Found these songs today:

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I’ve been feeling better. I don’t know why. I can’t figure it out. I didn’t do actively do anything to fix myself.

Maybe it was Audra singing a verse on my answering machine, and promising to leave me a whole song some day. Or the fact that I was out of the house when the sun was out for the first time in as long as I can remember. Or even writing it all down and finally getting it off my chest, because explaining it forces me to rationalize things and view them objectively, instead of with a bias of depression.

It kind of scares me. I have a feeling this depression comes as easily as it goes.

Lately, the only thing I feel like doing is writing and practicing my ukulele, but I’m just glad I want to do something.

My Tai Chi teacher recently added the Yang style broadsword to the curriculum. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t ecstatic, as I’ve waited quite a while to learn a weapon form. There’s something romantic and exotic about wielding one of the four great Chinese weapons. I find it delightfully ironic that it’s a gweilo who’s catalyzed such an interest in my own culture. Take THAT, my racist and sexist Chinese ancestors.

As for the ukulele, one day I found out how inexpensive they can be and bought one right away. It’s a Mahalo Les Paul style ukulele (right down to the square tuning pegs) with an extended neck for higher register notes. In many ways, the ukulele is the perfect instrument for me right now; cheap, easy enough that I can teach myself¹, and not too hard on the fingers².

It feels fucking fantastic to be playing music in some form again. I did years of piano and flute lessons in elementary school to high school, and took a very long hiatus from then till now. And that was mostly in band, when I couldn’t choose the music I wanted to play. Now I can play the songs I like, and the advantage is that I’ve probably heard them a few hundred times so I already know them inside-out.

With my years of music lessons and performances from my youth, it’s not like I’m learning music from scratch, I’m simply figuring out how to apply what I already know about tone, posture, tuning, volume, fingering³, timing, and intonation, to another instrument. Admittedly, it’s been very slow going, and it’s like I’m learning a new language as I train my fingers to achieve a dexterity that was never there before.

The interesting thing is that my last few years practicing Tai Chi has helped me learn the ukulele. In my Tai Chi class, I’ve gained the patience and perseverance required to practice the same moves over and over again until they become a natural part of my muscle memory. In the beginning, it was a lot of concentration spent just trying to remember what to do next in the form, but now that I don’t need to think about them when I practice, my concentration goes into fine-tuning the little details. The same principles can be applied to the ukulele (or any instrument, for that matter), and I’m trying to get to the point where I don’t need to think about what my fingers should be doing, and just concentrate on playing with the right kind of expressiveness.

Which is why I have a broadsword and a ukulele resting on the wall next to my desk. Any time I need a break, I pick up one of them and practice for a few minutes.

1. Because I really don’t have time for another time-consuming hobby [↑]
2. The strings are nylon, instead of the metal of guitars, so the callouses aren’t as bad. The health of my hands is also an important thing to me. [↑]
3. Though the fingering for a stringed instrument is really different from piano and flute. [↑]

You know it sucks, realizing that everything you believed in is complete bullshit.

—Some guy sitting on a bench in some movie

This is how I’ve been feeling lately. I’ve lost the plot. I’m wandering and wondering. Aimless. Floating. Disconnected. Questioning what it’s all for.

It’s not that I haven’t been able to keep myself occupied. My calendar until March is quite busy actually. But I feel like a spectre, floating through the world; ethereal, immaterial, intangible, and unable to be touched or affected by anything.

On the other hand, music is hitting me pretty hard right now. I tend to dance a lot, mostly in my room. I actually recorded myself dancing to see what it looks like. I can only imagine that it’s on the same level of embarrassment as getting caught masturbating to furries (yep, there’s a porn for that) with bean dip smeared on my chest.

I’m in a No Motiv state-of-mind; that strange period between Jacky and Louise, when I was living on Island Park with Trolley, and we would go for car rides in the summer to Diagram for Healing. But it’s And The Sadness Prevails that I’m rediscovering, hearing the songs from a different point in my life very different from when I last gave the album a thorough listen.

