I did the thing
Vibe coded an app front to back in one sitting with a plaid integration, railway service with postgres database, just to make my own personal family tool
Love it
Who is your LEAST favorite legendary composer?
Mine is Beethoven. Respect him, but I just like listening to pretty much any other classical/romantic composer.
@tkalee@AdamSinger Classical is more splintered post-1950. A few categories:
- Highly dissonant and sporadic (Kaija Saariaho, Elliot Carter) not my favorite, but it's a thing!
- Minimalist (Arvo Part, John Adams)
What is "Technata"?
There has been a type of piece, especially for piano, that I've always wondered how to categorize. Of course, I overthought it and came up with my own term!
Arguably the defining "thing" of our age is technology. It has radically reshaped how we think about everything from food, to human interaction, to the economy and politics, and to art.
All of the splinter genres in the latter half of the 20th century are direct results of novel technologies. In this sense, technology is both physical devices/tools, and systems/processes. It's hard to overstate how much influence that amplification, recording implements, and mass distribution methods had on music. Radio, music videos, CD stores (remember those?), and perhaps the internet more than the rest combined, have influenced music more than we can imagine.
People in my generation are hopelessly influenced by our times, understandably so. I'm a product of grunge, electronic music, metal, classic rock, and many other "products of technology".
When I wrote the piece that I originally named "Secret Code," my intention was to relax and write from the heart. I had been in a writing funk for a while, probably a year or so, and it was due to overthinking. I decided that I was going to let loose a little bit, just sit at the piano, and if something nice sounding came out of my fingers, I was going to use it. I took that more straightforward material, and could then step back and construct a real piece with it.
Come time to release this album, and I thought it would be good to give my pieces more traditional names. You know, like "Elegy in F Minor" (which you can hear on the highly anticipated new album "Technata" coming out July 6th).
But what the heck kind of piece was Secret Code? Should I just skip trying to categorize that one? I didn't have any particular classical form in mind when I wrote. It didn't feel quite sophisticated enough to be included in the "Sonata" category. That feels more suited for the "real" pieces (like my Piano Sonata No. 1, which you can hear on the highly anticipated... you get it).
I did some digging on the term Sonata, and in the simplest sense, it is a "sounded piece," as opposed, say, to a Cantata, which is a sung piece. Sonata also has the baggage of the particular classical-era form.
Like I said earlier, "Secret Code" is what came out when I relaxed. It's what came out when I let my guard down. It's what came out when I succumbed to the influences that I grew up with and still love, but aren't classical.
What do they all have in common? They are all products of technology. They are what is produced when mankind stumbles onto vast technological discoveries, fights two world-shattering wars, systematizes everything, and totally reshapes human existence.
The piece is the when my classical roots meet the technological spirit of the age.
I came up with the term "Technata" to try and capture this spirit. It's a piece that's shaped and influenced by the technological century that produced... me! I'm a product of the age I live in, and this piece particularly is a product of me at my most unguarded state.
Technata No. 1, "Secret Code", is probably the most "fun" piece on the album, but I really love it. It got me out of a long funk, and it led to this moment where I used it to think through some of my baked-in influences and come up with a cool album title in the process.
I really hope you enjoy!
July 6th, album comes out on all platforms!
O say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in
The absolute state of our police. Not a single plod in this video looks like a person worthy of having authority over you. Petty tyrants and Reddit moderators.
"A composer is a musical instrument and at the same time a performer on that instrument.
"The instrument has to be in order to produce sound. One must stat with that, not with the music. Through the music, the composer can check whether his instrument is tuned, and to what key it is tuned."
-Arvo Pärt
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