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(H+) M.S.G. {New Poems Weekly}



Last Updated: 11/22/2009

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Status: Single
City: NEW BRITAIN
State: Connecticut
Country: US
Signup Date: 10/19/2006

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Sunday, January 03, 2010 

Category: Music
 
Greetings 2010

Hello to all my readers out there in blog-land, from the frigid and blustery Vale, this is (H+). The weather over the weekend has been snowy and very windy. The high temperature was 17.7° F at the nearby CCSU campus and wind gusts up around 40 mph. The main upside is that the wind is making snow shoveling unnecessary, so here I sit watching the swirling whiteness scouring my car clean, listening to Don Caballero, and drinking hot chocolate.

Last week, you may remember that I was in something of a frenzy to find one of my recommending professors. I am pleased to announce that I found him by Tuesday and got my letter of recommendation yesterday. I also sent in my application to MIT the same day. That's two down with six more to go. . .

It's been some time since I left everyone with a syllabic poem so I thought the first Sunday of the year was as good a time as any. The theme is a wondering of players of the mind in the 4th edition, line syllables being 7/4/9/7.

The Fate of Minds
By (H+) M.S.G.

I crave points where there are none
And it chills me
To think an Ardent's points are now lost
In something too much alike

I was a flexible one
Walk any path
Bringing life or fire was my choice
Anything to anyone

I will wait here for their words
But I fear them
As they cross their hearts with the intent
Of pleasing ones lacking depth
9:27 PM 
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Sunday, December 27, 2009 

Category: Music
 
Year's Winding-down

Hello to all my favorite people in time and space, this is (H+), back from a week off. Due to last weeks winter storm Sunday was a snow clean up day that left me exhausted. Rather than forcing an update I decided to take the week off. We had a white Christmas here in the Vale, but last night brought rain that melted about 80% of what was on the ground, leaving us with a brown New Year. So with the year now coming to a close I want to wish everyone a happy New Year an a reminder to drive safe.

For me the time spent from now until February will involve my grad school and fellowship applications along with an email campaign to each of the 8 schools I am applying to. With a minimum of a dozen people per school on my contact list I feel it will be a long series of weeks ahead. To make matters more unpleasant for me my first school application is due on January 5th and one of my letter of recommendation providers has seemingly fallen off the face of the earth. Please wish me luck in my new found task of hunting him down like a fugitive.

Due to the time that my applications have been taking up I haven't had much time to create music, but I do have planned out numerous new songs to work on when my schedule thins out somewhat. Besides that, I hope to begin building my electric tenor guitar as well as a few more box guitars. I'll keep everyone updated when I begin. When I find some corrugated metal tubing I also hope to build a branching corrugaphone. I think outlet wire conduit may work for this purpose, but I won't know until I can examine it more closely. The wire and duct tape tubes I made do sound, but they aren't as flexible as the metal tubing would be. Since gas heater hose was originally suggested to me I believe the conduit would probably work about the same for less money. I'll let you know if it works.
11:25 PM 
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Monday, December 14, 2009 

Category: Music
 
A Day Started Yesterday

Greetings from the cold and rainy Vale, this is (H+), the anti-normal.

This week has been eventful in several ways. Last Wednesday was a heavy snow day mostly during the morning hours. In fact no one bothered to wake me to help with clean up. I was awoken by (what I eventually deduced to be) the sound of snow-blowers only to fall back asleep soon after and dream that I was Bart Simpson (no kidding). I will be on call for the next morning one, though. That afternoon I did help clean the ends of my own and several other driveways after the rain had stopped. The cement like snow left me

Thursday started out fairly quiet. After visiting a few letter of rec professors in the morning, the entire afternoon was spent watching episodes of the X Files. That evening however was less pleasant. At about 9:00 that night after doing my email and rereading through one of my favorite webcomics, my anti-virus went crazy. My computer was hijacked by some malware. Basically it changed the wallpaper, locked out the task manager, and downloaded what I guessed (correctly) was a rogue anti-virus software. I realized it was scareware when I realized that it could not be shut off, had no company markings of any kind, and made every attempt to get me to buy a license. The name of the scareware was “Internet Security 2010” and possessed a Windows-like 4 color shield. I Googled the name, but predictably was presented with webpages for every anti-virus software in existence. I shut down the computer to work on the problem the next day, getting less sleep than I would have liked. The next day consisted of full system scans using every recommended anti-malware tool I could get my hands on. Starting at 9am until 7pm (with an hour long B 'n N break at 2) I worked on it. Lucky for me that afternoon I figured out the file name to search for (IS2010.exe) and learned how to get rid of it. The final full scan of the day solved the problem. I scanned again the next day just to be sure, but all was well.