When John asks me how my day was, it seems like my answer is always somewhere between “shitty” and “like someone took a giant shit on my face¹”. And when he asks what happened, I can never give him a specific incident. It’s just this depression, this sagging feeling that’s been weighing so heavily on me, because I haven’t been able to let go as easily as I’d like.

I’m trying to find my footing in the Tao Te Ching. Verse 44 in particular is speaking to me right now:

One’s own reputation — why the fuss?
One’s own wealth — why the concern?
I say, what you gain is more trouble than what you lose
Love is the fruit of sacrifice
Wealth is the fruit of generosity
Be content, rest in your own fullness —
You will not suffer from loss
You’ll avoid the snare of this world
You’ll have long life and endless blessings

The transition continues.

1. I should postscript this with a note that I wouldn’t enjoy this [↑]

Remember how I was all like I can’t stop listening to Love and Greed, and it’s not even the best song on the album? But I never mentioned the best song on the album, which is Violet’s Constellations, here:

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So Darren sent me this e-mail today:

from: Darren
to: Jeff
subject: i don’t really know

he says whereeeeee where are youuuuuuuuuu he says where are you goooooo-annnnnn!!!!!!!!!!

sheet

I’m gonna go see Magneta Lane with Jeff on Feb. 12 ion toronto
COME COME COME!!

CF a little later? I’m waiting for some guy to release some shares online

And the subject + first line are the lyrics in the best part of Violet’s Constellations in the last verse, when Lexi is singing as the keyboard kicks in again.

This is how in tune I am with Darren.

And then news of them IN CONCERT, when I had to miss the Blonde Redhead concert in Toronto last time to take part in Pat and Jen’s wedding rehearsal. I’ll definitely be taking the day off to join them this time around. Maybe visit my dad too, since that’s his birthday.

(Isn’t it insane that out of 2384 posts I have right now, I can remember the entries for these specific events?)

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(This first. Listen to the clarity of the lower octave notes that Regina adds in waves and waves at the end of the chorus; you can tell it’s a quality grand piano just from how those notes resonate — an upright would sound much muddier at the low end. This is the song that plays on day (408) and it’s fucking perfect. Also, title from the lyrics.¹)

It would appear that someone made a movie of my last relationship, and (500) Days of Summer is to #8 as Eternal Sunshine was to #4. The interesting part is that it was released early last year, during the relationship, and I wonder if it would have changed anything on my end, had I seen it then. And if she saw it now, would she understand things from my perspective? Or does she understand already? And if other people saw it, would they understand how one could unwittingly get their hopes up when things are so clear from the beginning?

I’m so glad Marc Webb, the director, treated the material with such grace. You can tell it was based on experience because the tender moments come from a real place (co-writer Scott Neustadter admitted Summer was based on a girl who “returned his kisses but not his ardor”). In an interview, Joseph Gordon-Levitt said, “I’ve had my heart broken before. Truly, truly broken. But when I look back at me in my heartbroken phase, it’s pretty hilarious, because it felt so much more extreme than it really was. One of the things I love about (500) Days of Summer is that it doesn’t make light of what we go through in romances [emphasis mine], but it is honest about it and shows it for what it is, which is often profoundly funny”, and I completely agree. I also appreciate the fact that they don’t villainize Summer because she never takes advantage of Tom², and at the same time, it doesn’t make the agonizing days he goes through any less significant or difficult. In a profound way, it brings justification to everything I was (or am) going through. I suppose I’m just waiting for the punchline.

Hah.

Watching it has left me feeling emotionally devastated lately, almost as if I’ve regressed, and lost months of progress. John says it’s because seeing it was like seeing her again, reliving the entire thing from day one, from when we had met in the office. Like a recovering alcoholic falling off the wagon and taking his first sip in 5 years. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the message, and as well as the recommendation to watch the movie from Darren.

Even though I’ve tried to completely forget and move on, I’ve come to learn it’s not that easy. It’s almost as if you have to accept the all the memories, both good and bad, as much as you accept your own qualities and flaws.

The days, months, years you spend with someone significant will inevitably change and shape you. To deny them is to deny yourself.

