The new aural skills software program I downloaded is more challenging than the online version i used for a couple of months. There are days when I feel like I'm going backwards and getting worse at this than making progress. I've been so lazy today it's taken me all day long to work through the major and minor scales. It was difficult for me to stay focused on what I was doing, so I took a brief nap and felt better.
Trying to practice the scales on my new piano in between watching college basketball games can get testy. I felt compelled to watch as much of the games today as I could. I haven't been able to see many college games this year before March Madness officially cranks up. I root for the ACC teams, of course, with Carolina being my favorite team. I was able to see the last half of Carolina vs Boston College, most of the Duke vs NC State, but not much of the Wake Forest vs Miami games today. It oughta be a fun year for the ACC teams.
I went to the cafe to eat lunch today. There weren't many people there. I sat in a booth by myself and had plenty of time to work on my crossword puzzle. The only person I spoke to beside the waitress was a woman I've been friendly with for a couple of years. She stopped by my table on her way out and sat down with me for a few minutes. She has a rich boy friend I get along with okay. We flirt some, but never see each other outside of the restaurant. She's true blue to her boyfriend, and I wouldn't have it any other way. This is true for most of the people I see at the cafe. It seems like sitting together there at the restaurant for an hour or so occasionally is enough socializing for many of us. I returned home after I ate lunch. That's about it, it hasn't been an extraordinarily exciting day. Just another Saturday hanging around the house amusing myself catch as catch can.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
This has been a pretty slack day. I got so hyped up yesterday trying to rationalize my odd behavior that I think I had to compensate with a little down time. A perfect example of how the day has been for me was that just now i realized I'd let a perfectly good cup of coffee get cold before I remembered it was there. It doesn't matter because i like coffee just as well when it's cold. Luke-warm is a little disgusting.
I did most all of the scales this morning. My heart wasn't really in it, but I finally managed to finish them. Then, just to get out of the house, I drove over to the cafe where I've been a fairly regular customer for many years. Just not lately. The problem is that I've set these daily chores for myself, and sometime performing those daily rituals goes right on past my usual time for going to the cafe. Besides, many of the people I used to enjoy talking with are no longer around. The people I still know there at the cafe seem to show up just to prove they're still alive. I guess that's something to live for. I'm not sure whether I'm still alive or not. I've lost interest in many things. Nobody knows about me any more. Many of them got dead in one way or the other. They don't care about me and the minimalist world I live in either. How could they possibly?
The people who have lived in this little town most all of their life don't know what happened to me all the time i was gone from here. Besides that, I never got here until all the lifelong cliques has been formed. I was an outsider practically everywhere I took up residence. My natal family didn't have any kinfolk who lived around here for a thousand miles. There were no family ties outside my parents and siblings. We had moved in at least four other towns and as many as seven or eight different houses by the time my parents settled here. This town is not home for me like it is even to my younger brothers. The were much younger when we moved here. My older sisters? Like my mother, they wore 44E bras, that's all that mattered to the boys. They were never strangers long. Not with the boys anyway. I was never attracted to women with large breasts, I knew the downside of it.
I found it difficult to hear both of my parents and older sisters talk about Mississippi. My parents were born and raised in the same house and were surrounded by extended families. They seem to think we ought to feel bound by the same principals they were taught to value, but we weren't raised the same way. They didn't raise their own children they way they claimed was best for children to be raised. I'm convinced they wanted the best for us, but there was no family around after they moved up here to restrain or support them.
I remember when both of my parents got old and senile and wanted to go "home". Taking them to Mississippi never satisfied either of them they were home. If I live long enough that will happen to me too, but there will be no one to try to calm me down. They'll probably just put me in a straight jacket and gag me just to shut me up. That's not a lot of fun to contemplate, so I don't. I try to keep busy doing something to occupy my mind.
I wrote a poem in my early thirties that still haunts me. Sometime i think I shouldn't have written it because it seems to have acted as a mantram:
Where do you go
when there is nowhere to go,
and the place that you're at
is kind of blue,
and you've been everywhere
but the stars up above,
and you feel like
you've been up there too.
There came a time in my life when there was nowhere else to go. In deed I had been practically everywhere but the stars up above, and I'm more sure all the time that I've been there too. Whatever reasons I once had for doing what I thought was right no longer has so much value for me when the years add up. The future must be now or not at all.
I don't know how to describe what it's like to try to learn how to play the scales on the piano when I got nobody to show off to. Buying this new keyboard is very sad for me. It was a stupid thing to do. Nobody knows or cares what I'm doing out here all by myself. Not even me most of the time. The people around me in this small town think about me about as much as I think about them. Surprisingly, not even my own siblings. They're old too. They don't care any more whether what I do is a reflection on the family. They got their own families to be proud or ashamed of. Outta sight. Outta mind.
