Possible situation for band: You are a composer in an authoritarian regime and can only write a state-sponsored type of music. In your spare time you stealthily search the web to listen to cutting-edge music from the free world, and beyond. Write/play the music that has inspired you. The year: 2199. Also write some state-sponsored music.
6/25/2004
Iraq handover, two days early. This is a cunning strategy: set a date certain, then do it a few days early, i.e. create tension and release it prematurely. This is largely a symbolic act. The Iraqis only have a virtual freedom. The US is still the occupier and the people are the indentured servants that pay for their freedom with oil. The US is essentially a landlord with the huge war reparation lien. (Intentionally break something and then charge them to fix it).
6/25/2007
Listened to Fresh Air program about two Philadelphia high school teachers that were seriously beaten by students. The teacher that had no memories of the beating was more able to forgive and move on, whereas the teacher that did have memories was continually haunted by it. Is it better or worse to have memories? (The ideal is to have selective memory). It was also interesting that teacher "A" had to see surveillance video in order to recall the event, yet it didn't seem like it was his memory, rather a "staged" memory. In the end, I sympathize with teacher "B". It is better to be hyper-aware rather than in a fantasy world of temporary short-term memories.
6/25/2009
Michael Jackson dead at 50 (apparent cardiac arrest). They say the music transcends the notoriety, but how does it compare to the musical contributions of Mozart or Duke Ellington? Elvis was "The King", was more of a performer/celebrity that happened to be musical, rather than a musician per se.
Farah Fawcett dead at 62 from anal cancer. (The media nicely downplayed that one.) She was the poster girl of 1970s TV pop, and reminds me of Lichtenstein's "Ball Girl".
6/25/2011
New York votes in homo marriages. The 'Gay Spring'...
Interesting idea for data searching: use fuzzy queries like "in summer" , "April or May", "before [event]"
6/25/2019
Ever since the 50s, contemporary music has been simplifying elements and/or removing them: melodies became simpler and were repeated, harmony was reduced to 1-3 chords, and by the time Hip Hop emerged rhythms were replaced by beats, and melody and harmony were removed. The next phase of evolution has to be in AI, algorithms, and code because it's already a popular thing. Music always gets left behind in the rush to do what everyone else is doing. If musicians were smart these days they'd be artfully introducing new ways of approaching pop music. In my opinion, the AI stuff being done is really uninteresting.
6/25/2020
A while back I had posted on a Facebook music theory group the hypothetical that if film existed in the 1800s, which composers would have been interested in scoring films. I don't recall the responses, but Beethoven probably would not have, and perhaps Mozart would. It's a matter of whether a composer is more apt to easily embrace new trends.
Now if film existed in 1800 would ambient music have also been used, given that ambient music is often the soundtrack of imaginary films? I'd say yes. If Satie was alive in the 1800s and cinema existed he'd be into ambient music because of its cinematic quality.
6/25/2022
I was at Austin Gardens watching the OPFT erect the stage and they were playing Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies and it felt like 1973, just when Roe was decided.