All I got were low-quality cell photos like this one, but I got something this time... unlike the free Ozomatli show earlier this year when I forgot my phone.

The backing band deserves as much props as Dweezil. I got to meet him along with multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Scheila Gonzales after the show, but special guest, local guitar legend Eric Johnson, he left too quick.

They opened with "Apostrophe". Other highlights of the night (imho): "T'mershi Duween/Keep it Greasy", "Crew Slut" (but no "Catholic Girls", a fan favorite), "Ms. Pinky", "Purple Lagoon/Carolina Hardcore Ecstasy", and "Muffin Man" as the closer. The encore was "A Pound for a Brown" plus some amazing solos (Pete Griffin made me wish I got to play more bass).

It'll be sixteen years since Frank's death next month, but I say he taught his son well.

Now I need to get a band together; I'd probably be bassist and lead vocalist* unless I find a really good singer. I want to do jazz fusion/progressive rock like this, but I've never had much luck finding musicians that can play, say, a jam in 19/16 time like the "Greasy" solo.

*or, theoretically, lead vocalist and conductor, with band behind me and orchestra pit in front...

I've decided to get my own free homepage, rather than host my music at imeem or Last.fm or Myspace. And I'm tired of moving, so unless it doesn't work out at all, I'm staying here.

http://dannywier.ucoz.com/ (very much in the early stages of construction; I'm just now uploading music)

I'm planning on hosting some of my writings here, not just music. I might also blog there, so I may leave LiveJournal, but not anytime in the near future. I've decided to keep LJ, but I might have two blogs, with the one at my homepage being focused on my work.

Latest reports from MSNBC. 12 are confirmed dead, 31 injured, and the suspected gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, earlier reported as dead, has been captured alive.

First of all, I know reports can be all over the place in the midst of such chaos, and police can't relase certain informaion until the time is right, but how can a living person be mistaken as dead?

Second, the suspect has an Arabic name; I know. But this does not sound like someone involved with an Islamic terrorist organization. What we know about him: he was an Army psychiatrist whose obviously counseled a lot of soldiers with PTSD, and word is that he didn't do so well in evaluations. He may have been mentally unstable himself--a case like Michael Douglas' character in Falling Down.

Sen. Hutchinson did mention he was "pretty upset" about being deployed to Iraq, and that might have been what pushed him over the edge, but it's too soon to jump to any conclusions. And I'd avoid FOX News for a while.

Also, as said in the article, Killeen, a small city north of Austin and southwest of Dallas, was the site of another tragedy: a gunman killed 23 and wounded 20 at a Luby's cafeteria before turning the gun on himself in October 1991. That was the deadliest incident until the Virginia Tech massacre of April 2007--ironicaly, Maj. Hasan was a graduate of Virginia Tech.

Latest news as of 3:53 PM CST: Twelve have been confirmed dead and over thirty injured after a mass shooting this afternoon at Fort Hood, a major US Army base north of Austin.

Live coverage available at KCEN-TV, Waco.

I was gonna do post a series of YouTubes a while back, inspired by this classic (nsfw); I never got around to it.

Since I'm a native of the South and even lived in a trailer park for a while, this one should be first.



ludwigvan_tx. Painfully honest since 1971.

Внимание: я нуждаюсь переводить несколько записих на русский... я ленивый.

The major (and seemingly endless) project I'm working on has a whole lot of leitmotifs, or melodic themes representing characters, objects, places, situations and other nouns. One of them is the "Adam theme" (or "Everyman theme", but it mainly represents the protagonist, named Adam), which you hear a lot in "Come Out and Play!" for instance. It may appear in any key, or in any mode: major, minor or some maqam. These themes can be sped up, slowed down, inverted, reversed or distorted in various ways, these being increasingly important concepts in the theme-and-variation form, not to mention tone rows.

The movement I'm writing now already has one intersting variation I randomly came up with: the clarinet plays the "Adam theme" at 2/3 speed, but stretches intervals at a ratio of about 19/13, producing the experimental Bohlen-Pierce scale. Though often thought of as 13 equal divisions of the perfect twelfth, with equally-tempered steps of 146.304 cents each, it's actually derived from a type of just intonation.

This just scale uses only odd-numbered factors, thus leaving out the octave, so the simplest ratio in the matrix is 3/1 (called the "tritave" in BP terminology), the perfect twelfth. The "fifth" becomes 9/5 (the minor seventh in regular tuning), and the "fourth" 3/1 ÷ 9/5 = 5/3 (the old major sixth). The "whole tone" is now (9/5)²/3 = 27/25, actually lower than the orthodox 9/8 whole tone. Since the third prime is no longer five but seven, your new "major third" is 7/5, the "minor third" is 9/7, the "major sixth" is 7/3 and the "minor sixth" is 15/7. But translating an octave-based 12-tone melody to twelfth-based 13-tone is not often easy and not often practical, with the major third being stretched to a tritone and all.

