First Published: 2022 December 20
I’m currently working on an exam for my degree. The exam consists of planning an experiment1 which would last around two years. As part of preparation for that exam, I have been trying to write some code to see if it the project is even doable.
In doing so, I’m learning just how much I don’t really understand code. I’m lucky enough to be home and with my two brothers and fathers, all of whom are significantly better than me at coding. However, it’s really heartening seeing how much more I can follow each time that I do another coding project.
that you will probably not do↩
First Published: 2022 December 19
Prereading note: This will be rambly
As I mentioned recently, I’m really enjoying playing around in Musescore. But, I don’t like being bad at composing, especially when I’m doing it. One thing I’ve tried to do before is species counterpoint.
Species counterpoint is a set of compositional exercises that’s pretty (in)famously used in a lot of composition curricula, especially historically. Generally you begin with a whole note melody that you write a harmony to. The harmony has to follow some general rules1 such as limited leaps2, forbiddance of parallel perfect intervals, and so on. Additionally, within each species there are specific rules. There are five species3:
First Species: Whole note against whole note. In this form, you generally are only allowed “consonant”4 intervals.5
Second Species: Half note against whole note.6 Here the second note may be dissonant, but only as a step-wise passing tone.
Third Species: Quarter note against whole note.7. As before, only the first note needs to be consonant, and dissonances need to be approached and left stepwise.
Fourth Species: Suspended whole notes offset by a half note. Generally if the suspension becomes dissonant, it needs to resolve down by a step. If not, you can leap or move up.
Fifth Species: Melody against whole note.8 I think then the rules are fairly loose, though generally still consonant on first note unless suspended over.
The pedagogical resources I’ve seen generally recommend working with your cantus firmus9 both above and below the written melody for practice.
After mastering10 the five species, you can then add another voice and start over. As it turns out, that causes 55 lessons if I want to get up to three voices in fifth species against a single cantus firmus.
From a book on habits I read, it’s best if new habits can be accomplished in under three minutes. Historically, writing a single first-species line takes less than three minutes, so I’d like to try doing six days of counterpoint a week, moving lessons each week. At first, both because I want to slowly build the habit, and because I know first species with a single voice well, I will just do a single exercise. I’d like to spend the seventh day11 setting a song to four-part string arrangement, both because I like how it sounds in Musescore ,and because I want to get more practice actually writing music.
The plan is:
One Voice First Species
One Voice Second Species
...
One Voice Fifth Species
Two Voices, First and First Species
Two Voices First and Second Species
...
Two Voices First and Fifth Species
Two Voices Second and Second Species
...
Two Voices Fifth and Fifth Species
Three Voices First, First, and First Species
...
Three Voices Fifth, Fifth, and Fifth Species
If I start today, I’ll be finished near the beginning of 2024. It’s good to set big stretch goals I hear.
that are probably memorable from introductory music theory↩︎
depending on the exact style of species counterpoint, leap rules vary a lot↩︎
types of harmony line written↩︎
scare quotes necessary↩︎
P1,m3,M3,P5,m6,M6,P8 and then everything larger gets reduced down↩︎
two notes written per note↩︎
four notes written per note↩︎
use whatever from each of the other species↩︎
given melody↩︎
for whatever definition you want↩︎
Sunday, first day of the week technically↩︎
First Published: 2022 December 18
Matthew 1:24 “When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.”
The Gospel today focuses on the earthly father of our savior, St. Joseph. Lately I’ve been reading and hearing a lot of modern opinions on him, and many of them make me uncomfortable.
In part, this is because we know so little about him. As is often joked, if St. Joseph is the ideal husband, then the ideal husband never speaks. This references the fact that Joseph has no dialogue attributed to him in the Bible or Tradition.
More than that, though, we know nearly nothing about the man who raised the Lord through his childhood. We know he was a carpenter, and not a particularly well-off one1. We know that he did not have sexual relations with Mary. We know that he died before Christ was crucified. We know that he radically and totally trusted in the Lord to guide him. And yet, people will put much more on him.
In part, I think this is because we want to be able to connect with the holy men and women who came before us. That’s a great and noble goal.
In part, I see a lot of it as coming as a response to what’s seen as the emasculation of modern society. That’s not great, in my eyes at least.
And, in part I think that we don’t like to have unanswered questions. That’s natural.
I don’t know where I’m going with this reflection, other than to say that to model St. Joseph really means that when we hear a call from the Lord, we uproot our lives and do as He commands.
Luke 2:24, they offer turtle doves which is (apparently) what you offer when you cannot offer more↩︎
First Published: 2022 December 17
So I may have completely lost myself and ability to blog these past few weeks, but now seems as good of a time as any to get back into the swing. Musescore 4 recently came out, and it’s an absolutely wild experience.
Musescore1 is one of the two music engraving software2 I use.3 It is Free4, and the latest version completely overhauled most of the UI, which is nice.5 The part that really gets me excited, though, is the difference in how music playback works.