I found it fascinating to trace the plot developments to parts of my own story. The entries I’ve written over the last two years echo the sentiments so strikingly in dialogue, songs, and voice-overs.

This is a story of boy meets girl. The boy, Tom Hansen, of Margate, New Jersey, grew up believing that he’d never truly be happy until the day he met “the one”.

From my entry The Penultimate Letter — “My whole life, I looked for someone like you. Someone who was capable of raising me to my potential, someone who was worthy of the love I have to offer. But even then, I never knew I was capable of a love that resonated so deeply in my person.”

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1. Or is it? [↑]
2. Ironically, the gender roles are reversed, and it’s Tom’s date who’s the voice of reason here. [↑]

I know it’s late, but I’m in a jittery mood. I know I won’t be able to sleep until I get something down, because there’s so much going through my mind. But first, take this. A gift. One that I was planning on keeping to myself, but to do so would be an injustice to music and the artists.

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Listen.

Just, listen.

Mogwai is an extremely influential post-rock band, and like most bands in this genre they usually produce instrumental music, so when Stuart sings, it demands attention. And yet his voice evaporates and becomes an instrument with which we hear our own stories pulled apart with delicate tenderness, like boys pulling wings off flies.

There’s so much happiness and sadness to be felt down the spine in seven brief minutes. The latter from the tone, the former from the beauty.

If only we could see life so simply. If only we could separate the good from the bad, the love from the heartbreak. But we can’t. That’s why songs like this are composed, and that’s why words like bittersweet exist to help us define what can’t be explained.

It may feel like you’re constantly waiting for the next dawn to wash away the dust with sunlight, but at some point life ends, and life begins again.

All it takes is one day.

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There’s been a smattering of good music lately, but this is the song that haunts me; Love and Greed by Magneta Lane. I added it to my collection on the 12th of October, and it’s already in my Top 20 Most Played. By no means is it the best song on the album; it’s just the one that hit me the hardest.

To hear it as a track by itself is a little out of context. It comes as 7 of 10 off Gambling With God, their latest album, and the songs leading up to it charge at a much faster pace. The dramatic change of tone between the verses and the chorus are effective in subtly drawing you in, against lyrics that should be screamed more than anything else.

My favourite part is when Lexi says, “I don’t want recycled love / if I did I’d pour wine in a cup / and get all liquored up / and fucking crawl in front of you” when the guitar and bass stop, and it’s just Nadia doing the bum-ba-da-bum-ba-da-bum-ba-da-bum underneath on her toms.

It’s stuff like this that makes rather plain looking Lexi Valentine so goddam attractive, very much in a Karen O kind of way. I guess you could say I have a fascination with Lexi swearing, because she does it so infrequently.

So…

I gave this song to Darren, and he sent me back this reply:

shit this song is on auto-repeat right now…. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Darren’s the only person in the world who sees love the way I do. John knows me in every other way — logic, mindset, emotion, personality, habits, taste — but he doesn’t understand my love, which is a big part of me. The only one who understands is Darren¹ because we share the same quixotic ideas about it. It’s as if we developed this romantic attitude as a backlash to how our fathers (brothers, who also look the same) raised us with such aloofness. This ideal is how we bond.

One time he told me he can’t wait for the day when we’re at his house with our girlfriends, and we’re playing Cranium, and we’re just…happy.

This is how I know he’s the only person who hears this song the same way too.

1. Not even my girlfriends have come close to understanding, aside from Bronwen. [↑]

The house show (announced earlier this year) was a huge success. I moved a bunch of furniture around in the living room and transformed it from this:

To this:

There were almost 30 people crammed into my living room for a night of intimate music and an ice cream bar¹ (on which I spent nearly $100, including all the fixins). Admittedly, I got a little overstimulated and panicky somewhere in the middle, due to all people, but Pat and Jen came and talked to me, and they calmed me down. It also got really hot with all the people in there, so I cranked up the A/C a few hours ahead of time.

