidden subtleties in the recording are more obvious now that they are illustrated visually, but there's new subtleties and details in the video content, so it's all good.

Side-note: as the video hints at, these ideas are simplistic beginning concepts. Besides plasticity, even concepts like having separate motor and sensory areas are wrongish. The whole neocortex has motor and sensory aspects. The main distinction within the cortex is more about which parts are most connected to signals from elsewhere in the brain and body. Don't take any of these rough elementary 101 ideas too strictly.

I had fun making this, and I hope everyone enjoys it and maybe learns something too.

Read on for discussion of making this with Creative Commons, and for credits and lyrics

New recording: The Brain Parts Song

After giving up the chance to start my PhD now, I'm pushing myself to get involved in lots of projects until I potentially re-apply to grad schools. Among other things, I'm taking an online class through the local community college: Human Development and Learning. This class relates to my interests in psychology and education, plus it will be valuable if I ever pursue formal teacher certification.

This week's assignment was to do something creative involving learning the basic parts of the brain, so I wrote a song, of course:

Brain Parts Song by Aaron Wolf

I had to fight the urge to be a perfectionist. I simply didn't have time to add all sorts of instrumentation or details or make a video... maybe another time, but I'm busy with other things.

This song is very purpose-driven: a song for memorizing. Unfortunately, I don't think it does that optimally. These brain part names are really hard to rhyme, so I resorted to rhyming words that fit descriptions of the parts. However, that choice means that the names could be erroneously mixed up and the song would still work musically. Plus, this might be too much content crammed into three minutes — it would be more memorable if there were room for more exact repetition. I'm happy with the result, and I did my best, but it may not be the best study tool for everyone... At least it's a fun song.

Tonal Plexus microtonal keyboard: 3 videos

In 2008, I became one of the first owners of a Tonal Plexus keyboard from H-Pi Instruments (a mostly one-man production of owner Aaron Hunt, who hand-builds the keyboards and creates the supporting software).

I had already deeply studied pitch in music through barbershop harmony, alternatively tuning my guitars, listening to software tone generators, listening to a wide variety of music from around the world and from composers who explored pitch (such as Lou Harrison, Harry Partch, Toby Twining, Jon Catler, and many others), and through extensive reading (including Hermann Helmholtz, Easley Blackwood, Bill Sethares, and many more).

At one time, I had hoped to find some simple scale or guitar tuning or guitar fretting system that would achieve the sounds I was seeking; but no optimal system seemed possible. If I wanted one chord tuning, it interfered with tuning another chord. Frets would have to be so close together, that I might as well have no frets. No frets allows any pitch, but then it is much harder to avoid errors in tuning. Violinists and barbershop singers work hard enough to get one pitch tuned just so. Achieving consistent accuracy (to the degree that I want) with multiple notes and complex chords all on a single stringed instrument is unrealistic.

With the Tonal Plexus (TPX) keyboard, a whole new flexibility is possible without sacrificing accuracy. The sheer number of pitches approximates a complete pitch continuum. In other words, the very low-bit digital system of the traditional keyboard or fretted instruments is rough and blocky, like an old eight or sixteen color computer screen, whereas the Tonal Plexus is still digital but is more like 8-bit or 16-bit color (meaning hundreds to thousands of colors) on a computer monitor which can much better approximate the full color spectrum. Full analog devices are completely continuous, but being digital offers more accessible accuracy. I can press a specific button and get a specific predetermined pitch.

On the downside, the TPX cannot achieve the natural fluidity of analog instruments like fretless strings or the human voice. Also, the lack of touch sensitivity further limits the keyboard's expressive potential. Of course, adding touch sensitivity for so many buttons would make the instrument prohibitively expensive, if it were even possible. At least there is a randomization option for velocity as well as a whole-keyboard option for volume and velocity control via footpedals. It is worth noting that harpsichords and organs have still been used to make effective music despite their lack of touch sensitivity.