I didn't know how getting older would affect me. I am older now, and I've gotten a better idea of it. Life has a long tail, but the future grows shorter as the years add up. It's not the way the body deteriorates that's so troublesome as much as how the inevitable arrival of an eventual death becomes more prominent in this specific way. When a person gets old, they are forced by circumstance to give up all say so over what happens to them. That's not an appealing reason to live.
it's probably a little like what Fidel Castro is going through as he finally decided to retire. Dictator or not, he had to give it all up. We all have to give everything up as the years pass. What has happened to me after I turned sixty was that it became undeniable that death of natural causes loomed closer. I'm almost nine years older than that. Old people don't make new friends for the same reasons survivors in war don't make friends with the replacements. Why bother?
Death is not something I'm particularly willing to be a good sport about. Despite that, all my efforts to hold on to life is just as ludicrous as all the efforts of the people I've seen go before me. Since I don't have many resources I can't imagine the medicos will keep me alive to milk me dry. I don't seem all that worried about the prospect of getting old and dying, but what if I live? That's the tragedy of old age.
I did most all of the scales this morning. My heart wasn't really in it, but I finally managed to finish them. Then, just to get out of the house, I drove over to the cafe where I've been a fairly regular customer for many years. Just not lately. The problem is that I've set these daily chores for myself, and sometime performing those daily rituals goes right on past my usual time for going to the cafe. Besides, many of the people I used to enjoy talking with are no longer around. The people I still know there at the cafe seem to show up just to prove they're still alive. I guess that's something to live for. I'm not sure whether I'm still alive or not. I've lost interest in many things. Nobody knows about me any more. Many of them got dead in one way or the other. They don't care about me and the minimalist world I live in either. How could they possibly?
The people who have lived in this little town most all of their life don't know what happened to me all the time i was gone from here. Besides that, I never got here until all the lifelong cliques has been formed. I was an outsider practically everywhere I took up residence. My natal family didn't have any kinfolk who lived around here for a thousand miles. There were no family ties outside my parents and siblings. We had moved in at least four other towns and as many as seven or eight different houses by the time my parents settled here. This town is not home for me like it is even to my younger brothers. The were much younger when we moved here. My older sisters? Like my mother, they wore 44E bras, that's all that mattered to the boys. They were never strangers long. Not with the boys anyway. I was never attracted to women with large breasts, I knew the downside of it.
I found it difficult to hear both of my parents and older sisters talk about Mississippi. My parents were born and raised in the same house and were surrounded by extended families. They seem to think we ought to feel bound by the same principals they were taught to value, but we weren't raised the same way. They didn't raise their own children they way they claimed was best for children to be raised. I'm convinced they wanted the best for us, but there was no family around after they moved up here to restrain or support them.
I remember when both of my parents got old and senile and wanted to go "home". Taking them to Mississippi never satisfied either of them they were home. If I live long enough that will happen to me too, but there will be no one to try to calm me down. They'll probably just put me in a straight jacket and gag me just to shut me up. That's not a lot of fun to contemplate, so I don't. I try to keep busy doing something to occupy my mind.
I wrote a poem in my early thirties that still haunts me. Sometime i think I shouldn't have written it because it seems to have acted as a mantram:
Where do you go
when there is nowhere to go,
and the place that you're at
is kind of blue,
and you've been everywhere
but the stars up above,
and you feel like
you've been up there too.
There came a time in my life when there was nowhere else to go. In deed I had been practically everywhere but the stars up above, and I'm more sure all the time that I've been there too. Whatever reasons I once had for doing what I thought was right no longer has so much value for me when the years add up. The future must be now or not at all.
I don't know how to describe what it's like to try to learn how to play the scales on the piano when I got nobody to show off to. Buying this new keyboard is very sad for me. It was a stupid thing to do. Nobody knows or cares what I'm doing out here all by myself. Not even me most of the time. The people around me in this small town think about me about as much as I think about them. Surprisingly, not even my own siblings. They're old too. They don't care any more whether what I do is a reflection on the family. They got their own families to be proud or ashamed of. Outta sight. Outta mind.
I didn't know how getting older would affect me. I am older now, and I've gotten a better idea of it. Life has a long tail, but the future grows shorter as the years add up. It's not the way the body deteriorates that's so troublesome as much as how the inevitable arrival of an eventual death becomes more prominent in this specific way. When a person gets old, they are forced by circumstance to give up all say so over what happens to them. That's not an appealing reason to live.
it's probably a little like what Fidel Castro is going through as he finally decided to retire. Dictator or not, he had to give it all up. We all have to give everything up as the years pass. What has happened to me after I turned sixty was that it became undeniable that death of natural causes loomed closer. I'm almost nine years older than that. Old people don't make new friends for the same reasons survivors in war don't make friends with the replacements. Why bother?
