Vicious Lilting

I Moved!

2010-10-30T18:55:00.000-04:00

MegKramer.com

Elevator Music [AUDIO]

2010-09-26T16:09:00.001-04:00

Music for Elevators by Meg Kramer

Nothing Broken / Nothing Burned [AUDIO]

2010-08-31T23:32:00.003-04:00

This is an excerpt from a work-in-progress. Scratch vocal...well, scratch everything. But shareable.

Nothing Broken Clip by Meg Kramer

On the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque"

2010-08-26T20:11:00.003-04:00

I've been wanting to write something about this, but couldn't quite find the words. I wrote the lines below as a response to a friend's Facebook post, and it seemed just about right:

I am not prone to bouts of patriotic fervor, but I am proud to live in a country which protects its citizens' right to practice the religion of their choice, and I am inspired beyond measure by the tolerance and openness practiced every day in the city I call home.

Prohibiting the construction of a house of worship is much more an affront to my values than the building itself could ever be, no matter how unpopular the religion in question.

If you have questions about the Park51 project, check out their FAQ.

A public place is a portal...

2010-08-24T17:26:00.002-04:00

I took a break from my big non-fiction project over the last week or so. Seems like I've needed to take a step back from it. In the meantime, I've been revisiting some unfinished stories and new ideas. I think the time has been good, but I ought to get back to the big one.

So, the big non-fiction project is a series of essays and tangents that all relate back to the public parks in my hometown. When I started working on it, I didn't expect it to be any longer than maybe 15 pages (typed, double-spaced, one-inch margins). I had a whole bunch of ideas about what it might be, but I didn't think it would really be something that I would invest a lot of time working on. But, while researching the parks, I've discovered that these public places give me access to moments in time that I normally wouldn't reflect upon - moments of my own history, and that of my community. Some of those moments are nice. Some of them are dark, and difficult to write about. The places act like a prism, filtering the components that form a culture, and culture is complicated.

So, back to it...

Learning by doing

2010-08-12T18:49:00.005-04:00

Project Waldo (Image by Nate Simpson)

Last fall, my roommate Hermann (who has since returned to Iceland, boooo!) sent me a link to a blog called Project Waldo, by a fellow named Nate Simpson. Nate quit his job back in January of 2009, and planned to create a storyboard for the film he'd been dreaming of making for ten years. But few months into the project, he scrapped the film and decided to create a comic book instead.

The blog has documented his progress as he has learned "how to make a comic by making a comic," and I think it's fascinating. I've often heard people say that they don't want to read work on making art - writing, making music, etc. - unless the artist is famous, or has attained some kind of recognition for their work. I think that what those people usually mean is that they don't want to hear pronouncements on how art ought to be made, unless it comes from someone they respect. But there are other ways to write about, and talk about, the process of creation, and I like to hear what it's like for other people who, like me, know that they don't have the answers, but can share their failures and successes as they try to figure out how to make their art live up to their dreams.

That's what I hope this blog will eventually be - a document of things that I've tried, strategies that worked, and snapshots of those occasions when I've fallen flat on my face.

Tally-ho!

Hey, nose! Meet grindstone.

2010-08-11T22:36:00.002-04:00

Not an actual grindstone

I am still in the thick of this nonfiction project I've been working on all summer. It's starting to look like it wants to be a lot longer than I imagined at the beginning. I've been kind of stuck lately, because writing about real people brings all of these ethical issues into play, and it just makes me want to stop writing and start watching television or playing video games or developing some kind of hobby that doesn't involve pressuring myself to create something that kicks ass. But let's not kid ourselves. I love the pressure.

And now I have all of these ideas for other, new, shiny projects just flooding in, and I haven't been letting myself work on anything else all summer. Maybe this is a mistake. Sometimes it's right to really focus on one thing until it's finished, but when I have multiple projects it often seems like they end up feeding one another, and they all end up better than they would have without the others. So I think it's time to try branching out for just a little while, to let myself get some perspective.

The summer reading is going well. I've been taking advantage of the public library, and I have a great pile of books on my mantle (yes, I really have a mantle). I stumbled across this fantastic little collection of Soviet short stories, and it has some gems. When I'm done, I'll post a review up here.

Photographic Memory

2010-08-03T13:30:00.004-04:00

I'm kind of in love with this photo. It was taken with expired B&W film on the Diana Mini camera I received as a graduation gift. I took it about a month ago, but it looks like history, or somebody else's memory.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about different ways to represent the ways we experience different places, and the way we experience the memories of a place. The sort of territorial, proprietary feelings we (okay, maybe just I) get about the places we've lived, whether we loved them or hated them or were just passing through.