The weekend after all this was spent recovering from it all. On the plus side in the early afternoon today I successfully created a corrugaphone. A corrugaphone is a wind instrument that sounds by blowing air into a corrugated tube. I created my corrugated tube by winding a double strand of wire around a dowel rod, removing one strand, and covering the result with duct tape. This tube then creates notes by blowing into it with varying pressure. The sound itself is something of a mechanical whistling. Interestingly the notes jump from one to the next rather than slurring together like an overblown horn. This process does not allow for every note to be available from one tube however, so at least 2 are required. For this reason I hope to use the remaining wire to make 2 or 3 more tubes, each about half the length of the last. Whether this will work or not remains to be seen. If any or all sound, then I will turn them into a Branching Corrugaphone. I'll put up pictures and sound examples if it turns out.

The poem of the week was inspired by the sundry events of the week, both good and bad.

Only One Day
By (H+) M.S.G.

A day started yesterday
when I was left open
to strange suggestions
of a contrary

Knowing was no comfort
where doing was seeming
and seeing simulacrum

Not found and not lost
Our dreams were the same
You or your own
One year younger
that was my choice
I still question

I found an open day
But can't bear it
Finding myself to be
what I folded away
12:07 AM 
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Monday, December 07, 2009 

Category: Music
 
First Snow

Greetings from the Vale, this is (H+), your central Connecticut reporter from the trenches.

This bright Sunday morning awoke all to find New Britain's first real snow fall of the year. The high temperatures meant that only the grassy areas showed any white, which made shoveling unnecessary. You can only imagine my joy at that fact. . .

In keeping with the mood of the Holiday Season this weekend found me putting up and decorating the family Christmas tree. We have an artificial one, but it actually looks real and saves the effort of going out and cutting our own which we haven't done for at least 3 years. I do miss the tradition, but not having to put lights on the tree is a fair bonus in my book.

Tomorrow will include a trip to my favorite lumber yard, Parkerville Wood Products, to find some more luthier woods to work on. I'm hoping to find some nice bloodwood, or spalted anything to front my electric tenor guitars. While I'm in the neighborhood a trip to the rarely visited (but excellent) Vernon Diner will make the day no matter what Parkerville has in stock.

The poem of the week was inspired by an attempt to get some MFX plugins working in Reaper.

Forces a Shell
By (H+) M.S.G.

Transform the shell
As a last resort, taking
Force false round-robin
And play as normal
Call into mind frost
Or snail's trails
When the windows details
Retrace a blocked out phantom
But hold out and last
For the means shift your way
With each call to the page
12:00 AM 
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Sunday, November 29, 2009 

Category: Music
 
Gales and Gift Horses

Greetings from the Vale, This is your own (H+). The past week marked the celebration of Thanksgiving here in the States, as well as the official start of the Holiday shopping season. Go, consumerism, go!

Friday and Saturday were particularly windy here in Connecticut. In New Britain, the CCSU weather station (a few miles from where I live) registered a wind gust of 40mph. This left Sunday to pick up all manner of sticks from our yards. While picking up sticks in the neighbor's yard I discovered that one of her trees seems to possess spalted wood. Spalting occurs when wood is attacked by a certain type of fungus after the tree has already been weakened by something else. This particular tree has been attacked by at least one kind of fungus as well as ants. I'm hoping that the wood would be valuable enough to pay for the removal of the tree (which should be taken down) with a little left over (cash for her and some highly figured spalted crotch wood for me. . .) to be enticing enough to have it done sooner than later. We'll have to see. . .

Since I was working outside most of the day (and trying to play a wood saw for the rest of it) I have decided to rerun a poem written earlier in the year after a storm that spawned some hailstones and minor tornadoes here in Connecticut.

Make a Picture
By (H+) M.S.G.

Made a drawing from a picture
And showed no one the secret
Did it exist at all
Before the storm took it

Felt the stones in my palm melting
When I picked them up too late
Their muting edges lost
By the morning capture

Forgot the breaking of the clouds
Not nearly enough to see
It feels cool in the dark
But not enough to sleep

Hearing quiet is not enough
To reach a state of calming
Thoughts drifting from the noise
That I wished could be here
11:28 PM 
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Sunday, November 22, 2009 

Category: Music
 
Non-different notes

Good evening, my dear readers. This is (H+) from deep in the Vale feeling much better than last week when head problems were looming at the forefront.

