First Published: 2023 January 3
I talked about how I do better with doing things when they’re scheduled, and how I do better with schedules when I know what’s scheduled. With that in mind, it seems useful to plan out what I’ll practice on my instruments.
Much as I love accordion, it’s more of an ordeal to practice, so I find that I don’t do it as much, especially when I’m tired. So, on days when I lack energy, my practice will be playing through a song on guitar and doing a scale.
If I have mental energy again,1 I would like to try to learn at least a song every two weeks.2 That way I can keep the open mics spiced up. I’d ideally like to do most of these on accordion.
First Published: 2023 January 2
As with my last two yearly reflections, I’m going to start with five positive things that happened to me in 2022, and five things I’m excited for in 2023.
Passing my second year exam
Getting an accordion!
Restarting this blog!
Writing two books
Learning that I can run 5 miles when I need to.
Looking at the five things I was excited for in 2022, there’s a lot of overlap. As always, though, more wonderful things happened than I could have ever expected.
As I look to the coming year, I’m excited to/for:
Passing my third year exam
Self-publishing a book
Taking an improv class
Watching my littlest brother graduate
Growing in my relationships
My goals last month were:
Blog every day.
Stretch every day.
Write another 50000 word book.
Catch up on BiaY.
I accomplished the final one of those only. That’s kind of sad, but I suppose natural.
Looking into 2023, I’ve already planned out most of it.
This month in particular, I would like to:
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
I think my theme is going to be Schedule. I find that my life works better the less I leave what I do to chance, and so I want to regiment out my day more. I’ve tried using auto-generated lists these past few days for the things I want to do daily, and that’s been really helpful.
Happy 2023!
First Published: 2023 January 1
Luke 2:16 “And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart”
Today is the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. It’s historically also the Feast of the Circumcision. Despite the nominal focus on Mary, the readings seem to focus more on the old celebration to me.
The readings focus on Christ’s fulfillment of the messianic prophecy.
First Published: 2022 December 31
It’s the last day of the year, which last time I wrote on, I focused on the last year. I hadn’t taken to more formal reflections then, which I think I will do on the second.1 Instead, I’m going to treat today as a2 standard Saturday post, and talk about me week in species counterpoint.
Once again, I managed to do the counterpoint every day. Like last week, I again decided to switch on Wednesday, this time from second to third species. I think I’ve gotten the hang of third species well enough that next week I’m going to start on fourth species.
I can definitely feel my composition chops getting better. As I remarked to a friend, I felt like I was at the cusp of conscious incompetence and competence. Now I feel like I’m well into the conscious competence, and edging into the unconscious competence again. The lines I’m writing generally meet all the rules of species counterpoints, and I’m starting to see more or less accidental motifs arising, as well as better general contouring in the line.
Once again, I’m excited to see how well it transfers.
The rules here are:
Off-beat whole notes
Dissonances resolve step-wise down
No parallel fifths and octaves
It’s the last day of the year, which last time I wrote on, I focused on the last year. I hadn’t taken to more formal reflections then, which I think I will do on the second.3 Instead, I’m going to treat today as a4 standard Saturday post, and talk about me week in species counterpoint.
Once again, I managed to do the counterpoint every day. Like last week, I again decided to switch on Wednesday, this time from second to third species. I think I’ve gotten the hang of third species well enough that next week I’m going to start on fourth species.
I can definitely feel my composition chops getting better. As I remarked to a friend, I felt like I was at the cusp of conscious incompetence and competence. Now I feel like I’m well into the conscious competence, and edging into the unconscious competence again. The lines I’m writing generally meet all the rules of species counterpoints, and I’m starting to see more or less accidental motifs arising, as well as better general contouring in the line.
Once again, I’m excited to see how well it transfers.
First Published: 2022 December 30
I think I may have found a solution to my idea earlier of having a way to track my life. Like most people, I do better with to do lists. I found out today how to have my phone generate a to-do list that autopopulates with the activities I need to do every day. It’s nice that these features exist.
First Published: 2022 December 29
Apparently I have the same ideas for writing week-by-week. That’s kind of funny, but I hope that changes soon.