This is the justly-tuned BP scale with more complex alternate ratios following the most important simple ratios, along with their size in 72-equal temperament commas in parentheses:

1. 27/25 (8), 49/45 (9)
2. 25/21 (18)
3. 9/7 (26), 35/27 (27)
4. 7/5 (35)
5. 75/49 (44)
6. 5/3 (53), 81/49 (52)
7. 9/5 (61), 49/27 (62)
8. 49/25 (70)
9. 15/7 (79)
10. 7/3 (88), 81/35 (87)
11. 63/25 (96)
12. 25/9 (106)
13. 3/1 (114)

Since such a scale uses only odd-numbered harmonics, this tuning is best suited for square wave sounds including the clarinet--and Stephen Fox of Toronto makes BP-tuned instruments. I'd still like to write a BP clarinet quartet (two sopranos, one tenor and one contra).

I got stuck in a rut for a couple months, but I'm back to work on what might be the most difficult thing I've ever written: a scherzo this time, for a scene that takes place in Istanbul, Turkey. The city has added significance, as it is the only major city in the world built on two continents, a metaphor for the mixing of Eastern and Western ideas in a (post)modernist sense. (I'd rather think of myself as a transmodernist, since postmodernism is too often associated with antimodernism--and nihilism.)

For the record, Turkey's largest city and former imperial capital is on the short list of places I plan on going, along with New York and Paris. "Come Out and Play!" takes place in the Australian Outback between Alice Springs and Uluru-Kata Tjuta, for example.

This is one of my "kitchen sink" works. Among other things, there's a fugato passage, several Arabic-Turkish maqams, and all sorts of microtonal intervals approximating up to 31-limit JI. And like much of what I write, it involves perpetuum mobile and changing meters, except this time most of it is in a fast 12/8, with occasional shifts into 9/8 and 4/4. And by 9/8, I mean both the "triple triplet" form and the karşılama/"Blue Rondo" 2+2+2+3 rhythm (so along with maqams, I'm using usuls). Once so far, I'm alternating 12/8 and 5/4.

(ETA: I'm actually using the aksak rhythm, 9/8 version, which is also 2+2+2+3.)



This is Primus performing "Eleven", from Sailing the Seas of Cheese. The drum solo at the beginning does a 11/8 rhythm like what I'm using: six triplets and a quad. It can also be counteд as a measure of 12/8 plus a measure of "Mission: Impossible 5/4", i.e. 3+3+2+2.

Someone on LJ, specifically in outsider_music, mentioned the ANS Synthesizer (Russian: Синтезатор «АНС»). If you're a fan of the Theremin, you might like this.



It was invented by the engineer Evgeny Murzin and was finished in 1957 after twenty years of work. The British experimental band Coil has used it for some of their recordings. It operates by photoelectric sensors and has a range of ten octaves, 72 microtonal steps per octave. (I've been an advocate of 72 equal temperament for a while and use it for most of my compositions. I know I've mentioned it before...)

Leslie Cochran is out of the hospital and back on the streets.

When you're dealing with traumatic head injury, memory can be fuzzy, but he claims to have been assaulted in the I-35 and Oltorf area. It was during ACL Fest when it happened.

I'm having the worst physical and mental fatigue, and major confusion and amnesia to go with it. It's the kind one gets in early-stage Alzheimer's, but I'm way too young to have that. Whatever it is, it's affecting my thinking, and also my writing, so you'll probably be getting fewer blog entries of less quality. Or maybe not.

It's getting on my nerves, since I really have to get some music written, but my brain is not cooperating. I also need to try to learn Turkish as part of my music theory study.

I've said a few times that my life seems to mimic that of Beethoven a bit much, including having the fiery temper and distrust of authority, secular and religious. He suffered from depression and may have had bipolar disorder as I do; he also through periods of despair because of a condition that was interefering with his work, as I have. For him, deafness; for me, chronic fatigue and what seems like Lyme disease or fibromyalgia.

That misery prompted the composer to write the Heiligenstädter Testament (see also Wikipedia) a couple months before his 32nd birthday. He kept it a secret, and it wasn't a "suicide note", but it was intended for his brothers in case something bad happened to him, and such. He did hold on to some degree of hope that things would get better--of course, he would eventually lose his hearing entirely, but that didn't stop him...

I've actually written a few such testaments, but always end up destroying/deleting each one after a while. Right now, I don't have the ability to write much of anything.

The most popular tourist destination, according to this year's Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index, is the United States. That's up from seventh a year ago, and last year's leader Germany slips to third while France holds at second place.

(Might have something to do with having a different President; I'm not sayin'...)

The top eleven ranked:

1. United States ↑6
2. France =
3. Germany ↓2
4. United Kingdom ↓1
5. Japan =
6. Italy =
7. Canada ↓3
8. Switzerland =
9. Australia =
10. Spain ↑1, Sweden = (tie)

I still gotta go to Paris.

If this doesn't angry up the blood (and it does for me since I'm from just west of the state, and I used to be married to someone who may or may not be considered white)...