I've lived in my current apartment for about a year and a half, and I have no plans to leave in the immediate future. Looks like this is going to be the longest I've stayed put since I was eighteen. I've been immersed in a writing project about my hometown, so I've been spending a lot of mental time in Southwest Missouri circa 1990...but I think I am just about ready to turn my focus to the city.

The NorthSkirt & the Happy Hacker Dance [VIDEO]

2010-07-30T22:07:00.006-04:00

This video fills my heart with joy.

Meredith Scheff made the NorthSkirt out of a hacked NorthPaw kit, home-made flexible PCBS and conductive thread.

And love.

[via Bad Astronomy]

Summer Reading and Quickie Reviews

2010-07-29T18:11:00.006-04:00

Round One - Done and Done

Bolaño, Roberto. Monsieur Pain - Didn't rock my world like Bolaño usually does. But a fun read, with good surprises.

Perec, Georges. A Void - A novel written in French without the letter E, translated to English without the letter E. Recommended only if the idea of a novel without Es really excites you. I was all wound up about the idea of it, but found the book tedious after the first few chapters. Still, the E-less re-working of Poe's "The Raven" made it all worthwhile.

Richards, D. J. Zamyatin; A Soviet heretic - This was a mistake. I meant to get the book called A Soviet Heretic by Zamyatin. This was a slim little book about Zamyatin - very meh.

Hrabal, Bohumil. Closely Watched Trains - Good. Love me some Hrabal. Now I need to track down the film.

Larsson, Stieg. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - Because a girl's gotta read something on the airplane.

Markson, David. The Last Novel - Still thinking this one over.

Round Two - Aaaand GO!

Nabokov, Vladimir. The Original of Laura

McCann, Colum. Let the Great World Spin

Zamyatin, Yevgeny. A Soviet Heretic

Various. Soviet Short Stories

And I'm still waiting for a haiku collection.

A Short Leash [IMAGE]

2010-07-27T23:54:00.001-04:00

Something For Your Ears! [AUDIO]

2010-07-17T14:24:00.002-04:00

It's been a while since I posted any sound. So here's a song:

I Let It Stay by Listing

We recorded this one in January of '09. I think we've been keeping it all under wraps long enough...

Under Construction

2010-06-17T10:53:00.002-04:00

Big life changes in the last few weeks. Mostly good ones. I graduated, got a job, and made some decisions.

I'm working for a tech startup, and it's pretty fun and exciting so far. I have been learning a lot, and I'm getting opportunities to write, to be creative, and to take on responsibility. It's a big change from my last few jobs...in a very good way. The funny thing is, I applied for this job the week before graduation. I had signed on with a temp agency as a last resort, because all of my resumes were going out into the void with no response. Temping wasn't quite what I had in mind for myself when I went back to finish my degree, but I was down to the wire with no good leads. Still, I had this superstitious kind of feeling that if I kept looking, I would find something at the very last minute that would be perfect for me. And then I did.

The mixed blessing is that I'm only working three days a week right now. This makes my checking account sad. I'll have to figure out a way to make more money before too long, but I'm scraping by for now. The upside is that it's giving me a lot of time to focus on some personal projects, and it seems like this is a good time for me to be frugal, go to the gym, spend some time on my own, do some cocooning, make some progress, and figure out some long-term plans for myself.

I'm participating in a writing workshop this summer, and I hope that it's going to help me gain some creative momentum. I worry that - now that I'm out of school and don't have deadlines or assignments - I won't be able to find the motivation to keep working on my writing projects. I'm probably going to apply for an MFA program in creative writing, and I can imagine it being very easy to keep putting it off until next year, then the next, then the next. So, in the workshop, I'm trying to get rolling on the project that I'm planning to use as my portfolio. It's a non-fiction project that is rather close to my heart, which makes it easy to think about and talk about, but it's difficult to meet the standard that I have imagined for the piece. I think I may have had a breakthrough on the subway yesterday, though, so hopefully I've reached a turning point. The goal is to get it in shape by the end of the summer, so I can send out applications at the end of the year...

Shadows, Textures, Reflections

2010-05-15T01:18:00.004-04:00

Photography Final Presentation from Meg Kramer on Vimeo.

A photography portfolio.

Onward and Upward

2010-04-20T21:07:00.003-04:00

Where there is change, there is opportunity. That's one of those things that people say to other people, when that second group of people is freaking out about, say, job-hunting.

