Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Behold, I have written Classical Music.
Hello.
Although the reception of my Piano Music has not been much to speak of, I am undaunted. That is how I operate, and perhaps I have learned to work best this way. My many novels also languish on the shelves of history, unread and uncared-for, perhaps to be discovered by the Smithsonian or some other clearinghouse of repute. In time folks will see the effort I have made, the hours I have spent.
After hearing a stretch of Classical Music in the van the other day (I believe it was an Italian fellow who played under the name of Giganto, but the reception was not altogether perfect), I was inspired to write some of my own. Apparently people don't do that any more, but no matter. I listened to several Classical pieces, with the pretty piano "lines" that sound as though they are echoing in a glistening, white marble hall (all surfaces in Classical music must be imagined as glistening, never matte - that is one of my "tricks"), likely a hall where everyone has either died or is outside marveling at handsomely-curried horses. Perhaps it is Austria, in the famous mountains where white men eat fine chocolate as they march along flagstone streets, or perhaps it is ancient and forgotten Boravia, the wealth of which impresses no one any longer, the smiles of its children forgotten by all.
I must hold myself back. Please, here, enjoy this piece of Classical Music. It will remind you of glossy, airy marble halls, or I have not done my job.
Behold, Classical Music (mp3 format audio file, or "iTune")
Peter H. Cropes, Programmer of the Piano
Although the reception of my Piano Music has not been much to speak of, I am undaunted. That is how I operate, and perhaps I have learned to work best this way. My many novels also languish on the shelves of history, unread and uncared-for, perhaps to be discovered by the Smithsonian or some other clearinghouse of repute. In time folks will see the effort I have made, the hours I have spent.
After hearing a stretch of Classical Music in the van the other day (I believe it was an Italian fellow who played under the name of Giganto, but the reception was not altogether perfect), I was inspired to write some of my own. Apparently people don't do that any more, but no matter. I listened to several Classical pieces, with the pretty piano "lines" that sound as though they are echoing in a glistening, white marble hall (all surfaces in Classical music must be imagined as glistening, never matte - that is one of my "tricks"), likely a hall where everyone has either died or is outside marveling at handsomely-curried horses. Perhaps it is Austria, in the famous mountains where white men eat fine chocolate as they march along flagstone streets, or perhaps it is ancient and forgotten Boravia, the wealth of which impresses no one any longer, the smiles of its children forgotten by all.
I must hold myself back. Please, here, enjoy this piece of Classical Music. It will remind you of glossy, airy marble halls, or I have not done my job.
Behold, Classical Music (mp3 format audio file, or "iTune")
Peter H. Cropes, Programmer of the Piano
Friday, September 13, 2013
I have shared a second song, "Peach Titus."
In the joy of haste, and O in the joy of growing familiar with this tape recorder and its frailty, I have released my second "single," Peach Titus. Those who do or don't know can read here that Peach Titus is a Southern tea, meant for correction but just divine as-is. It is my companion on many drives, in hot weather, humid, among the sleepy Acadians and Baptist-Huguenots (funny people, those) both. It is the beverage of a passive state, between works, a drink to be earned.
There is a slight error in the recording of this song, and I apologize for it. You will notice it, but you will forgive the early embarrassments of floating my music into a great and unknowable sea of blank faces.
Peach Titus - Peter H. Cropes, Programmer of the Piano
Hello, I am a Band now.
Good Evening. It has been some years since I have spoken with you, since we have shared words. I have been on a magical journey—to use the words of a showman—and I would like to tell you about it.
I am a band, now. Perhaps I am several bands, it is hard to say. This is how it happened.
There was a boy who thought well of himself, and he was quite fond of the latest, flashiest technologies. His iPhone, that Judas's cradle of the modern world, that bearer of hollow crux and vinuous grasp, came into my possession one day. On it was a harmless-looking computer program, and when, on a lark of sorts, on a long drive, I opened it up—it allowed me to place small blocks in a grid, and those blocks became sounds. They became music, they became tunes, through the machinery of men who work in Cupertino, California. It sounds like a false place of fallen orchards and glass, but their perversion has created something useful to me.
I was immediately taken with this easy ability to put down the tunes in my head, and change them over time to suit the knowledge I was gaining. Wikipedia.org, that great website, taught me of "circles of fifths," and "counterfeit modulation." Such lofty terms. So, fancy. But they are useful, hard-won things. They ride unto us on the shoulders of madmen, of lunatics who died from their exertions in the service of music, strangled upon the tether from which they hung by the heavens. Beethoven. The mournful Russian Rachmaninoff. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (diminutive coprophiliac and giggler).