Keith Bardwell, a justice of the peace in Hammond, LA, north of New Orleans, refused to grant a marriage license to Beth Humphrey, who is white, and Terence McKay, who is black (with video). This has sparked bipartisan outrage, from Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, the state's Legislative Black Caucus, and a spokesman for a certain biracial President. It is against Federal and State laws to discriminate against anyone on the basis of race.

The JP, who has long denied interracial couples marriage (it's for the freakin' children!), is retiring after his current term, and Humphrey and McKay are now married.

Taiwan's Acer has overtaken Round Rock, TX-based Dell as the second largest maker of computers in the world, also leaving Apple in the dust. Hewlett-Packard is still number one; Lenovo and Toshiba are fourth and fifth.

Reason: Acer, along with compatriots Asus, are having a great deal of success selling netbooks, those small, cheap laptops designed for internet, e-mail and light word processing, while Michael Dell, whose company does sell them, considers them "toys".

I use an Asus netbook myself, since I can't afford a full-size laptop right now, and I'm not a hardcore gamer anyway, so all I need is, besides internet and such, something I can use to compose music and write short documents. The lack of CPU power, smaller keyboard and smaller monitor can be limiting, but I hardly consider this netbook a toy. It gets the job done for me, and is just as powerful as the seven year-old Dell desktop I had been using. I just hate my netbook being called "cute".

I also run Ubuntu Linux from a 16 GB memory stick I got for free with the thing, along with Windows XP Home (not Vista), which I need for Noteworthy Composer (I know, I can run it in Wine, but it works kind of weird, and I'm too cheap for Sibelius).

Now that I remember, I did drop a class in college once because the professor was too much of a left-wing radical (as opposed to a real liberal) who was way too critical, and unfairly so, of the United States and its government. It was a sociology class, and I was really disappointed in having to drop it.

I didn't have that choice with my right-wing reactionary eighth-grade social studies teacher. Yeah, the one who essentially said that if you don't support Reagan, you'll go to hell.

Then again, I believe in keeping one's political or religious opinions out of education and sticking to commonly-known-and-agreed-upon facts. Call me naïve; I dare you.

I'm finding myself doing this: code switching. That's when, to put it most succinctly, when people converse in more than one language alternately.

Like probably most others who spend a lot of time online, I have friends all around the US and the world, and I've already code-switched in English and Spanish, English and Russian, and English and Turkish. (English and Russian can be интересный, since you can also switch alphabets, but you don't have to.)

That's not the same as mixing two language, as with the case with "Spanglish".

This is an update to an earlier entry: it has been confirmed that 58 year-old Leslie Cochran was admitted to the hospital in critical condition the early morning of October 3 from a head injury. (KVUE-TV, with video).

There are unnamed sources claiming that he is fighting for his life, and may have sustained serious brain injury and may be in a vegetative state. Other sources have doctors saying he is actually in fair condition. Because of laws of doctor-patient confidentiality, it may be a while before we get any more news.

A vigil is to be held at Waterloo Park downtown tonight at 7 pm.

ETA: KVUE and News 8 Austin are reporting that Leslie is indeed in fair condition, thank God. Just goes to show you shouldn't believe everything you hear or read.

You can never praise it enough--the bass that is. That double neck is making me break the Tenth Commandment. (Shouldn't one neck be fretless or an 8-string?)

He's the cross-dressing street person you've surely seen hanging around downtown Austin if you've spent any time there, and is a symbol of our motto, "Keep Austin Weird". The 58-year old was reportedly taken to Brackenridge hospital after collapsing around 1 am on October 3.

Unconfirmed reports are that he has suffered a stroke and is in grave condition. Let's hope it's just a rumor.

I hope to high heaven I'm not getting the flu. I'm feeling kinda "fluish", if that's a real word.

If I get really sick, I can always listen to classical; it's been my "sick music" since I could remember. Our station is KMFA 89.5 FM. But right now, I'm getting myself better acquainted with Turkish classical and folk music (check out TRT--click "TRT Radyo" to the right then "TRT Radyo 4" below; also, "TRT Radyo FM" plays contemporary Turkish music. See also Wikipedia).

Two reasons I'm doing this: first, work on ear training and get my perfect pitch keen on pitches of less than a quarter tone's difference, and get better acquainted with each makam and usul. (It might help to learn the language, but I already got started... still beginner level.)

I'm also getting better acquainted with the music of Debussy, and contemplating what he might've sounded like were it not for the 12-tone-per-octave limit imposed on the piano and Western theory in general. He was familiar with Indonesian gamelan music, after all.

I haven't done much public blogging at all in the past months. I've been too tired to think much, let alone write. But this naturally interests me:

The Liber Novus (Latin: "New Book"), or "Red Book", of Carl Jung has been kept secret from the public--until now. The Swiss psychologist begun the work in 1914 after his falling out with Freud, and it seems to reflect the author's experiences with his own midlife conflicts and possibly psychotic symptoms. It reads like a modern psychological thriller disguised as a medieval grimoire containing forbidden arcane knowledge or something.

See also: an NPR report from last month and Wikipedia.