Music Box, Or Study No 1.

Hi,
Here I am again. This was supposed to be a daily thing, but I never could get the hang of diaries. I wonder why? I think some people in life are very sure of their identities, but mine seems to shift everyday, so writing about myself seems a nearly impossible task.. Or I’m just lazy. No, but seriously, I know that I call myself slothlady, but I am not sure that I believe in laziness. That is if you define laziness as a genuine desire to do absolutely nothing. I think that in my case, maybe I do nothing sometimes because I am anxious or fearful, or bored, or sad. But do I actually have a deep rooted desire to do nothing? No, I don’t think so. On the other hand, I also do not think that leisure time is something to feel guilty about. Which I do. A lot. But I do not think that you should always be ‘useful’ or ‘productive’, words which actually mean that you should be doing what other people think that you should be doing. Sometimes you do have to please others, but sometimes you just have to please yourself as well, and not feel guilty about it. Anyway, I just finished a piece, for now anyway. Here it is. I just made a myspace, and can't figure out how to change the background yet. It is called musicbox.. because I made it from a sample taken from a music box. Alright, not a very original name. Lets try again... hmmmm. How about Study no 1? Now I know you just threw up a little in your mouths, but try to hold the rest down just long enough to hear me out. I’m not trying to make some kind of statement about how music should only be appreciated on its own terms, for the innate beauty of its language and blah blah blah, and therefore it must not be associated with words (yucky stuff), except obliquely for organizational purposes. Nope, that’s not what I mean. I was thinking more about the word study itself. I was thinking about it on the subway, actually. The subway is a great place to think. I don’t know how those headphonedrones (people who are sewn to their ipods) do it. Sometimes I wonder if they just can’t stand being inside their own heads. Wasn’t there a character like that in Fahrenheit 451? Oh yeah, it was the wife of the main character. She just sat around all day listening to her music or watching TV(feelies? was that what they called them?), no real friends or family, just insulated inside her warm cushy womb of sensory stimulation. Or maybe I'm just a jerk and the people on the subway just really like their music. Or maybe I am just too cheap to get sound canceling headphones.
Anyway..
About studying.. I was thinking that most of the art I have ever made has been a study of some kind. Of sound, of different instruments, of shapes and colours and different brushes, glues, pencils. When I dance I dance to see what new things I can do with my elbows. Drawing is the intimate study of vision, of what you see. And it is also the study of how you represent what you see using the materials you have. Drawing helps you to realize how much you never saw and how much more there is to see. And how many more ways there are to show what you see. It is also a study of yourself.
For Musicbox, or Study no 1, I guess I was studying the sound of the music box itself, processing and editing different sounds. I was also studying what I could do with the program (I tried using ultrabeat! which worked out pretty well.. I am no Aphex Twin, but I still had fun and it was remarkably simple.) I made some cool sampler instruments, and I am learning how to use ableton live, so maybe it might be performable. Also, my piece is also 2:42s long. This is the ideal length. Seriously. Look it up. There have been studies.
Also, I went to the MOMA today and saw Tim Burton... it was ok, he is obviously an animator 1st, film maker 2nd, and everything else 22nd. (But who the Fraglerock am I to talk? he is wildly successful and has an exhibit at the MOMA..) What really moved me today were the animations of William Kentridge. So beautiful, all black and white with smeary charcoal, and funny too. There’s this whole room where he made films dedicated to Melies. It has all this wonderful (magical) trick stop-motion. He also animated Mozart’s The Magic Flute in a way that made me enjoy and think about Mozart in a way that I haven’t for a really long time. Phillip Miller was the composer, and his stuff was amazing as well. It was worth at least half of the experience. Check them out. Gee I would love to collaborate with a visual artist.
So anyway, this is supposed to be a daily exercise and I really am going to try to stick to it, no matter how much I think I change in a day(can’t be that much really, though wonder how many of your cells are replaced in a day. I know that your whole body replaces itself in something like seven years(?) I dunno. Its not the actual number of years that counts, but the fact that your body REPLACES ITSELF a la The Thing, or Invasion of the Body Snatchers).
Anyway, I just put up another song too, called ma chere zombie, that I am even more proud of than musicbox(or study no 1). And I have decided to call my musical self The Ladies of Grace Adieu, after the short story by Susana Clarke, author of Johnathan Strange and Mr Norell. If you get a chance to read it, read it. Only buy the paper back because that one thousand page sucker is hard to carry around.