5 words...
As usual, this has taken far longer than I wished it to. A couple of months ago, onebrightroad gave me 5 words as part of the meme that's going around. Below are my responses. If you would like words from me, just ask in the comments.
Hospitality
-----------
I confess that of all these words, this is the one I'm having the most difficuly with. I find this odd, because I believe very strongly in hospitality. It may be partly because it seems like such a simple concept.
Guests should be made to feel welcome. If they are hungry, they should be fed. If they are thirsty, they be given drink. If they are cold they should be made warm. If they are unhappy, they should be given cheer.
And yet... in practice it's more complicated, because guests are human. They have faults, and flaws. They may follow lifestyles or espouse political philosophies which I disagree with (perhaps especially so, if they are relatives). They may leave beer cans all over my living room. They may arrive hours or days late. They may not like my cooking, or my wine, or my decor.
So of course, I get nervous. Sometimes I flit around the house aimlessly. Touching, double checking, obsessing. Sometimes I procrastinate and prepare all in a rush, still only half-done when a guest arrives.
So it turns out that hospitality isn't simple at all. It's as complicated as people are. Maybe thats why I can't seem to write about it.
Creativity
----------
I am an engineer, a musician, a songwriter, and a poet.
I wish I knew how to be creative at will. Creativity is a slippery thing.
Creativity is about trusting your subconscious and following interesting digressions. Learning what you yourself find delightful, or interesting, or moving. Creativity gets better with practice.
Creativity is, I think closely associated with craftsmanship. Not that it has to be any kind of formal training, but fundamentally, craftsmanship is about care, and is learned by doing. Craftsmanship also gets better with practice.
Creativity leads one to follow a muse and learn her mysteries. Craftsmanship helps one express what has been learned. They are not the same.
I believe in improvisation as one way to find my muse. Improvising is frustrating when the muse is slippery, because I can play for hours and not like a single thing that I play. Improvising is blissful when the muse is present, because I can play for hours and love every sound I make.
Song
----
Song is the music that we make with our own voice. It's therefore the most intimate and personal music. It can be wordless, certainly. Listen to "Our Prayer" by The Beach Boys for an example of how profoundly intimate the unaccompanied voice can be.
When lyrics come into it, it gets more complicated. The "voice" of the singer or indeed of the songwriter, may not be the voice at the heart of the song. The voice at the heart of the song is also the human face of the song. Listeners interact with the song through that voice. Lyrics and arrangement are about focusing (or obscuring) that voice, and the image or story that the song itself is about.
A good song can mend a broken heart. It can bring you to tears or to the heights of joy. A great song can change the world. I truly believe that.
Technology
----------
I work with technology. I work on the operational side of the internet, so my perspective on things may be slightly skewed because of that. No technology is perfect. Technology contains all the flaws and brilliance of the humans who
created it. Unsurprisingly, one of my favorite examples of technology is stringed musical instruments. They aren't something that many people think of as technology, though. That's probably because we invented them a long time ago. I'm mostly a guitar player, so I'm mostly going to talk about guitars, but I love all types of stringed instruments. They're amazing things.
If you think about it, they are masterpieces of innovation. The problem space is easily defined. How to you modulate and amplify the frequencies generated by a piece of wire, gut, or string, held at a specific tension, and moving at it's resonant frequency?
There are dozens of engineering problems to be solved:
How do you anchor the strings?
How is the tension adjusted?
What do you make the body of the instrument from?
How do you trigger and damp the motion of individual strings?
And those are just the physical problems encountered in the construction of the instrument. When you start looking at the acoustic properties of the system, things get really esoteric. How you couple the resonance of the strings to body makes a difference. So do the acoustic properties of various materials. These considerations extend even to the realm of solid-bodied electric guitars. Serious collectors will even argue at length about the acoustic effects of different kinds of paint.
Of course, all of the engineering choices also affect the interface. To a musician, the "feel" of an instrument can be more important than any objective measure of "quality" of construction and tone. Often the interface that suits
one musician might not suit another at all. What's interesting to me is that this is even true on the micro scale. I use heavy strings on my guitars, for example. It suits me, and my way of playing, but my fellow guitarists mostly
think I'm crazy for doing it.
Because no technology is perfect, no instrument is perfect. The best we can hope for is useful and beautiful. Usefulness is important in technology. Technology doesn't exist for it's own sake, but exists to help humans do something. Instruments, in my opinion, like all technology, should be used and maintained.
