I heard a song that really caught my ear and thought “that’s what music should sound like”, and that I ought to figure out how to plunk it out on the guitar. Those old folk songs in 1960 pretty much only needed three chords, like E, A, B7, but we could play that sequence in any key, so my fingers are fluent in lots of chords. How hard could it be? This song is a more sophisticated sound than I’m used to making, but no problem, we have Google. A quick search led me to lyrics and chords. It requires several chords I’m not used to, but the real problem is the C#. I never needed a C# before. I looked up the chord diagram and told my fingers to do it. They rebelled and told me to f-off. I tried to impose my will. I tried brute force. I searched alternative fingering for a C#. None seem to work. Darn. Me and my fingers seem to be at an impasse. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to bend them to my will for this one. I’m doing fine with all the other chords in this tune, A, D, E, B (that one’s a little harder, not my favorite), F. I can pull off the F#m and the D#m (these aren’t familiar to me but I can do them); but I’m totally dead in the water with the C#. I need all the chords, and for this to make any sense, they have to just flow. Part of the problem is that my guitar is so old, the action isn’t what it used to be. Each string requires a big push, a lot of travel, to make good contact with the neck and the fret. Maybe a new high-quality guitar would help. That wouldn’t make any sense though with my only incidental interest in music now. Working on C# got me to thinking about chords and notes, and I came to a giant gap in my music knowledge. (I don’t have to head off very far in any direction to discover a gap in my music knowledge. I only ever played by ear, repeating sounds I liked. I never actually learned anything about music.) The gap that appeared before me yesterday however was about playing major and sharp chords. I play an F chord, I can slide it up to F# by moving it up a fret. Same with A and A#. But something entirely different happens with an E chord. I slide that one up one fret and it’s not an E#, it’s an F. So that means there is no such thing as an E#? I recognize the pattern on the strings and frets, sometimes there are notes between major notes, and sometimes there aren’t. Is this a difficult philosophical concept, or is this something that can easily be explained by someone who knows music, to the equivalent of a musical first grader?
Happy Birthday to me!
Judy made the family recipe birthday cake; triple layer with 7 minute frosting. OMG!
Not only that, but a plate of frosting cookies to go with it.
We passed on putting seventy candles on it; we didn’t need the fire hazard.
Homemade spaghetti dinner, followed by a sugar rush. Just what I wanted. In combined birthdays, Judy and I have now spent a total of one hundred birthdays together. Can’t imagine a better birthday present than that, unless maybe a hundred one. Of course, since it’s my birthday, I get to do anything I want. The weather is glorious, so we had morning coffee, sat in the sunshine for a while, then took a walk. Pretty tame stuff. What else can I do? I told Judy maybe I wanted to do a somersault. She wouldn’t look at me.
Not only that, but a plate of frosting cookies to go with it. We passed on putting seventy candles on it; we didn’t need the fire hazard. Homemade spaghetti dinner, followed by a sugar rush. Just what I wanted. In combined birthdays, Judy and I have now spent a total of one hundred birthdays together. Can’t imagine a better birthday present than that, unless maybe a hundred one. Of course, since it’s my birthday, I get to do anything I want. The weather is glorious, so we had morning coffee, sat in the sunshine for a while, then took a walk. Pretty tame stuff. What else can I do? I told Judy maybe I wanted to do a somersault. She wouldn’t look at me. We’re all decorated for the Holidays
This is fun
I spent ten years at the Aspen Center for Physics, once a year lecturing Michael Turner on accounting and financial statements, helping him understand; the whole while reveling in the absurdity of me lecturing him. Now I come across World Science University, and a chance to watch Michael in action in the area of *his* expertise. Wow. You have to log in to see the lecture. http://www.worldscienceu.com/ You can watch any of the videos for free. After a brief sign-up, you can click on Master Classes, All Master Classes, then click on Michael. It’s Michael Turner lecturing on Cosmology; specifically Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and Inflation. Now here is a guy who knows what he’s talking about. He knows so much, he can explain it in English, and he even knows what he doesn’t know; the questions that remain unanswered, and the mysteries that don’t even have questions yet.
I’ve been watching the presidential debates
There you have it. I’m not proud of it, but I feel better now that it’s out there. So far I’ve learned three things:
- Our election process is now a reality television game show about who can deliver the best applause line.
- I am consumed by terror about ISIS killing me and I can’t think of anything else.
- Our election is totally about who can kill ISIS the best. Who is the leader that can deliver us from our terror?
I still don’t have perspective on this, so I google causes of death per year and I get: Illicit drugs 46,000Motor vehicles 35,000Gun violence 33,000Alcohol 29,000Cannabis 0Suicide 41,000Tobacco 556,000Aspirin 450 Terrorism 30 in the last ten years The most recent numbers I found were for 2013, so they’re somewhat dated, but not terribly. The pace of terrorism is picking up. Of course we need to do something about it. But I just can’t understand why our hair is on fire. Why is every other issue we face irrelevant compared to defeating people in another part of the world, when the rest of the people in that other part of the world can’t even come to any agreement to defeat them? ISIS is a problem for us, but so are a lot of other things. ISIS is a GIANT problem for the other people in the region. Why aren’t they leading the attack?