First news of this week is that I have decided to create two new box guitars to compliment my current pair. The first will be a piccolo guitar scale (11-14 inches) possibly featuring double courses of strings. I hope to create an instrument an octave higher than the orange box guitar. The other box guitar will be a bass scaled instrument (30-40 inches). I purchased three round profile weedwacker lines that should function as bass strings fairly well (these are recommended) and I hope to supplement these with two of the heavier fishing lines to create some counter-bass strings. The box I have selected for the bass is fairly large, but shallow so the sonic characteristics will be interesting to discover. I will most likely leave both instruments fretless for the sake of simplicity. When I begin building them I will document my progress in the blog as I did with the last one.

The title of the blog is an allusion to the fact that over the past week I have been attempting to record the type of notes created by envl.net programs. These programs create note lengths based on divisors multiplied by scalars (both 1-9) leaving (one would assume) 81 possible note lengths. In fact it turns out that some different combinations yield the same lengths. Particularly interesting to me is the fact that these resultant notes are themselves comprised of combinations of notes smaller than 128th notes. Since the grid lines in my MIDI editor could go no finer than this it made figuring out the actual note lengths fun to say the least. While the envl.net programs are less flexible than some of my other fractal music programs they do allow for rhythmic/melodic foresight that is difficult to achieve otherwise. I intend to use it in combination with my other methods in the hopes of improving variety so you will likely hear about envl.net again soon.

Besides music I have been wrangling up letters of recommendation for my applications to grad school and have my three required sources. To help prepare myself I have been looking at faculty in my top choice schools to get in touch with and make my name known. Passionate scholars are harder to turn away. The trick now is to find a way to make myself seem indispensable.

The poem of the week is inspired in no small part by my reading Reinhardt's Book of the Sword over the past few days.

It Folds Brittle
By (H+) M.S.G.

Shocks received forward
Takes her to the face
And breaks your ancestors
By the lies of your metal folders
No encampment presents
A foot to the fore
The edge cut bronze like bismuth
But snapping like flints in sparks
Akindle your passion to the edge
Locked and guarded
Time throws away your grandeur
But not your grace
So Strike on
9:40 PM 
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Tuesday, October 06, 2009 

Category: Music
 
New Song: Rubber Husband

Hello to everyone out there! The Vale's own (H+) has released a brand new song for first time in ages. Not only is it new, but every sound was derived from several toy keyboards in my collection. For your Listening pleasure I have posted both the finished track as well as the dry recordings used to create it so you can hear the difference. I was hoping to create a song combining Chiptune with some Industrial and Glitch influences. The song is called Rubber Husband, which I will explain later (it's not quite what you think. . .).

Recording

The song was recorded directly into the computer using the toys' headphone outs if any, or by holding a small microphone to its on board speaker. My vocals were tracked through a mixing board in to the sound cards line in.

Performances

With the exception of the drums all parts were played by hand, improvising in the key of “C”. Featured keys included the Casio SA-1, Bontempi Drums, Realistic Concertmate-350, and the “Custom Drummer” Keyboard. Pictures of each are in the photo album.

Drums were recorded first for the duration of a single Verse or Chorus and then copied and pasted into their places in the song.

Parts per Song Section

Intro:
Both sounds from the Casio. The bell sound is the gamelan preset. The shimmery sound was added to take the slightly sinister edge off the gamelan compared to the Verse, but I have no idea which preset (and believe me I tried to find it).

With the exception of reverb and a tape delay on the shimmer, no additional processing was added to these parts.

Verse:
Drums are the Bontempi. This was followed by the String sound (Casio) in both the verses and the bridge. The Bass line was added from the Casio as well.

The Violin Lead was originally only to be featured in the bridge, but I thought it helped fill out the verses to better match the choruses. It was therefore the last instrument added to the song. It was recorded using the Concertmate's “one key play” making the melody prerecorded and the rhythms improvised. This one was recorded with a microphone held to its speaker.

The Drums were processed in parallel with 2 glitch plug-ins, a multi-mode filter, and a speaker simulator. The Bass and Lead both feature amp simulators and the Strings are run through a phaser and stereo simulator.

Chorus:
Drums are from the “Custom Drummer”, specifically the “March” beat.

The Bass is from the Casio and is a Tuba preset. I chose a more legato sound to offset the insistent beat of the drums.

The Piano sound is the Synth-piano from the Casio if I remember correctly.

