spring approaches, in fits and starts. off to a good start!

It's been a lovely week, with temps ~20 degrees above average.
We went back to seasonality last night and the official evidence has been removed from the path out. 1st order of the day - back stoop clearing of the sticky 2 or 3 inches of white frozen stuff.
Wishing I wasn't so dragged out (from work). Don't seem to have the gumption to even set up the Powerbook. Dishes done and house tidied, as is my usual Sat routine, even when I'm this worn down. Rejuvenating delight and excellent company are soon to come - dinner date with Hannah after her planned family visit. The generosity of HN patrons will enable a fabulous dinner which we won't have to cook or clean up after.

listen:
Joni Mitchell - Hejira (today)
Gomeroke, Hip-hop (the kind that has artistry and doesn't suck) at work

view:
Cold Souls
John Adams HBO special (pts. 1-5)

c74 Max workshop

Monday through Friday at Project Lodge there was a free crash course in cycling74 software tools: Max, Jitter and Max for (Ableton) Live. I was able to attend all of Monday and the last 3 hours of Thursday's classes. Pal Gregory and co-presenter and new pal Darwin held forth on the near east side and the lovely weather allowed visits on the bicycle.

Know enough to be dangerous at this point and ahead will be digging into this deep and useful set of strategies to enhance the electro acoustic rig. That's what I have when Gregory and I do our gigs. The basic concept is to play mostly hand held stuff, some of it of my own invention and some of it high tech from, well the early 90s. So no drums, just a table with a bunch of wired up gadgets:
DrumKAT
Mini-MIDI keyboard hack







I made this from an old keyboard that was meant to plug into a PC. Jon G hot wired it to just be a plain old MIDI keyboard. I removed the frame, sawed some off and replaced all the white keys 'cept the 2 on each end.

The little blue pickup in the upper left is set up all industrial-strength and can be attached to stuff easily. It's like a little mic to amplify the little stuff. I also plug it into a trigger input of the KAT, attached to the sawed off piece of color coordinated wrist-rest pad - it's my 'kick drum' trigger. You just tap the little guy with your toe and "whooom!".

Upper right is the remaining example of my the original set of 4 electronic drum pads made from plumbing parts. It still works anyway.

At the bottom is a plastic mouthwash bottle festooned with a piezo pickup glued on to it's mouth - tap tap, whump, bink, etc.

The 'rack' will have my trusty Yamaha MU-80 tone module/effects box, Uptown Flash MIDI controllable mixer, Mackie 12o2 mixer and some yet-to-be-determined MIDI interface for the Powerbook. Losing the old 486 PC laptop (Win95!) and Bome's MIDI translator formerly used to interface Mini-MIDI kbd to the rest of the rig.

Immediate goals: System Exclusive messages translated from incoming KAT notes to change voices, pitch, duration and effects on the fly, enhancing the KAT's multi-note/multi-message generating capabilities in order to play 'rule games' for auto-accompaniment. And nifty things like setting tap tempo (adjusting delay times) on the fly. This last item on the hit list will allow matching tempos set by Gregory's looping and delays in performance, hoo!

Spring, just around the corner

and this morning, the first fly of twenty-ten lit on my kitchen window sill.










































RIP little guy.
Be seeing your cousins soon, I have no doubt.

listen:
David Bowie - Outside
Dave Douglas - Five
John Metcalfe - Scorching Bay/The Inner Life ii