First Published: 2023 February 1
Another month has passed me by! I said my goals last month were
Blog daily. I have faith in myself.
Listen to the BiaY and CCCiaY on average once a day each
Stretch daily
Write a poem a day
Write a piece of music a day
Write through Chapter 35 of the book I’m self publishing
Practice music daily
Say a rosary a day
In reality I:
Blogged 12 times.
Listen to the BiaY and CCCiaY much less than once averaged
Stretched at least 10 times
Actively gave up on the poetry goal.1
Wrote Fifteenish pieces
Wrote through Chapter 23 of the book I’m self publishing
Practiced music most days
Said very few rosaries
On the other hand, most of the time, I was not aimlessly wasting away my time, which is one of the reasons I wanted to have more activities to do. I found that my scheduled list of events ceased to be useful about when I started being busy again.
Other things I did this month include:
Being asked to play for a musical and spent about 10 hours last weekend recording guitar
Finished a draft of my 1 page for my third year exam
Started lifting with friends!
All in all, I’m glad for the month, for all that I really wish that i had recorded more of it here. It passed by in a blur, and that makes me sad.
which is a first↩︎
First Published: 2023 January 23
So on the bright side, I’ve now figured out at least one reason why I sometimes stop blogging/composing/everything else I value doing. When I miss out on sleep, I not only feel tired, I just generally fail to accomplish most of what I’d like to do. Moving forward, I guess this means I need to start prioritizing sleep more. C’est la vie.
First Published: 2023 January 14
Fifth Species counterpoint is fun! I like writing melodies, and I realize how much I love suspensions. Maybe in part because of the way the system is set up,1 I use them a lot. Anyways, despite2 missing two days this week, I still feel ready to move on to First Species with Three Voices. Exciting wow. Rules
Only Whole notes
Consonance is defined against the lowest pitch
Upper two voices allow consonances, P4, tritone
Try to have mostly triad voicing
Woo! Let’s have some fun.
First Published: 2023 January 12
Prereading note: After each section of the DnD campaign I’m playing in, I’m going to have an in-character journal log about the events of the session. Hopefully it’ll help me develop the character’s voice and remember what’s happening.
I fear what my dreams will bring tonight.
Today began like any other lately. My companions and I sat in the Nail and Board, waiting for a job offer that we all knew was not going to arrive. Brent clearly took some pity on us, because he offered us a job.
His opener hadn’t shown up today. Of course, Kaeden had never been the most reliable employee, so it was not concerning that he wasn’t there. Still, he offered to stand us a round of drinks if we found his lost employee.
We looked in Kaeden’s usual haunts, only to find that this was not an innocuous case of oversleeping. After nearly a full day of investigating, we found that he had been kidnapped and taken to a barn in the nearby woods. Shockingly, the people who had kidnapped Kaeden did not have his best interest in mind.
Jenna scoped the barn out, which seemed to be a cultic ritual. Neither Stygia nor I have ever had much fondness for unknown cults, so we elected to free Kaeden and correct these poor souls from their error.
Of course, with everything else that had gone wrong today, it should not have been a surprise that the lead cultist was himself a necromancer. We eventually felled him, with my own starlight landing the final blow. Kaeden was otherwise unharmed, but we learned that this ritual was only the first of terrible events to happen.
Tomorrow, the lead cultist was apparently going to hand off the dagger Kaeden was to be killed with at the Swamp Lily. Some of the cultists we returned to their stars were regulars at the Nail and Board, people we had known, if only vaguely.
As worried as I am about tomorrow, I am glad that the skies will be clear. The stars will watch over me, should I fall or succeed. I just hope that they will carry the message to my family if we should fail tomorrow.
First Published: 2023 January 11
Wow, one year ago yesterday I was writing about the last exam I had for graduate school. I’m1 much further along in this one. I just turned in the one page version of my proposed project.2 It was a fun time, and I hope my committee likes it.
First Published: 2023 January 10
Prereading note: I’m making a backstory for a character I’m playing in a campaign. He’s a Star Druid Firbolg.
I have been asked to write down some of my story, though I do not quite know why. My companions call me Rex Sylvae. I am ever glad that we have avoided going near to the true lands of the Fey, as I have grown attached to my head and this name.
Ah, but I should explain. In any anthropology of Firbolgs, there is bound to be a mention of our names, or lack thereof. The claim is that Firbolgs do not use names themselves, only taking on use-names when interacting with other races. This is not wholly true.
Firbolgs are not Fey. However, we remember when we were. Other races claim that a name represents who they are. This is dangerous to one who interacts with the Fey.