I am job-hunting, but I'm not freaking out...yet. I'm embracing the opportunity that will, doubtless, present itself to me, but not without much searching and effort on my part, because that is how a quest works. I'm writing cover letters that, hopefully, express with some sincerity my many fine qualities, useful skills, and general strength of character. I'm graduating in one month and I am not freaking out. But I'm really going to miss The New School and the freedom it has afforded me to explore so many different interests. And I'm also going to miss doing most of my work in my pajamas.

Hello, Sunshine

2010-03-19T12:33:00.002-04:00

The park across the street is a Wi-Fi hotspot, and the weather forecast predicts high temps in the 70s for today. So why am I still in my pajamas? C'mon laptop, let's get us some vitamin D.

Hello, sunshine. Hello, springtime. Hello, sandals. I've missed you.

CHAdeMO: Resurrecting the Electric Car

2010-03-19T12:28:00.003-04:00

What’s a coalition of automotive heavyweights without a little whimsy? CHAdeMO wants you to drink green tea while you charge your electric car.

Read the article on Temporist.

Microactivism: If We Ran the World

2010-03-13T02:23:00.012-05:00

“We want to tap the single largest pool of untapped natural resource in the world: human good intentions that never translate into action.”

Here's my post on Temporist.

Updates

2010-03-02T23:27:00.003-05:00

So, the big news right now is that I've just started contributing to futurist blog Temporist. This means that I am spending ever more time reading science news and trying to imagine what other people will find interesting. I, of course, get excited about it all. I'm trying hard to work my way to a bloggier/informal style, but gosh, it's hard not to skew academic when writing about stem cell research.

The other biggish news is that I've started sending some short stories out to journals for consideration. Already got a rejection letter and everything. I'm not discouraged about it; this is rite of passage. It would probably be some kind of jinx if my first piece were to be accepted somewhere immediately. One nice thing about the process is that I had to write a short personal bio, so I spent some time thinking about how to make myself sound like I've accomplished things in my life (and I HAVE accomplished things, I just haven't been paid for any of the work I'm proud of). So watch for my "About Me" blurb on this blog to change sometime soon. You'll be surprised at how cool I am. And to think you never knew...

My projects for my life right now are:
Write about the future.
Continue working on the electricity piece. (I think it wants to be a book!)
Wrap up some short stories that have been lingering unfinished.
Stay in touch with people who have been supportive or encouraging.
Keep up with the schoolwork.
Update my resume.
Find a JOB!

Human Embryonic Stem Cell Treatment Approved for Trials by FDA (Temporist)

2010-03-02T23:04:00.004-05:00

In March of 2009, President Obama issued an executive order that lifted barriers on human stem cell research. One year has passed, and the FDA has just granted orphan drug designation to the a human embryonic stem cell derived therapy.

Read the full story on Temporist.

Bio-Inspired Networks (Temporist)

2010-02-28T22:53:00.003-05:00

My first post for futurist blog Temporist is on mathematical models that draw upon the efficiency and robustness of networks found in slime mold and leaf veins. Click for the full piece: Bio-Inspired Networks.

Flute Practice: Butchering Bach

2010-02-06T20:18:00.005-05:00

Siciliano from Flute Sonata No 2 in E flat

My flute has been sitting untouched in its case underneath my desk. Before that, the case was gathering dust under my bed in my previous apartment, and in the place I lived before that, it was shoved in the storage space under the stairs. I can't remember how old I was when I started playing - ten years old? eleven? - so let's just say I've been carrying this thing around with me for almost twenty years.

I've misplaced my music stand, but that hardly matters, because I've also lost all of the sheet music I've ever had.

First I played in my school band. I took lessons for a hot minute, at Palen Music Center, the shiny modern music store on the south side of town. But I was never much for practicing or for showing up on time for appointments, so the lessons ended after a few weeks. Still, without lessons and with minimal practice, I was always second chair in my school band, out of about fourteen flute players. Sure, first chair was miles ahead of me, but I figured she probably practiced or something.

I didn't want to go out for marching band in high school, so I took some time off from the flute, until I started playing at church. Music was always the part of Mass that I related to most, that felt most transcendent, so playing felt appropriate, even though I was distancing myself from the Catholic Church at the time.

While I was in high school, I started my first band, and seem to remember being reluctant to play flute in that context. I was already a female vocalist in rock music, and I thought that my voice was too young and girly-sounding. Playing the flute would just be too much femininity for rock and roll. But somehow, I was persuaded to give it a try, and somehow, it worked. Playing the flute in a rock band taught me to improvise, and to experiment with the range of effects I could produce with the instrument, and while I never thought of myself as a skilled flautist, I felt like I was good at what I was trying to do.