Arne, who goes by the stage name Duryea Hawkins and was Shane’s surprise guest musician, completely blew everyone away with his opening number, named Snowman. At the end of the song, you can hear Dan say, “Wow“. It’s so good, I have it on constant repeat at the moment.

Once again, Shane dedicated a song to me (woo!), my favourite of course, It’s A Drag. He also did a few new songs I had never heard before; one of the best parts of concerts is being able to hear new material that a musician is working on.

And for the first time, I got to see Jesse rap in person. He was going to do an all acoustic show, with several exotic instruments, but then Nick (who does the backing vocals/beats and goes by the stage name Rockefort F. Loopfrog) bought a loop machine, so they decided to use that instead. Quite different from the studio produced sounds that I’m used to hearing from Jesse, but just as good.

The artists all went home happy with the money that was donated² and made from the swag they sold.

Since it was my first house show, I really wanted to enjoy it instead of fussing with getting the proper shot, so I set up my camera and left it on in the corner. Next time, I’m going to do a bit more camera work.

1. This must have been a fairly memorable part, because people like Jess called it the Ice Cream Party instead of the House Show. [↑]
2. Legally, as the venue, I’m not allowed to make money, so I have accept “donations” as a cover charge. [↑]

When Rachel Beausoleil started working on her latest album, she approached me about designing the artwork. We sat down and threw around some ideas before she even started recording, but didn’t come up with anything solid because I didn’t have a sound to go on. All I knew was that it was a medley of songs, not like her last album where the songs followed a theme.

One day I came home to find a recording of the album in my mailbox, yet to be mastered. She named the album after the eponymous track, The Dawning, which is a jazz arrangement of the famous song Aquarius, a personal anthem of hers.

She gave me her notes soon after, so I put on the album and gave it a good listen, feeling a certain clarity from her sound. It made me think about dawn, and space, and sunrises, and hot colours, so I incorporated those elements when laying out the text, as well as some bokeh to give an off-focus glimmer.

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(I love these entries.)

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First: listen to this. Some days I feel exactly like this song. Those days are pretty good.

I remember reading the blog once of the guy who said that his aunt was Nancy. She was a Canadian woman who suffered from mental instability and killed herself (“It seems so long ago/Nancy was alone/a forty five beside her head/an open telephone”), and Cohen read about the story in the newspaper, and penned this song about her.

Anyway.

I like him. He’s very unbiased. He doesn’t try to coddle me or side with or against me or force me into thinking anything. He offers perspectives that no one else can give me.

I wasn’t sure where to start, so I just tried to bring him up to speed on my life in the time that passed between us. It began briefly with how well I was maintaining the progress we had made but quickly drifted to the relationship, and that pretty much took the rest of the session.

(From here on out, I’m going to refer to it as the relationship. Just cause I’m tired of writing “half-relationship” or “relationship” in quotes like that. I’d say that two people as involved as we were would certainly be considered to be in a relationship.)

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For a while now, I’ve had a cycle of favourite songs, but none of them have lasted very long. The “favourite” slot is only a temporary position, which should really be called “song-of-the-moment”. I realized I started doing this because none of my music is sacred anymore — every time I hear an old favourite, there’s a memory that’s associated with it — so I’ve been looking for new favourite materials, trying to find new material that’ll be mine.

Here are the last eight, in order from least to most recent (going back a few months).

Leonard Cohen — A Singer Must Die

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When I first heard this song, I didn’t know what it was about, but the words drew me in. Cohen paints this striking image of a singer in a courtroom, set to melancholy and minimalistic acoustic guitar.

Then read me the list of the crimes that are mine,
I will ask for the mercy that you love to decline.
And all the ladies go moist, and the judge has no choice,
a singer must die for the lie in his voice.

And I thank you, I thank you for doing your duty,
you keepers of truth, you guardians of beauty.
Your vision is right, my vision is wrong,
I’m sorry for smudging the air with my song.

I later discovered that Cohen wrote it about all artists eventually selling out (the lie in his voice), and this idea that women are turned on by a singer being martyred for it. I love this idea, because I’m always caught between trying to retain my artistic integrity, and at the same time trying to appeal to the masses to make money so I can continue being an artist and have better tools that would help me express myself.