I am quite likely several bands. They suit my many moods.
1. FRAN.CE
I have found kin in that plastic instrument, that lipstick, the synthesizer. I do not know why, but its tones soothe me. Perhaps the precision of its "attack" and "decay" can be specified so cleanly, it is therapeutic. Please, enjoy the music of FRAN.CE.
2. Piano Dan
Perhaps you might say, he is my "alter ego." Or just a character I have schemed up. A "piano-loving friend" who diddles all the night and day on his keys, creating the most delightful—or perhaps the least delightful—simple piano melodies. I imagine him as serious, silent, leaving when he is done, walking up round the fertile berm of the lane that wound from home to the world beyond.
3. Downtown Mammal
This is something I don't know that I do.
ENGINEERING NOTE
As you have been aware, I am not of an ease with computers. This "iTunes," with its crazy spelling, is something I simply cannot make known to me. To hear Téodor say it, the songs become one in the air, and appear on devices which have an understanding placed in them by the wealthy. I will have none of it. In my world, music is a good old thing, listened to on cassettes, and easily shared in that way. Because I can not e-mail you all a cassette, however, I played my iPhone into my tape recorder, then played my tape recorder at a computer's microphone. From there it was a hop-skip to share my first song with you. If you enjoy it, please hold your own tape recorder to your computer's speaker, and then carry it with you wherever you go.
MY FIRST SONG
Orris Root Tango - Peter H. Cropes, Programmer of the Piano
This little tune may be considered how it feels to drive at night, down the furrowed hard-clay lanes of Parish Amortane, Louisiana, between the orris fields and the fragrant sassafrass, knowing it was time to do what you had felt building inside you for many days.
I am a band, now. Perhaps I am several bands, it is hard to say. This is how it happened.
There was a boy who thought well of himself, and he was quite fond of the latest, flashiest technologies. His iPhone, that Judas's cradle of the modern world, that bearer of hollow crux and vinuous grasp, came into my possession one day. On it was a harmless-looking computer program, and when, on a lark of sorts, on a long drive, I opened it up—it allowed me to place small blocks in a grid, and those blocks became sounds. They became music, they became tunes, through the machinery of men who work in Cupertino, California. It sounds like a false place of fallen orchards and glass, but their perversion has created something useful to me.
I was immediately taken with this easy ability to put down the tunes in my head, and change them over time to suit the knowledge I was gaining. Wikipedia.org, that great website, taught me of "circles of fifths," and "counterfeit modulation." Such lofty terms. So, fancy. But they are useful, hard-won things. They ride unto us on the shoulders of madmen, of lunatics who died from their exertions in the service of music, strangled upon the tether from which they hung by the heavens. Beethoven. The mournful Russian Rachmaninoff. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (diminutive coprophiliac and giggler).
I am quite likely several bands. They suit my many moods.
1. FRAN.CE
I have found kin in that plastic instrument, that lipstick, the synthesizer. I do not know why, but its tones soothe me. Perhaps the precision of its "attack" and "decay" can be specified so cleanly, it is therapeutic. Please, enjoy the music of FRAN.CE.
2. Piano Dan
Perhaps you might say, he is my "alter ego." Or just a character I have schemed up. A "piano-loving friend" who diddles all the night and day on his keys, creating the most delightful—or perhaps the least delightful—simple piano melodies. I imagine him as serious, silent, leaving when he is done, walking up round the fertile berm of the lane that wound from home to the world beyond.
3. Downtown Mammal
This is something I don't know that I do.
ENGINEERING NOTE
As you have been aware, I am not of an ease with computers. This "iTunes," with its crazy spelling, is something I simply cannot make known to me. To hear Téodor say it, the songs become one in the air, and appear on devices which have an understanding placed in them by the wealthy. I will have none of it. In my world, music is a good old thing, listened to on cassettes, and easily shared in that way. Because I can not e-mail you all a cassette, however, I played my iPhone into my tape recorder, then played my tape recorder at a computer's microphone. From there it was a hop-skip to share my first song with you. If you enjoy it, please hold your own tape recorder to your computer's speaker, and then carry it with you wherever you go.
MY FIRST SONG
Orris Root Tango - Peter H. Cropes, Programmer of the Piano
This little tune may be considered how it feels to drive at night, down the furrowed hard-clay lanes of Parish Amortane, Louisiana, between the orris fields and the fragrant sassafrass, knowing it was time to do what you had felt building inside you for many days.