Death is not something I'm particularly willing to be a good sport about. Despite that, all my efforts to hold on to life is just as ludicrous as all the efforts of the people I've seen go before me. Since I don't have many resources I can't imagine the medicos will keep me alive to milk me dry. I don't seem all that worried about the prospect of getting old and dying, but what if I live? That's the tragedy of old age.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Yesterday I wrote of catching up with myself playing the scales on the piano keyboard enough to return to the online ear training exercises I was working before. There was something irritating about the blatant banner advertising that competed with my attention while i was trying to get the answers to the exercises right. I decided to do another search for a different system of ear training, but instead of using "ear training" for my search query, I used "aural skills". That got more specific responses. Probably because that's what the academics call their classes on ear training.
I found a couple of free software programs designed specifically for the Mac. I downloaded a program called Aquallegro authored by Andy Van Ness.
http://andyvn.ath.cx/?sect=tech&cat=soft&topic=aqu
I made a mistake when I first installed it, and couldn't get it to work right, so I fired off an e-mail to Andy who promptly replied. He suggested a few things I might do. I figured the code got corrupted in the download, so I ended up deleting the original installation and tried again. The second time it worked just dandy. I'm pretty happy it did too. It's a really neat program. I've worked some of the exercises and figured out how to use the preference settings to suit my level of understanding.
Once I got the hang of it, I quickly became addicted to trying to keep the percentage of my correct answers high. I was happy that I got about ninety percent of the intervals right. This well-designed program is easy to operate compared to the online program.
The program is more predictably responsive than having to send my responses over the internet to find out if my answer is right or wrong. According to the traffic on the online servers, the response might take several seconds or more. It broke my stride often. With Aquallegro I make a decision about what I think the interval between the two notes might be, click on the radio button beside my choice, and the feedback is practically instant. I move on to the next exercise without hesitation. There is no spam to distract me when I work the exercises. The graphics are first-class. What's not to like? It reeks of a craftsman's pride and pedantic care-taking. I might have to make a donation out of pure admiration for his handiwork.
I worked the Interval exercises for at least an hour just now. The program plays two notes and I have to guess how many whole or half steps the notes are apart. It's a lot like the online program in that respect, so there wasn't much adjusting to do in order to work the exercises. Did I mention that it's fast?
The most noticeable part of using Aquallegro was the clarity of the notes the program provides for the exercises. The acoustic piano sounded like it was right in the room with me. It was so much more audible than the online program it appeared to have a positive influence that brought my guesswork up to the ninety percent level. I'm still grateful for the online ear training site. It's responsible for my realizing something important in my musical education was missing.
I found a couple of free software programs designed specifically for the Mac. I downloaded a program called Aquallegro authored by Andy Van Ness.
http://andyvn.ath.cx/?sect=tech&cat=soft&topic=aqu
I made a mistake when I first installed it, and couldn't get it to work right, so I fired off an e-mail to Andy who promptly replied. He suggested a few things I might do. I figured the code got corrupted in the download, so I ended up deleting the original installation and tried again. The second time it worked just dandy. I'm pretty happy it did too. It's a really neat program. I've worked some of the exercises and figured out how to use the preference settings to suit my level of understanding.
Once I got the hang of it, I quickly became addicted to trying to keep the percentage of my correct answers high. I was happy that I got about ninety percent of the intervals right. This well-designed program is easy to operate compared to the online program.
The program is more predictably responsive than having to send my responses over the internet to find out if my answer is right or wrong. According to the traffic on the online servers, the response might take several seconds or more. It broke my stride often. With Aquallegro I make a decision about what I think the interval between the two notes might be, click on the radio button beside my choice, and the feedback is practically instant. I move on to the next exercise without hesitation. There is no spam to distract me when I work the exercises. The graphics are first-class. What's not to like? It reeks of a craftsman's pride and pedantic care-taking. I might have to make a donation out of pure admiration for his handiwork.
I worked the Interval exercises for at least an hour just now. The program plays two notes and I have to guess how many whole or half steps the notes are apart. It's a lot like the online program in that respect, so there wasn't much adjusting to do in order to work the exercises. Did I mention that it's fast?
The most noticeable part of using Aquallegro was the clarity of the notes the program provides for the exercises. The acoustic piano sounded like it was right in the room with me. It was so much more audible than the online program it appeared to have a positive influence that brought my guesswork up to the ninety percent level. I'm still grateful for the online ear training site. It's responsible for my realizing something important in my musical education was missing.