After all, it is far easier to bind a name than a soul. By saying that the two are the same, however, binding the soul merely requires binding a name. And so, Firbolgs recognize names as what they are: a means of communication.
It is difficult to express this in the common tongue, as “being” encompasses both attributes and the whole. I will do my best, however. I would not say that I am Rex Sylvae, anymore than I would say that I am a wanderer. I wander, yes, and I am called Rex Sylvae, yes, but I am more than either of those.
Of course, that does not explain why I would prefer to avoid the Fey. Fey, knowing the mortal temptation to bind oneself to a name, are fond of asking who people are. All Firbolgs answer in the same way when asked, as was taught by our own ancestors long ago.
You respond “I am a king of the forest,” as Firbolgs are above the Beasts of the forest. Of course, Old Sylvan lacks articles, so that utterance is the same as “I am King of Forest,” the title of their One King. To challenge that assertion would be madness, and the Fey who can tell truth from lies would hear it as true.
But, the Fey are long gone from much of this world. And so, I, young and newly on my own, wandered by a race I had never seen before. One asked me in the Common Tongue who I was, and so I responded as though this was some new form of Fey. Of course, it later turned out that the asker was an Orc.
Now that we’ve covered the way I am called, I should move to more pressing matters. While I would not say that I am Rex Sylvae, I would call myself a Druid of the Stars. The Grove of Stars, though monolithic in name, is far from it. Each of us is bound by two commandments: we gather together when the cosmos align, and we follow our stars.
Of course, with directions as vague as those, there is much dissent among the followers. At one end, there are those that slavishly plot their star’s course, ensuring that they remain beneath it always. At the other are those who believe that, so long as they know where the stars should be, they are following their commandment.
Obviously, both of these are ridiculous positions, but they serve to illustrate the idea. We are all bound to a number of stars, however weakly, and so there is no way to truly remain beneath every star which is yours. We also know that stars unobserved can fade away, which is why many take to their nightly Litanies. The question of whether a star you cannot see can still hear your Litany is not a settled one.
My family lay near the middle. While we tried to stay near our birth star, we recognize that circumstances may require divergences. As I grow older, I more and more believe the commandment to be more of a spiritual than physical demand. That is, rather than tracking the placement of the stars as projected onto the land, we must act in nature with ourselves.
As I planned to present this idea at the next Alignment, I began to Dream. At first, I wrote these dreams off as the result of a spoiled meal or some other, natural cause. As they kept happening, though, I realized that they were trying to warn me. Something cataclysmic is going to happen by the next Alignment.
Of course, Star Druids are known for our apocalyptic views. The temple we built is made to withstand any disaster that we could imagine, warded as it is against all forces. In my Dreams, it lies shattered. I fear that the Bound Hand has something to do with this.
My Dreams and stars pointed me in the direction of three individuals, who I have now joined with in an adventuring party. I hope that we will be able to avert whatever vision I keep seeing. Until then, though, so long as we are bringing about a better world, I do not know what I can do.
First Published: 2023 January 7
Fourth Species counterpoint remains kind of strange, if only because most of the canti firmi1 I write have mainly stepwise motion, meaning that you end up with a lot of chained suspensions. I personally love chained suspensions, so that’s fine with me, but I understand why others don’t.
However, after a nice week of this, I feel ready for Fifth Species. Fifth Species combines all the rules of the other species together kind of.
quarter, half, and whole notes are allowed
dissonances resolve stepwise
dissonances allowed on the downbeat only when suspended
should be singable and pretty
After this, I start with three voice species counterpoint, which I’ll need to look up the rules for.
plural of cantus firums?↩︎
First Published: 2023 January 6
Once more, playing DnD with the same DM. This time we did a session zero for a new campaign. I’m going to be playing a Firbolg Star Druid. I need to come up with some inspiration for the character by our next meeting, so expect me to post on here at least once about it.
First Published: 2023 January 5
Yesterday I led my first day of class as a Catechist. That is, I was responsible for leading the discussion amongst a group of middle schoolers on the first four commandments. It went much better than I had expected.
First Published: 2023 January 4
So species counterpoint reflection is on Wednesdays now. Fourth species is an interesting challenge to me. More than any other species1, it makes me want to work entirely back to front.
That is, I know what note I want to end on, and the penultimate note and often antipenultimate note. Once I’ve gotten those notes, the way that suspensions works means that I often have at most a single choice to meet the rules. It’s kind of interesting in a way.
That being said, I for sure need to spend at least the full week on fourth species. It’s not intuitive for me yet.
so far at least↩︎