Big Brother Amazon is Watching You

This is why I don't think books are going to be replaced by e-readers anytime soon. Bizarre (and ironic):

Amazon apparently sent out its robotic droogs last night, deleting copies of the George Orwell novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four from Kindles without explanation, then refunding the purchase price. As you can imagine, a lot of people caught in the thick of Winston and Julia's love story aren't very happy -- and rightfully so -- the idea that we "own" the things we buy is pretty fundamental to... ownership.

Jeff Jarvis Kevin Marks says "I dread to think what happens if you buy Fahrenheit 451 for your Kindle..."

The Guardian covers the story too and Talking Points Memo is calling it a "big, big step backwards" for the platform. David Pogue of The New York Times is also covering it.

Designing music. (Theme and variations for piano)

  
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Piano theme and variations 2.m4a (3690 KB)

I think I write music the same way I design - messing around with initial ideas until something clicks in to place. I do the same when I write computer code too. And DIY and housework! I'm self taught in all these things so the process is one I developed rather than was shown.
I'm clearly a born tinkerer.
 
I wrote the initial theme (the opening few bars) for this back in 1991 and then promptly forgot about it, except that every so often I'd find myself humming it. Eventually, about 12 or so years later I wrote it down and began messing about with it. I can't remember where the next theme came from but I'm sure it's pulled out of the opening chords somehow - I can never remember how I wrote some pieces but the usual way I compose is to pull threads out of the first thing I produce and then weave them in to something else via some form of transformation.
And that's what happens here - the second theme is woven over itself and where harmonies occur I fill them in to produce chords. The whole thing seems to flow quite nicely.
 
The moment at the end of the second section was harmonised more recently and I rather like the delicate nature of it. Playing it softly seems to make the whole thing work so much better.
 
What happens next is something I keep meaning to come back to - section three is an inversion of section two (i.e. it's turned upside down). It's a simple technique for composition and sometimes it produces interesting results - usually needing some sort of work but sometimes not.
 
Anyway I haven't really thought what to do with it - I kind of like it but I don't. It's too "Chinese" (a result of octaves and what I suspect is a pentatonic scale, if you want to be technical). It sounds like the sort of thing you'd hear at a pantomime or accompanying a silent movie when the Chinese villain arrives. I've had ideas how to fix it but never got round to it. So here it is in all its "glory".
 
Interestingly, when I was in Beijing in April I got a bit lost looking for the city walls and ended up walking in completely the wrong direction past Beijing railway station. As I did, the clock struck the hour and the chimes rang out a tune almost exactly like this one - spooky!
 
After the third section's over the introductory theme comes back. Originally it just played the once but one day I was humming it over in my head and I wondered if it worked in canon, just as the "variations" in sections two and three did. It seems so obvious now of course, but it completely passed me by at the time. So I took the main theme and began layering it over and over to see what it sounded like - and I liked it!
There are actually two themes working together but separately and the more I listened to it the more I "heard" a third part - it wasn't there but my mind was filling it in. So I sat down and started to write it down. It wasn't until I had that I realised I'd cribbed a bit of Beethoven, part of the double fugue in the second moment of the third symphony. It's one of my favourite pieces of music and I wonder if I'd been listening to it when I wrote that first theme all those years ago... (I actually think I was more riffing off the theme to Blake's 7 but that's another story)
 
Anyway, it's something I mean to come back to because while I like it, it is obviously "Beethoven" which could be seen as a joke to some people, making them smile, or pretentious by others (comparing myself with Beethoven? How dare I! Ha).
 
So, there you go - it's called "Theme and variations for piano" at the moment. There are two other versions floating around, one for church organ (which I rather like) and one for piano quintet (which works quite well, each instrument coming in at different times). At the moment the latter version is the finale of a quintet I've been working on over the last few years which will never see the light of day at this rate. But it keeps me off the streets.
 
Have a listen, see what you think. Ignore the Chinese bit and keep going to the end. :-)

A logical response to the "too many design students" argument

One of the common complaints that crops up every now and then from "industry" is that there are too many design students. In fact I had a go at Ken Garland about 18 months ago after he got up at a panel I was on and said exactly that - basically his argument was that design was a "special" craft that only an elite few should be allowed to pursue which, as I told him then, is a bloody stupid thing to say. I'm not one for hero worship, me.

But the usual motivation for complaining about the number of design students is either that it must in some way mean the overall quality is rubbish (oh really? Funny how that argument never gets trotted out when we call for more doctors, or teachers, or policemen. Or, indeed, plumbers), or that it's unfair on students and/or employers because we're training people the industry just can't absorb. (In fact, the complainers are almost always employers* who, let's face it, couldn't give a tinker's cuss about students or graduates because if they did, they'd pay them decent salaries and give them decent jobs instead of expecting them to work for nothing until a "vacancy" arises).