While I learned much upon initially playing with the keyboard, I found it frustrating that it still could not achieve quite what I wanted. The stretches seemed awkward. I wondered about all sorts of other alternatives. I decided to finally get a fretless guitar (see my 2009 video). The guitar's nuances and fluidity were thrilling, but it wasn't the full answer either. I've come to accept that my imagined complete instrument may simply be practically impossible (even though simultaneous fluid melodic motion, precise harmony, harmonic deviance, and control of touch sensitive nuance is — in principle — possible). Maybe touch-sensitive multi-touch computer screens along with some complex algorithmic tuning will get closer, but we're not there yet.

In the end, I have realized that what matters more is the human context: the cultural and psychological experience of music over the details of the objective form. And yet, I am convinced that much of the pitch subtlety available on the TPX is psychologically relevant. I have much more to study and hope to get more involved in that sort of research, but that's a subject for another time.

In an effort to be less idealistic and perfectionist, I have gone back to the TPX to show off its unique capabilities. It certainly can do particular expressive things that no other musical instrument has ever achieved. It is worth appreciating that without worrying about the compromises. All instruments bring different insights and potential, and exploring the Tonal Plexus for what it offers has been very enriching.

With help from my friend Doug Jones doing the camera-work and providing some direction and feedback, I have made an initial set of videos on my TPX. The first is an introductory explanation:



Next, a melodic improvisation over a drone:



Finally, a barbershop tag in just intonation:



[note: click the links to YouTube to read the specific descriptions I wrote of each video]

More videos will come soon. I hope these first ones highlight just a little of the enormous potential here. My future with this could include more careful practice, maybe detailed compositions, additional controllers for more timbrel and dynamic (and even additional pitch) nuance, and coordination with other instruments and musicians.

I welcome any comments or questions, though I suggest that anyone interested in the theory explore the H-Pi website first. There, Mr. Hunt has included everything from history to theory about much of the ideas behind this keyboard. He also offers software including a FREE virtual version of the keyboard (which is also used by owners to create alternate tunings or other adjustments). H-Pi also offers software for ear-training, an alternate-tuning device for standard keyboards, and much more.

Improvisation on Chapman Stick, thoughts on creativity

When I was young, I was thrilled by each lesson I learned, each discovery I made in the course of my musical development. When I found a new chord I liked or composed a piece of a melody, I thought it was the greatest thing ever. I was inspired to flesh out full compositions for each idea.

Eventually, I learned so many forms and tricks that I had far more ideas than time to work on them all. Then something shifted. I realized that I was able to easily come up with an infinite number of ideas and quickly. That awareness made each idea less special, and I was less motivated to develop them. My compositional output dropped, even as I became a more skilled musician.

At a more mature level, motivation comes from deeper purpose. Instead of working on ideas for their own sake, I consider particular goals such as expressing something or teaching a particular concept. Still, being more knowledge of all the possibilities, it is far more time-consuming to realize the ever-more-detailed ideas in my imagination.

I miss the pure, creative drive I used to have. I probably can't return to my childhood experience of seeing almost everything as novel; but I can just decide to sit down and create something with the limited time I have and learn to accept that it won't be perfect.

Here's a product of this effort, an impromptu improvisation on Chapman Stick:

This wasn't the most satisfying achievement, but it feels better to have done it than not. I still hope to find the optimal perspective and situation that will get me back to really enthusiastic inspiration. Perhaps I will find that in collaborative settings, in graduate school or elsewhere... But for now, I intend to keep making music where I am.

Getting old stuff in order still

I've reworked the old content from my previous website to be at least functional finally. While most stuff is now included in this blog, the site has some autobiographical details on my music background, information about my compositions and published recordings, and a good selection of streaming music.

Check it out here: www.wolftune.com/music

First Day With Fretless Guitar (re-post from old site)

I have made a total of one YouTube video so far. Nearly a year and a half ago I got a fretless guitar, and I recorded my very first experiments in the first hour of trying it and edited a quick video.

I am now consolidating my web content into this updated blog, so here's this now-old video.