Anyways, these past few days, I’ve managed to get a chapter a day written, which is really nice. The chapters have been differently good, and have needed different amounts of revision. I’ve started using the chapters as ways to test on different ways to write better/more efficiently.
As it turns out, if spend five minutes plotting a chapter before I write it, it comes out much better and faster. I don’t know why that works, but it’s nice to know. On the other hand, it means that I need to know where my journal is at all times.
That’s nice, because I want to get through my journals faster. So yeah, I’m going to try to do that more.
First Published: 2022 December 28
What a coincidence, apparently I need one week to do each counterpoint, at least so far. Anyways, time to move on from second species counterpoint to third species.
As a reminder, the rules are:
Consonant downbeats1, with preference to imperfect consonances2
No note to note parallel perfect unisons3
No hidden (parallel) perfect intervals4
Offbeat disonances must be approached and left stepwise5
Four notes written per note in the cantus firmus
Generally prioritize small skips and step-wise movement, with octave as the exception
Shockingly, third species did not feel significantly harder. On a first pass, I only made my “fourths are consonant” mistake once, and the revision I did focused more on having a meaningful melody, which was nice to be able to have. I am excited to see if this helps me with composing next week.
First Published: 2022 December 27
As it turns out, I may have allergies. I’m not allergic to what I thought I was, but that’s fun anyways. I’m also exhausted, because it turns out that histamine makes us tired. Anyways, that’s all I have to say today.
First Published: 2022 December 26
Pre-reading note: Somewhat rambly
I talked about how I think that having schedules makes my life better. Well, at least better in the sense of more in line with the goals that I set. I mentioned the other day two things that will help, having preplanned ideas for blogging, and having a plan for the poems I’ll write.
Anyways, something something about N stones and M birds. There are 12 months in a year, which is one way I could arrange the poems I do. There are 52 weeks, which is another way I could do it.
Maybe it would be helpful to start with the kind of poems I have written before and enjoy writing.
Sonnets
Villanelles
Ballads
In general, I like doing poems which are at least somewhat metric and constrained. It’s weird to me to realize that I’ve only really written four types of poems in recent memory. It would be kind of nice to do more than that in the future.
So I think I’m going to do the same thing with poems that I’m doing with counterpoint and prose.1 Sundays will be a day for writing something out of pocket and planning the rest of the week. Starting with the first week of the year, I’m going to shoot for the first six days to be sonnets.
post to come↩︎
First Published: 2022 December 25
I don’t know why I was surprised that the only other Christmas post I made was in 2018, but I was. Anyways, since it’s Sunday, I’m going to reflect at least a little on the readings.
On one hand, it’s somewhat difficult to reflect on the Christmas readings. After all, despite the fact that there is just the one set,1 there are four readings which belong to the celebration. The Vigil Mass has the same Gospel as last Sunday’s with verses on either side added.
I think there’s something beautiful in what part of the Nativity story each of the four readings focuses on. At the Vigil, which we celebrate because we take the custom of counting days starting at sunset from the Jewish tradition, we get the lineage of Christ. After the lineage, we are simply told that Mary was found with child, and that Joseph was a righteous man who did not want to put her to shame. We are reminded of the fact that Christ is the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham and his descendants.
At the Night Mass, we read from Luke. We are reminded that the Lord was born in the night amidst shepherds. In the darkest time of year, we are reminded of the Joy that came into the world, bringing light to our darkness.
As night turns to dawn, we get the readings for the Dawn Mass. The Gospel picks up exactly where the Night Mass ended. Just as we go from darkness and fear into praise and joy in the light, we watch the shepherds go and spread the glory of the Almighty.
Finally, there is the Day Mass. In this Gospel, we go through the beginning of John. We are not awaiting the Christchild anymore, we have received him. Now begins the season of preparations for Lent and Easter. And so, we first are reminded that Christ and the Father have been together since eternity. We then are told of John, who paves the way for Christ’s ministry.
Outside of the readings, I remain incredibly grateful for the time that I get to spend with my family. I am also incredibly grateful for the fact that I can communicate with my friends around the world. Merry Christmas to all.
Not A,B,C or 1,2↩︎