Now of course the correct response to this argument is that education isn't about training - that a good undergraduate education in design produces... graduates, not designers. Same as a degree in history produces graduates, not historians. And so on.

But for some reason that argument just butters no parsnips with some people so here's a better argument. It's perfect because it's beautifully logical.

If you have a vacancy in your company, what would you rather have? A choice of one candidate, or the pick of ten?

Well there you go, then.



----
*What's worse is when students say there should be a limit on the number of students. Nothing gets my wick up more than that. Well, almost nothing.

Satire

"Many things went on at Unseen University and, regrettably, teaching had to be one of them. The faculty had long ago confronted this fact and had perfected various devices for avoiding it. But this was perfectly all right because, to be fair, so had the students."

"Interesting Times", Terry Pratchett

Wangfujing Night Market

Some video from my recent trip to China - tucked away off a busy shopping street in Beijing is the famous night market where you can get pretty much anything to eat (except burgers, deep fried chicken and fish and chips).

This short video tries to capture the feel of the place but it's pretty much impossible. It was packed, noisy, smelly (mostly nice smells!) and a lot of fun. The dumplings were a disappointment but the octopus tentacles were interesting. I didn't go for the scorpion kebabs or the deep fried bugs (but I did have fried wasps earlier in the week and they were actually rather nice).

Handel 250 - a musical tribute

  
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Handel 250.m4a (3227 KB)

This year is the 250th anniversary of Handel's death (in 1759 in case you can't work it out!) Originally of German origin Handel settled in England and became very much a member of London society, so much so that he's now seen as an "English" composer (at least by the English...)
 
I wrote this piece years ago and have been tinkering with it ever since - it's based on Handel, but it's not Handel. Except that it is. I'll leave you to ponder that and if you really want to know the "secret" I'll reveal all...
 
The arrangement's a bit muddy and I keep meaning to fix it but at this rate it'll be the 500th anniversary before I get on with it. So here it is for the first time, released for public consumption: Handel 250. I'm quite proud of it (bear in mind I'm self-taught at this music writing lark) - hope you enjoy it.

Overgate Scene #1: On Seeing A Fat Girl In Bright Yellow Lycra

A poem I wrote while waiting for my friend in Dundee's Overgate shopping mall.

A rather large girl and her friend walked by, inspiring me to verse.

It's not anti-fat, it's anti Lycra and skin-tight jeans.

You're a great big yellow idol
To the north of Gregg's and O2,
And you made me lose my appetite
When you lumbered in to view.

I wonder what you're thinking
When you dress yourself each day.
You clearly do not worry
What others have to say.

You waddle by oblivious
To your sin against good taste,
As you dig in to your pasty
Letting nothing go to waste.

It's not so much the rolls of fat
Like some gross lemon jelly;
It's the way the cloth rides up your side
Showing off your fearsome belly.

And I see you have a skinny friend
Who's no oil painting either.
But she stands a chance of pulling guys
With a slug like you beside her.

As you pass your ass strains at the seams
Of your skin-tight denim trousers,
And I wonder if you really think
That your taste in fashion wows us.

May he who invented Lycra
Burn forever in hell's fires
For the crimes it's since committed
On girls' fat round spare tyres.

"Decisions, Decisions" composed by me!

  
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Decisions, Decisions (pizzicato).aif (23178 KB)

An old girlfriend of mine used to perform Poulenc's "Trois Mouvements Perpetuels" on the piano and I wrote this to see if I could mimic its style. It's one of my first compositions, dating from around 1992/93 (I'm self-taught so forgive me!) Originally it was intended to be performed by a wind quartet and sound like it had come straight out of a French art house movie. The version here is for pizzicato strings.
 
The title, "Decisions, Decisions" comes from a long email exchange I had with a student about five or six years ago.
She kept changing her mind about her dissertation topic and kept coming back to the same idea, which is really how this piece works. Up until then it had the title "Happy Dance" which I'd always meant to translate into French or something to make it sound a bit more pretentious ("Danse Heureuse" I suppose).
 
Incidentally, Poulenc is a strange composer - his music is very rhythmic and uses odd intervals, timings and discords, but it's often very exciting and beautiful. Listen to the Domine Deus from his "Gloria" for example:

 
The whole piece is worth a listen if you can get hold of a good recording. I took part in a performance of that piece at York University conducted by the composer John Rutter. Blimey, he was a bad tempered guy that day... Went right off him.