The Drums here were processed in parallel with an amp simulator, a granular plug-in, and a convolution reverb. The Bass features a low-pass filter and a distortion layered together. The Piano is processed with a distortion through a chorus.

Bridge:
The Strings and Lead from the Verses are featured here with the same processing as before.

The glitchy sound is the Casio's Twinkle Echo sound run through a granular plug-in.

The Lyrics

The term “Rubber Husband” was first used by a friend of my mother as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the small sheets of rubber used to help open jars. I found it hilarious (and borderline disturbing) when I first heard it many years ago, and have been meaning to write a song about it ever since.

I found the actual track difficult to put words to, after working for several hours yesterday trying to fit my initial themes, I finally looked up “Rubber” on Wikipedia and the final lyrics jumped out at me. I sang one verse at a time in each verse slot and cut and pasted my favorites in their correct order. I sang the three choruses in one run through and then rerecorded the second. I was originally going to manipulate the vocals like the drums, but I found this ruined the intelligibility of the words. After spending all that time thinking up lyrics I wasn't about to hide them.

So without further adieu. . .

Rubber Husband
By (H+) M.S.G.

Verse-
Suspension synthetic drawn out purified
Cultivation makes a nation
Sit back, and wonder why
Milk and tapped in to sap
Forced now a “V” into hiding
Take the mark from either side
And keep the pressure on
It was always you
It's never new to them

Chorus-
It will be your ring
Follow the cracks that lead inside
Make us wonder what you are
What you have to hide
In a moment of weakness
Reach for what we are
They never have to know

Verse-
Strain crystallize pain elastic
Repeat the units to effect
Coagulation, its transportation,
Turpentine will liquify
O-ring made vulcanized
Sulfur dyes a fabric wide
Randomize its limits
Find the front and not the side

Chorus-

Bridge-

Chorus-
11:17 PM 
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Friday, May 29, 2009 

Category: Writing and Poetry
I have decided to archive old poems from this blog by posting them into a poetry group's forum.

I'll keep a running list of links to each of the poems in this blog.

Each time a poem is removed from the blog I will post it on the forum and add the new link to the following list:

Poem of the Week Archive

Of These Wastes Forever, Onward We

Next Level Down

Yesterdays are Brighter

Siren Reader

Perimeter

Make Us Better
7:24 PM 
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Wednesday, March 18, 2009 

Category: Food and Restaurants

(H+)’s Drink recipes

Here are several of my favorite personally created drink recipes featuring Advocaat, Crème de Violette, and Root Beer Schnapps. The first several are variations on the same recipe. I usually do not add ice to my drinks but it can be added if desired.

Advocaat:

Van Grey
1 ½ ounces Advocaat
1 ½ ounces Bailey’s Irish Cream
Root beer to fill

Add liqueurs neat to rocks glass. Pour in chilled Root Beer and stir, knocking down the head as necessary.

Van Jekich
1 ½ ounces Advocaat
1 ½ ounces Bailey’s Irish Cream
Vanilla Coke to fill

Prepare as a Van Grey above.

Pink Samurai
1 ½ ounces Advocaat
1 ½ ounces Bailey’s Irish Cream
Cream Soda (red) to fill

Prepare as a Van Grey above.

Doc Newman
1 ½ ounces Advocaat
1 ½ ounces Bailey’s Irish Cream
Dr. Pepper to fill

Prepare as Van Grey above.

Crème de Violette:

Violet-eyed Blonde
Dash St. Germaine
½ ounce Advocaat
½ ounce Crème de Violette

In a shot glass add St. Germaine followed by Advocaat. Carefully float Crème de Violette on top of Advocaat.

Perfumed Lady
Dash rose water
1 ½ ounces Advocaat
1 ½ ounces Crème de Violette
1 ounce Bailey’s Irish Cream

In a cocktail glass add dash of rose water. Swirl to coat inside of glass and shake out the excess. In a mixing glass pour liqueurs over ice and stir. Strain into cocktail glass and garnish with candied flower petals.

Root Beer Schnapps:

Davin Felth
1 ½ ounces Root Beer Schnapps
1 ½ ounces Vanilla Vodka
Cherry Coke to Fill

Prepare as a Van Grey above

Other:

Ice Storm
½ ounce Crème de Menthe (white)
½ ounce Vanilla Vodka
Vanilla Sugar

In a shot glass pour room temperature Crème de Menthe. Pour Vanilla Vodka straight from the freezer into the Crème de Menthe. Do not layer or stir the drink. Sprinkle Vanilla sugar liberally over the top. 

