Skratchi

Icarus's Dream

Day 25 of 31 days of new works in just intonation:

Channeling my inner Nancarrow, Day 25 is a player piano style work. The first section is in a 7-limit whole tone scale—each note has 2-3 different ratios—and the second section is made out of the same 23-limit tone cluster that I used back in Day 23.

Day 25

I would like my dreams to mean something, something…
Inspiring timeless art within my wasting head, the perfect scene…
But without my conscious will, my brain is truly fickle
Yielding no constructive weight in this deterministic tickle
I don’t want to go to sleep! I don’t wanna!

I will be mature enough to leave the comfortable bath
My eternity of make-believe training gives light to my path
To put on clothes without closed eyes!

Why make mountains out of molehills,
When we are all ants,
And the universe is billions of lights,
And billions of light years,
And trillions of years will defeat all fears.
Dissipating into the void, equalized in death!
I don’t want to go to sleep! I don’t wanna go!

Oh, but I’ll have to go to sleep…
Every day is 24 hours and that’s the way it keeps!
I don’t want to go to sleep! Not right now, not right now!

How long would you have to be awake
before the world would make no sense
Your joys and hopes and urge to dwell
Why, Wormwood, this would all be quelled
Dulled, dead, doornail, polished stars of night!
Night, Night, Night, Night, Night, Night... 

(Interlude)

All shower songs I sing are wasted breath and water,
Made a heathen anthem sinking and lowered into the drain,
Pain is relative but I am real,
I do not believe in me anymore...

Dreams have told me I may live
Through the portal of death’s door
Mortal as we may seem
Seizing according scream
Freezing our thinking love in a sunbeam

(Small instrumental)

I would like my dreams to mean something, something…
something… something… something… something… something…
My last, my last dreamscape rolling on
always nonsense, distant watchman
Nightmare spirits vanishing
Smoke and mirrors ‘flect forgetting!

November 17, 1998:
"My story begins when it was nighttime, I had a dream. It was not a happy dream but it was a nightmare. My pillow changed its picture. My sheet's colors looked new. And the eating gorilla came out of my pillow. It was very, very, very, very, very, very, very scary. It started to eat my head while I was laying on it. I felt so scared that I am frightened. Um, and he cooled my head down and then his mouth ate it. But it was just a quick pretend dream. Then I said, 'Nightmare!' and then my mom ran upstairs and I woke her up in the middle of the night. Um, when the dream was over, it wasn't scary anymore. I was very scared last time. And then I promised next time I wouldn't wake her up. And that's all of my story."

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Weigel, 
July 5th, 2018.

Fiat Circadia (10 - EDO)

A couple of improvisations on a guitar loaned to me by Kite Giedratis.  The guitar is fretted to 41 notes per double-octave, i.e. every other note of 41 notes per octave, using movable cable ties.  On these tracks I modified the fretting slightly by moving the 2nd fret down one step of 41edo and then put a capo behind it, effectively moving all the frets above it UP by one step of 41edo, so that the frets all give odd-numbered pitches from 41edo instead of even-numbered ones.  This gives frets for approximations to the ratios 21/20, 12/11, 9/8, 7/6, 6/5, 5/4, 9/7, 4/3, 11/8, and 10/7 relative to the open strings, which makes it possible to let the open strings ring out against pitches fretted low on the neck when the open strings are tuned to DADGAD or DGDGAD, my two favorite open tunings.  

Without the offset I introduced, the normal fretting on Kite's guitar would have the lowest frets approximating 28/27, 16/15, 10/9, 8/7, 32/27, 11/9, 81/64, 15/11, 7/5, and 16/11, which doesn't work well for the open tunings I like but is rather designed to have the open strings tuned in parallel 3rds (5/4 or 6/5), for an isomorphic layout that facilitates chords built by stacking 3rds.  I found that tuning somewhat challenging, being so unlike any open string tunings I've ever used before, and most of the intervals between non-adjacent open strings are rather discordant.  Other players, whose styles don't lean as heavily on open strings and drones the way I do, may find Kite's original design preferable to my modification.

But anyway, the two designs can coexist on the same fretboard by simply inserting an extra fret between the 1st and 2nd instead of moving the 2nd fret lower as I have done, and by varying the tuning of the open strings as you please.  It's a fantastic way to access the resources of 41edo on a guitar, without having an absurd number of very closely-spaced frets!

Modified Kite Guitar Take 2 - Fuzz

Rough demos here only!  We are a netlabel dedicated to releasing various forms of igliashon music.  Currently serving up the artists Cryptic Ruse, Pixel Archipelago, and City of the Asleep. For actual finished releases, see the Bandcamp links here.

Modified Kite Guitar Take 2 - Fuzz

Sacred Skeleton

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