The lead of the project made a long video discussing it, but the summary is basically that there are now sampled sound packs available, and they really bring the quality of the sound so many levels up. I honestly somewhat forgot that not all of the notes were computer generated when I was listening back. It makes it so much more fun to write music when the sounds coming out are nicer.
I said above that I didn’t really get excited about the UI, which is somewhat true. It in many regards is the ideal UI, in that you hardly notice it. I was entering notes generally without issue, and that’s really what software is for.
On a tangent, I told one of my old professors about the new release, and he pointed me to another app which has AI sing vocal words. Now I can finally know what my choral pieces sound like sung!
First Published: 2022 December 5
It’s been a little over a month since m last posting about open mics. I’ve played by myself most weeks since then1, and it’s weird knowing just how much of a difference practicing makes. I still am not good at accordion, but I at least now know what songs go over better with the crowd.2
First Published: 2022 December 4
Matthew 3:9 “And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.”
It’s the Second Sunday in Advent!. Today’s Gospel comes from Matthew, the writer most concerned with explaining how Christ was a fulfillment of Jewish prophecy.
John gives the Pharisees and Sadducees a chilling welcome, calling them not as brothers or fellow faithful members of the Chosen People, but as a brood of vipers. He goes on to tell them that their salvation is not guaranteed. Though it was originally directed at the religious of the time, the message remains true to us today.
We have been saved by the blood of the Lamb. That is only true if we truly accept that salvation, though. Being baptized cleansed us of our sin, but that was in the past. We still have the rest of our lives to live our The Almighty’s Will.
First Published: 2022 December 2
As with my last two posts about Dungeons and Dragons, I again was playing at the same friend’s house with the same DM. This was the third session in our module, which was prewritten by WotC. I predicted one of the major plot reveals,1 which was that the wise mentor on the island dedicated to dragons was, herself, a dragon. It’s been a fun time so far, and I’m really excited to finish out this module before starting another one. I don’t have much more to say right now, though I’m sure I’ll have more to say tomorrow.
I can’t remember the word for that right now↩
First Published: 2022 December 1
It’s the final month of 2022, which means that it’s my final monthly reflection for the year. I didn’t really set any goals in my first post of the year, but I did mention five things I was excited for then. I’ll reflect on those at the end of the year
My goals last month were:
Blog every day
Stretch every day.
Write a poem every day.
Finish NaNoWriMo successfully
Make progress towards catching up on BiaY
At least two entries in 242.
I blogged 13 times last month, which isn’t my best job ever. Hopefully this month goes better.
I stretched three times that I recorded, which is still progress technically.
I wrote a poem a day until the 22 or 23, when I abruptly stopped.
I did it!
I’m much closer now, though still not there
I only added one new entry.
That’s honestly slightly better than I normally do. I realized that I was using time I would often use for blogging for NaNoWriMo, which meant I didn’t want to blog as much. This month I’d like to write at least as much, but I guess I’ll have to see if I can do better about still blogging. Stretching remains a goal of mine that feels so unapproachable for some reason. Writing a poem a day did a lot to force me to write, though in addition to the prose I was doing, I don’t know if I still need it right now. NaNoWriMo was fun, and now my brother has pointed out how easily I could output a large sum of writing. I’m behind on 242, which is sad, but I guess encouragement for me to start doing things faster.
My goals for this month are:
Blog every day. This month is the month, I can feel it.
Stretch every day. ibid.
Write another 50000 word book. I saw that it was very possible last month, so I’d like to show myself that it is again.
Catch up on BiaY. If I want to finish this year, I need to be caught up by the end of the month.
Time to see how I do!
First Published: 2022 November 25
Hooray! I finished NaNoWriMo yesterday, nearly a week ahead of time. Sadly, there are still two achievements which require me to continue writing these next few days, so I will continue to do so.
Last time I was curious if the goal would be 0 after finishing the goal, which is somewhat true, Before I had put an increase in my wordcount today, the goal was zero. After doing so, the goal was 40, which is interesting. My writing continued to go more quickly throughout the month, which was nice. I
First Published: 2022 November 24
At this point, I’m more and more sure that I’m the only one who reads this blog, for all that I rarely do so. In many respects, that makes this mostly a write-only space. But, I am currently listening to an audiobook about the creative process, and there are some interesting ideas in it about creativity.
A brief search of my musings1 shows me that I have mentioned my muse in apparently only two posts, both of which are from my initial blog. In one, I talk about how I was blessed with a hyperfocused muse that day. In the other, I mention how my muse should be considered to have the name Janet that day.
The book talks about how writing more makes you more creative, though it does so in more of a spiritual sense than I think I am personally willing to ascribe to it. Still, it made me think about the fact that what I do now does shape who I am in the future.
So, to the future me, I hope that the writing I do now is helping you write better. To my muse, I hope that my willingness to keep writing will encourage you to keep giving me ideas.
thanks grep!↩︎