7:46 PM 
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Sunday, March 15, 2009 

Category: Writing and Poetry

Numbered Scale Notation

This week I thought I would share my way of notating musical scales. I always found it hard to remember the intervals of a given scale or mode so I created (or at least appropriated) a system of numbering scales in regards to their interval patterns.

The scale notation uses a series of 3 numbers separated by periods (like this: 1.1.1; 2.1.7; etc…). The first 2 numbers represent 2 blocks totaling a 4th interval each and the 3rd number represents an interval or intervals that “bookend” (or fit around) these blocks in various ways. The “bookend” interval(s) total a whole step or 2 half steps (in any of the positions occupied by the underscores in the representation below).

_ [block 1] _ [block 2] _

I use the following interval notation:

H = half step
W = whole step (2xH)
A = augmented step (or minor 3rd) (3xH)
M = major 3rd (4xH)
F = perfect fourth (5xH)

Block numbers represent a pattern of intervals, one of which is different from the rest of the block (except for zero):

0 = H-H-H-H-H
1 = H-W-W
2 = W-H-W
3 = W-W-H
4 = A-H-H
5 = H-A-H
6 = H-H-A
7 = A-W
8 = W-A

Expanded block notation (with letters):

A = W-H-H-H
B = H-W-H-H
C = H-H-W-H
D = H-H-H-W
X = M-H
Y = H-M
Z = F

“Bookend Intervals” notation:

1 = W [block 1] [block 2]
2 = [block 1] W [block 2]
3 = [block 1] [block 2] W
4 = H-H [block 1] [block 2]
5 = [block 1] H-H [block 2]
6 = [block 1] [block 2] H-H
7 = H [block 1] H [block 2]
8 = [block 1] H [block 2] H
9 = H [block 1] [block 2] H

In general there can be multiple ways to notate certain scales. For example the chromatic scale can be notated: 0.0.(4-9). When in doubt I choose the greatest similarity between the blocks. The standard numbers allow notation of most standard pentatonic, hexatonic, septatonic, and octatonic scales. These are the ones I personally find the most musically useful. The expanded notation letters allow the notation of certain tritonic, quartonic, nonatonic, and decatonic scales as well as more exotic varieties of the pentatonic to octatonic scales.

The following are common modes notated with my scale numbers:

Ionian mode = W-W-H-W-W-W-H = 3.3.2
Dorian mode = W-H-W-W-W-H-W = 2.2.2
Phrygian mode = H-W-W-W-H-W-W = 1.1.2
Lydian mode = W-W-W-H-W-W-H = 3.3.1
Mixolydian mode = W-W-H-W-W-H-W = 3.3.3
Aeolian mode = W-H-W-W-H-W-W = 2.2.3
Locrian mode = H-W-W-H-W-W-W = 1.1.3

Some scale names offer no clue to their interval patterns. Here are a few in scale numbers:

Enigmatic scale = H-A-W-W-W-H-H = 7.3.9
Neapolitan scale = H-W-W-W-W-W-H = 1.3.2
Neapolitan minor scale = H-W-W-W-H-A-H = 1.5.2
Hungarian minor scale = W-H-A-H-H-A-H = 5.5.1

The Hungarian scale is an example of what I call a “Nelson scale” because the intervals spell out “Hah-Hah!” making me think of Nelson Muntz.

Alternate Writing Order

I prefer the above method with the “Bookend Intervals” at the end. For those that like a more defined distinction between the “Blocks” and “Bookends” I suggest separating them with a colon like this:

3.3:2 = [Block 1]. [Block 2]: [Bookends]
2:3.3 = [Bookends]: [Block 1]. [Block 2]

The choice is left up to the user to decide where they prefer the “Bookends” to be located.

Poem of the Week:

This week’s poem features line syllables of 5/7/9/5/5/7 as I say them and was brought on by a search for train tickets and cheap lodging in upstate New York

Overnight Train
By (H+) M.S.G.

When the journey ends
I fear this car becomes me
Forgotten in wake of shiny things
That sing of freedom
Through their restrictions
Our virtues unconsidered

Considered pleading
Though mercy rarely hold on
Even at these golden distances
Isn’t fast enough
To ease their complains
Yet sweetly we seek their eyes

Passing blur of lights
Cast on these stony faces
In silence will that these wings be cut
I look only here
Inside this sleeper
And see nothing but the last
 

10:33 PM 
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