Clann Zú — One Bedroom Apartment

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Declan de Barra wrote this about his fiancee of five years leaving him. It’s filled with the most intensely personal lyrics, combined with moments of distortion and starkness. In an interview, he once said that this song defines the album, Black Coats and Bandages, and he had to write parts of it in the third person because otherwise it’s just too emotional if he sang it purely from the first person. The most common line in the song, repeated quietly as the piano rolls on, is “I will never love again”. I almost wrote an entire entry dedicated to this song, because I was identifying with the lyrics so much at that moment. I read a comment once on this song that said, “The goal in life is to never be able to relate to this song”. I agree.

Muse — Map of the Problematique

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My favourite song off Black Holes and Revelations. I only like it because it moves so well. That’s pretty much it. There’s a breakdown of guitar at the 1:48 mark that gets me every time.

Clann Zú — Words For Snow

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The first song off Clann Zú’s first album completely raises the bar on anything else they ever did. I just listen for the last half of the song. It builds and it builds with the snare drum, then the music recedes, until all you can hear is Declan de Barra speaking in his thick Irish accent, right into a smattering of STRINGS and BASS and Declan screaming “AND HE CRIED OUT FOR CHRIST’S SAKE HELP ME, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE GET ME OUT OF HERE, GOD OF ALL SICK THINGS GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!” and then quarter note rests into fucking strings times two and god I just came in my pants.

Magneta Lane — Wild Gardens

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Okay, it should really be something like five songs on this list by Magneta Lane, because of their two fantastic albums, but the one that started it all was Wild Gardens (it has a cute video too). This song makes me think of sunny days, and green, and parties under foliage. I especially like it when Lexi Valentine says, “Now darling she can’t keep on waiting/Till you give a fuck that she’s fading”. I’m still saving enough money for three engagement rings so I can propose to this band.

Star Fucking Hipsters — Until We’re Dead

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This punk rock power-group, lead by Stza as his side-project from Leftöver Crack, is still characterized by the calm before (and after) the storm; in this case, gentle piano that bookends the catchy melodies and power riffs. Until We’re Dead adds the cute female vocals of Nico de Gaillo, which gives their sound a nice bit of contrast against Stza’s raspy voice.

Okay, so this song was only top for two days, but it remains in my top ten, and I still play it when I need that extra boost of energy. Works especially well as the first song when leaving the house.

No Motiv — Empty

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I finally found a copy of No Motiv’s album, And The Sadness Prevails. I first gave this song a really good listen when I was delivering cases for work, which means I was soaking up the sun on the highway, which is exactly how I’ve ever heard every other No Motiv album. So, there’s always this perpetual image of summer that I associate with them. This is probably tied as the best song on the album, purely for the hook and the lyrics in said hook:

Eventually I’ll be left here feeling empty again
I’m still so confused about the part where you said
That you’re in my way
There is no one that can give me inspiration like you
And I’m still wondering why

so I’ll keep asking
do you like what you see?
because this is all of me
so here I wait for you

Leonard Cohen — Take This Waltz

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And this brings me back to right now. I’m pretty much obsessed with this song, an English language version of the Spanish poem Pequeño vals vienés. It’s so unlike any other Cohen song before it. I like the idea of giving a song to someone, which I naturally related to. This also official marks the transition of his instruments to synthesizers, a transition I was dreading, but survived with an acquired taste.

Sometimes, when certain songs come on, a tinge of jealousy will strike me.

I’ve been known to be very possessive about my music, because songs often mark my memories and experiences. These melodies I keep to myself mean much me, and I don’t share them with just anyone. A person has to be special before I let them hear it. They have to be able to appreciate the music. They have to deserve it.

I gave her my Eva Cassidy, Blonde Redhead, Vincent Gallo, Sia, Hooverphonic, Postal Service, Iron and Wine, Knife, Mars Volta, Shane Watt, and Scott Matthew. I let her in, I shared with her so many chords that stir up emotion in me, I rendered myself vulnerable, and now I can’t listen to some of them without thinking of her. It seems unfair that I gave her so much, that I sacrificed things I hold so dear and sacred in my heart, with nothing to show for it.