But then I moved to New York, the band split, and my flute started gathering dust.

So, five years later, I've played perhaps three or four times. Every time I've played I sound worse than the time before. My intonation is shot and my fingers have lost any dexterity they had. I went to Missouri to work on music last month and I forgot to bring my flute.

So I get back to New York. Some combination of festering guilt, momentum from working like mad on the Listing album, and external factors (other people asking "Hey, d'you ever play your flute anymore?" and "Hey, you should really play your flute!") actually created a perfect storm of motivation and I cracked open the case for the first time in over a year.

I find some sheet music online. Scales. I try to play. Ugh.

It is then necessary to find a fingering chart, because I seem actually to have forgotten how to play some of the notes.

I used to be able to read music. I was always pretty lame at sight reading, but I knew my treble clef. Now I'm catching myself using the old mnemonics: FACE, and Every Good Boy Does Fine (or, alternately, Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge!).

A few days of practice later, and I'm kind of feeling like I am getting the scales under control. I decide to buy some supplies as a birthday gift to myself. So, I am now the proud owner of a book of sheet music for flute, and my music stand should be delivered on Monday. And I just spent an hour trying to attack Bach's Sonata No. 2 in E Flat (listen above), which I decided to learn first because I thought it looked easier (ha!) than some of the others. In conclusion: practicing is still no fun, but finally getting the first eight measures (kinda sorta) right is a really good feeling.

Studio Recap: Day Fourteen

2010-01-19T15:34:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, Monday, was our last day in the studio.

We started by recording backing vocals for "Sunday." Joe, Jonathan, and I all gathered round the microphone and did our best to harmonize (with minimal giggling). I had my doubts as to whether it would sound good - I suspected that we'd have to multitrack our individual harmony parts to get the right balance - but it actually turned out great. Also, we learned that bluetooth liberates us from the necessity of having an engineer in the control room at all times. Jonathan brought his wireless keyboard into the live room and used it to run ProTools. This wouldn't work for every recording situation; usually we need ears in the control room, as well as hands to man the levels, EQ, etc. But I remember being told in audio school that "you can't be on both sides of the glass at the same time," and that's just not entirely true anymore. Hooray for technology!

We listened to some Kylie Minogue to get some ideas for "producer-y" things to do with the vocals for "The Constant," which has evolved enormously from its beginnings as an accordion improvisation. So I sang 'em with as much sass as I could muster, and we played with harmonies, filters and even flange. I'm really happy with the end result. It's a sort of gleefully demented, deconstructed/reconstructed pop song.

We've been playing with ideas for "You and I in the Formidable Fire," and on a whim, I decided to play around with a keyboard part. That worked, and Joe added some string sounds (I think he grabbed them from our violin session a few days ago), and it all just fell into place.

So, after about 12 hours of sometimes tedious but ultimately rewarding work in the studio, I decided to go on a dinner run (I was also planning to pick up a bottle of champagne to pop when we finished). It was about 10pm, and Jonathan followed me out, in order to lock the door behind me. When I stepped outside, I heard a loud crash - glass breaking in the parking lot behind the studio, near where our (borrowed from my parents) car was parked.

Long story short, we interrupted a man who was in the process of breaking into the car parked next to us. The kerfluffle that followed involved three drunken rednecks, two 911 calls, and a whole passel of police officers. Joe got punched in the face. One of the guys who assaulted him was picked up by the cops.

We decided to call it a night.

Studio Recap: Day Thirteen

2010-01-17T22:46:00.004-05:00

I Prepare to Sing

I finished writing the lyrics for "The Constant," and recorded a passable scratch vocal.

Joe and Jonathan worked on some final arrangement decisions for "You & I in the Formidable Fire."

Joe polished "The Falsified Documents of Ms. B." into a state of near-finishedness.

Jonathan worked on a new verse for "Is There Something Different...?"

Tomorrow will be our last day in the studio. It's a bit bittersweet - I'm ready to get back to NY, back to my friends and real life, but I wish we had more time to work on a few of these songs. Then again, I'm feeling pretty wrung out - I don't think I'd be able to keep up this rate of creative output much longer. Having a deadline can make it possible to push harder.

Studio Recap: Day Twelve

2010-01-17T15:33:00.004-05:00

Cinnamon Pecan Roll from Amycakes

We took a trip to the bakery. Spent much of the day writing lyrics for "The Constant." Joe rocked the vocals for "Sunday," after intensive coaching/bullying. We went out for lunch: beer and fried fried fried. Had tummyaches later.

