Minutes

From August 17, 2024: From Feb 18: Brainstorming parts to a tune Jason set up with the working title of loss, my hands we not warming up, so I rabbit-holed on this. This is one of 4 studies I wrote during a Satori moment in Boonville in 2006. For me, these pieces ground me and present new challenges whenever I pick at them. Today I decided to play with a straight boom-kat and not take any repeats....

From January 2, 2024: 4 days on the couch sick after 10 days without guitar practice. Link to the post.

From August 31, 2024: Metallica hit town just as we were heading off for 2 weeks in Croatia - Rob and Brian at work went, which sparked a whole conversation on what is good/bad metal from their blossoming and what constituted 'good' Metallica. They have been lost on me for decades, but there was a time when I heard sounds on their records that felt as.. what's the word for recasting yo...

From February 25, 2024: Another bit from Circadia. Three simple elements, a little bit closer to goal: trying to make something that sounded like a circle out of these little clipped acoustics. I was really excited about this at the time, but it didn't seem to catch anyone's ears except filmmaker Dan (thankfully). I had just quit Baby, was just wrapping Stupid Kids at the Empty Space with...

From January 1, 2024: Learning how to use my new Teenage Engineering OP-1, playing with this line: Link to the post.

From October 18, 2024: Sam's birthday today - tonight we celebrate after being holed up with Covid for two weeks. This feels suitably Argento for a fall night. I'm getting the hang of exporting projects from the ep133. Link to the post.

From August 27, 2024: From April 8 A complicated warmup turned into something simpler. A wise man told me recently that if I wanted to reach more people, swath my weird bits in accessible clothing. Well not those exact words but that was the sentiment. I love playing these slides and it feels good to at least have 4 more bars in the notebook. Moving these through positions and key changes is the n...

From September 5, 2025: Music for the first apple picked from our 60-year-old tree. Link to the post.

From August 5, 2024: A little Teenage Engineering and piano always works. This was for a movie about a massive scultpure of stuffies that never got off the ground. Here it sits - still feels good to me. Link to the post.

From March 18, 2025: Link to the post.

From January 4, 2024: Found an old recording of Gracie telling me a story when they were 5. I wrote a bunch of Csound and Thuja code to make some interlocking rhythms and added some textures–slices of a flute recording from Venice as well as bells ringing in St Mark's square, time signals over shortwave radio. Link to the post.

From April 7, 2024: Another stream of consciousness exercise made into a piece. I wrote this out - one of three studies - in Boonville without the aid of an instrument, on November 3, 2006. These three pieces were a Satori for me, a moment of awakening, where I hadn't trusted my self to freely write. This line has 2 others, as well as drum, in this sketch for a short-lived group I was planning...

From September 6, 2025: Starting to cool around here, and soon the rains are coming. The is a kid's piano piece by Bartok I played on two guitar tracks, with some computer icing laid on top. This is a death-by-cuteness picture from a winery in Boonville last week. Link to the post.

From August 28, 2024: From May 29 Number 150! I got a little obsessive with this, but got lazy writing it out. 1 cycle plays the the same scalar figure up and down the scale on E, F, G, A and B, then back down - it has 4 notes in the figure. The other, with 5 notes in the figure, goes up and down E, F, G and A, and the cycles just about meet up perfectly at the end. I haven't been able to sit...

From November 6, 2025: Raising the Holier Grail pedal from the dead this week. Bass lines with harmonic foreground always grounds me. Link to the post.

From September 4, 2024: Playing with octave dispersions on this one, better balance and less distortion. Link to the post.

From March 13, 2025: Link to the post.

From March 28, 2025: Developing this idea I came up with in Croatia in September. Link to the post.

From November 7, 2025: I fixed a bunch of bugs in Thuja this week, and have been messing with realtime remixing using what I've always called the loop-index method. Makes a big mess of this tapepause bit of audio from a Gregorian chant recording. Link to the post.

From February 1, 2026: Olallan Candidate Collage - 30, 33, 44, 70 Link to the post.

From February 4, 2024: I"ve been making music with computers since I was in junior high, but started seriously when I learned Csound in the mid 90s studying composition at the University of Washington. While I make a lot of noise with the tools I know, I haven't left my comfort zone to explore music of the live coding movement, but some sort of new year's refresh energy is having...

From March 6, 2025: I stayed up and had a long clear-eyed talk about family history with my dad tonight. He was the youngest of six - four brothers and a sister to show him the way. I was born long after they all became parents, and after my grandfather had passed, so I never got to know him. He'd had a terrible set of experiences and financial missteps that left him damaged in some way, and m...

From January 14, 2024: The essence of Brubeck, without directly lifting anything. Link to the post.

From February 14, 2025: Getting ready for more duo rehearsals with the drummer Neil Wilson and reconvening with Guitar Cult for recording. I found a raft of great rehearsals for a Chapel show from 2023. We'll be picking this thread back up as a duo, Neil and I–here are some spots that work. Pictured: farewell OP-1 - you were a fun little synthesizer. Link to the post.

From August 19, 2024: From Feb 19: This line over Jason's funk was a pain for some reason - I couldn't settle on what left hand fingering to use. You check it out. Still learning TidalCycles, and playing with how I might deploy a line from Tidal in sync with Ableton. It seems I need to anticipate either an 1/8th or a 1/4 note, but it doesn't seem consistent. Link to the post.