Links
Archives
curious thoughts and remembrances
Saturday, November 22, 2003
She was captivating... almost.
Today I attended a lecture given by Dr. Jean Claude Risset. He is one of the foremost names in the history of computer music. He is French, and he is a pleasant lecturer. His lecture concerned human perception of musical sound. Specifically, he discussed some of the discrepencies between physics-based predictions of acoustic phenomena and human perception. In other words, we filter what we encounter. We color it. Our reality (aurally) is not what would be predicted, objectively. You double the frequency of a tonal cluster and it should be raised by an octave, right? Naw. Sometimes, depending on the harmonic relations among the cluster, it actually seems to lower in tone. Insane.
He was open for questions at the end of the lecture. There was only one question I wanted to ask him, but I refrained: How can I be like you? You majored in physics. You independently studied music composition and piano. You are often-cited and well-know in your (albeit mostly-unknown) great field. What do I do? Where should I go? Stanford? MIT? IRCAM?
I'm growing a mustache, much to the dismay of females everywhere. I am now horrid. A prickly (and stiff) upper lip. Oh, and sideburns. Those are growing too. All of it's so damned BLONDE though... where the hell did that come from? Surely not my 1/16th Native American ancestors. Or maybe it's 1/32nd. One of those powers of two.
I woke up today for work and looked in the mirror. The skin under my eyes was a rich blue. I think. I'm horrible with colors. I have some sort of mental-block colorblindness. I used to draw trees with green trunks and brown leaves. I feel like I'm missing out on a fundamental human enjoyment. For me, color perception is an arduous mental process. "Hm, it's paper, so it's white. But it doesn't look quite white. It's... off-white." "Chad, that paper is green." "Oh yeah, I can see that now, sure." Maybe that's why I like sound so much, and why I like to wear bright colors. At least I can tell what colors they are. Goodnight.
He was open for questions at the end of the lecture. There was only one question I wanted to ask him, but I refrained: How can I be like you? You majored in physics. You independently studied music composition and piano. You are often-cited and well-know in your (albeit mostly-unknown) great field. What do I do? Where should I go? Stanford? MIT? IRCAM?
I'm growing a mustache, much to the dismay of females everywhere. I am now horrid. A prickly (and stiff) upper lip. Oh, and sideburns. Those are growing too. All of it's so damned BLONDE though... where the hell did that come from? Surely not my 1/16th Native American ancestors. Or maybe it's 1/32nd. One of those powers of two.
I woke up today for work and looked in the mirror. The skin under my eyes was a rich blue. I think. I'm horrible with colors. I have some sort of mental-block colorblindness. I used to draw trees with green trunks and brown leaves. I feel like I'm missing out on a fundamental human enjoyment. For me, color perception is an arduous mental process. "Hm, it's paper, so it's white. But it doesn't look quite white. It's... off-white." "Chad, that paper is green." "Oh yeah, I can see that now, sure." Maybe that's why I like sound so much, and why I like to wear bright colors. At least I can tell what colors they are. Goodnight.