Devotion
--------
She comes over me like a cloak
Her Flame on my brow
Her Words on my lips
Her Mantle on my shoulders
Let me be worthy of Her gift
.
Hospitality
-----------
I confess that of all these words, this is the one I'm having the most difficuly with. I find this odd, because I believe very strongly in hospitality. It may be partly because it seems like such a simple concept.
Guests should be made to feel welcome. If they are hungry, they should be fed. If they are thirsty, they be given drink. If they are cold they should be made warm. If they are unhappy, they should be given cheer.
And yet... in practice it's more complicated, because guests are human. They have faults, and flaws. They may follow lifestyles or espouse political philosophies which I disagree with (perhaps especially so, if they are relatives). They may leave beer cans all over my living room. They may arrive hours or days late. They may not like my cooking, or my wine, or my decor.
So of course, I get nervous. Sometimes I flit around the house aimlessly. Touching, double checking, obsessing. Sometimes I procrastinate and prepare all in a rush, still only half-done when a guest arrives.
So it turns out that hospitality isn't simple at all. It's as complicated as people are. Maybe thats why I can't seem to write about it.
Creativity
----------
I am an engineer, a musician, a songwriter, and a poet.
I wish I knew how to be creative at will. Creativity is a slippery thing.
Creativity is about trusting your subconscious and following interesting digressions. Learning what you yourself find delightful, or interesting, or moving. Creativity gets better with practice.
Creativity is, I think closely associated with craftsmanship. Not that it has to be any kind of formal training, but fundamentally, craftsmanship is about care, and is learned by doing. Craftsmanship also gets better with practice.
Creativity leads one to follow a muse and learn her mysteries. Craftsmanship helps one express what has been learned. They are not the same.
I believe in improvisation as one way to find my muse. Improvising is frustrating when the muse is slippery, because I can play for hours and not like a single thing that I play. Improvising is blissful when the muse is present, because I can play for hours and love every sound I make.
Song
----
Song is the music that we make with our own voice. It's therefore the most intimate and personal music. It can be wordless, certainly. Listen to "Our Prayer" by The Beach Boys for an example of how profoundly intimate the unaccompanied voice can be.
When lyrics come into it, it gets more complicated. The "voice" of the singer or indeed of the songwriter, may not be the voice at the heart of the song. The voice at the heart of the song is also the human face of the song. Listeners interact with the song through that voice. Lyrics and arrangement are about focusing (or obscuring) that voice, and the image or story that the song itself is about.
A good song can mend a broken heart. It can bring you to tears or to the heights of joy. A great song can change the world. I truly believe that.
Technology
----------
I work with technology. I work on the operational side of the internet, so my perspective on things may be slightly skewed because of that. No technology is perfect. Technology contains all the flaws and brilliance of the humans who
created it. Unsurprisingly, one of my favorite examples of technology is stringed musical instruments. They aren't something that many people think of as technology, though. That's probably because we invented them a long time ago. I'm mostly a guitar player, so I'm mostly going to talk about guitars, but I love all types of stringed instruments. They're amazing things.
If you think about it, they are masterpieces of innovation. The problem space is easily defined. How to you modulate and amplify the frequencies generated by a piece of wire, gut, or string, held at a specific tension, and moving at it's resonant frequency?
There are dozens of engineering problems to be solved:
How do you anchor the strings?
How is the tension adjusted?
What do you make the body of the instrument from?
How do you trigger and damp the motion of individual strings?
And those are just the physical problems encountered in the construction of the instrument. When you start looking at the acoustic properties of the system, things get really esoteric. How you couple the resonance of the strings to body makes a difference. So do the acoustic properties of various materials. These considerations extend even to the realm of solid-bodied electric guitars. Serious collectors will even argue at length about the acoustic effects of different kinds of paint.
Of course, all of the engineering choices also affect the interface. To a musician, the "feel" of an instrument can be more important than any objective measure of "quality" of construction and tone. Often the interface that suits
one musician might not suit another at all. What's interesting to me is that this is even true on the micro scale. I use heavy strings on my guitars, for example. It suits me, and my way of playing, but my fellow guitarists mostly
think I'm crazy for doing it.
Because no technology is perfect, no instrument is perfect. The best we can hope for is useful and beautiful. Usefulness is important in technology. Technology doesn't exist for it's own sake, but exists to help humans do something. Instruments, in my opinion, like all technology, should be used and maintained.
Devotion
--------
She comes over me like a cloak
Her Flame on my brow
Her Words on my lips
Her Mantle on my shoulders
Let me be worthy of Her gift
.