But when I hear Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap, I start believing that I’ve come out ahead.

One night, we sat in silence as she showed me this haunting video, and it moves me now as much as it did when I first heard Imogen’s ethereal voice filling my head with layers upon layers of haunting harmonies. Ironically enough, it’s been helping me through this period, because I feel like I’m not the only one who was starting to get comfortable, letting the dust settle, only to have everything change, and to discover circular indentations in the carpet where the furniture used to sit, the sun-bleached discolouration on the walls outlining places where pretty pictures once hung.

This song has made up for everything, not only because it brings comfort and company to me now, but because it reminds me that everything I did was worth it too.

The only way to listen to music is with your heart in your throat and your headphones on, sitting on a curb in the shade, telling yourself you’ll be fine as long as you get the voice out of your head and the smell out of your senses, killing your top rated, wondering if you can call someone, anyone out there, to distract yourself, but no, you’ll handle it on your own, because you’re strong enough, you’ve been through the worst of it already, and this is just another thing, wondering why it’s only in situations like this that the beats pound your chest like a sledgehammer and the voices sing out achingly in place of your dumb silence.

A demonstration of the Melodica app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. There are similar apps out there — Tonepad, Synthtopia — but none of them are as simple and polished. That being said, there are a few features that could make Melodica stand out even more, such as the ability to save compositions on-the-fly and layer them under new ones, or the ability to change the sample sound, so I’m hoping they’ll be added in an update. Regardless, I’ve only had this app for a day, and I’ve been enjoying it immensely.

Some tips for composing/performing songs in Melodica:

• The rests, or spaces between the notes, are important too. Don’t feel that you need to fill the board with notes. Just like in jazz, it’s important to hear that notes that aren’t played. Sometimes a melody is strong enough that a few spartan notes by themselves are enough to establish something beautiful. Or you can places notes on every beat of a measure, except the downbeat, which subtly implies “this silence is where the downbeat is supposed to be, even though no note is being played”.
• Don’t feel that you need to use bass notes to establish a rhythm. You can switch it up with high notes as well, and have the baseline as the melody.
• Syncopation is possible. If you imagine each of the 16 squares going across as quarter notes in four bars in 4/4 time, then you can establish as rhythm by having a note at the beginning (counting as the “one”) of each bar, and the third note if you like. You can achieve a nice syncopated sound by putting a note on the second and fourth quarter note of a bar. But be careful; if you decide to remove certain notes, don’t remove the rhythm before you remove the syncopated notes. Otherwise, the listener easily loses a sense of where the downbeat is supposed to fall, it begins to sound like you’re making a mistake, and the song easily falls apart.
• Try to have a purpose, or an idea of where you want to go. Improvisation is totally one of the main advantages of Melodica, but you can still decide where you want to go during a song. If you can see the structure then it’ll be easier to work up to that ahead of time. For example, if you want a song that starts quiet, builds slowly to a climax, then crashes dramatically before re-establishing a steady pace, then you can plan out which notes to add and take away that will quickly and effectively achieve these changes.
• End your songs. Instead of just stopping, or clearing the board, fade out by taking elements away. And if you can, end your phrases, which means removing the notes from left to right as they’re being played. If you remove notes from right to left, it’ll sound like you stopped abruptly in the middle of a song. Sort of like hearing Westminster chimes without the last note, leaving the listener to wonder where the resolution is.
• Use several notes of the same pitch in a row sparingly. This is totally a personal preference, but I find I get tired of hearing these quickly.
• Songs sound better with contrast. That means keeping some space between highs, mids, and lows. Or abandoning the mid-range section altogether, since there isn’t much vertical room to compose. This is because you can create the illusion of more layers by having strongly defined parts of a song. Otherwise, it all sounds like one complex melody.

Show me Bach, she said with her hands.

Show me love, I said with my lips.