Studio Recap: Day Eleven

2010-01-16T14:06:00.002-05:00

Joseph Rocks the Melodica

After our Thursday of marvels, there was no way that Friday could measure up. Indeed, it was a grind of a day, although we started strong, with a few small edits to three songs that helped them shine a little brighter.

Much of the day was devoted to vocal work for Joe, and I think he was experiencing something like what I went through a few days ago: the frustration of the endless vocal takes. One of the downfalls of our glorious modern recording technology is that you can record a song, and think it sounds great - or good, or good enough - but when you sit down and listen to the playback, you hear all of these small - or major - imperfections that you couldn't hear while you were singing. It can be very discouraging. But Joe also managed to rock out on the melodica and trombone, so the day had its moments. And Jonathan is playing with Ableton Live more (normally he works in ProTools or Logic, but Joe and I both tend to work in Ableton for our other projects), so it was a day of working and learning.

I have been working away at writing lyrics for a song we are calling "The Constant." So far it is proving elusive.

Studio Recap: Day Ten

2010-01-15T15:11:00.007-05:00

Slinkyvision

Thursday was a day of marvels.

Moods were good, the weather was glorious, we were silly, and I was reunited with my beloved Slinky.

We are beginning to cross songs off the to-do list. We made some mix decisions for "I Let It Stay." Just a few simple changes made all of the difference, and the song has a lot more pizazz now. We also recorded keys and guitar for "Sunday," and the Anti-Tank Guitar for "The Falsified Documents of Ms. B."

Joe Plays Anti-Tank Guitar

I was most excited by the work I did on vocals. I've been feeling really down on my voice lately, and even though I knew that I would get the performances I wanted eventually, I was starting to worry. The combination of lack of practice with the cold weather and dry indoor heating was really creating some havoc in my upper respiratory system. Thankfully, temps have been much milder in the last few days, and yesterday was the first day that I sounded like myself (to myself). So we recorded final vocals for "Ivy Choir" and "Her Gentleman Caller," two songs that I've been wanted to get another crack at since last January. Here's the OLD VERSION of "Her Gentleman Caller." We almost gave up and decided to keep this vocal, but the new one feels so much better in my ear-holes. You can hear the new one soon, I promise!

Her Gentleman Caller by Listing

It's a sweet little song about a lady who sets her hair on fire, a partly autobiographical story. Of course, when I did it, it really was an accident...

Studio Recap: Day Nine

2010-01-14T16:36:00.004-05:00

We only had a few hours in the studio, so I spent them working on my vocal for "It Pushes Back" (formerly called "Shivers and -Umbles," which was formerly known as "Slinkitzer"). We ran into an all-too-common problem: I loved the sound of the scratch vocal, and we were unable to match it on the day we set out to do the final vocal. Unfortunately, there were too many problems with the scratch (the vocal in the clip I posted on January 10) for us to keep it - it was the first time I actually sang the song, so there were some melody and timing problems, and I had made some lyric changes. I can live with the vocal as it is now, but I am not in love with the sound or the performance, so I'll probably revisit it if we have time.

While I tried to tweak the vox, Joe worked on a Casio keyboard line for "Sunday" (formerly known as "Convey"), and Jonathan played with some ideas for "I Let It Stay," the pop song with hate in its heart.

Studio Recap: Day Eight

2010-01-14T16:27:00.002-05:00

We spent the vast majority of the day Tuesday working on a song entitled "The Falsified Documents of Ms. B." It's one we wrote last year, and it never quite sat right with the rest of the album, so we tried some different arrangement ideas. Joe had been taking the lead on vocals on this one, but we played with some call & response vox. It's not quite there, but getting closer.

We had to wrap up early, because the studio was booked for the evening, so Joe and I went to the pub, had some beers, and tried to work on prioritizing...

Studio Recap: Day Seven

2010-01-11T20:39:00.004-05:00

Jonathan Holds the Power of ProTools in His Heart.

Joseph at the Drums

Monday was Drumday. Joe and Jonathan did drum takes for a few of the older songs - "All Forward All," "On the Island," and "Más Más Más" - as well as the new song which I am now calling "Shivers and Umbles." Nice work, guys! I assistant-engineered a little bit, but mostly I worked on lyrics for "The Constant" and provided my invaluable input.

I also taught Joe a few important things about how to use Twitter (@ replies and such) which I am sure he will never use.

Studio Recap: Day Six

2010-01-10T01:15:00.005-05:00

It was a short Saturday in the studio: 6pm-10:30pm. I tried some vocals, but sounded pretty rough, so I'm holding out for better weather and restored respiratory bits.

Here's a clip of the song formerly known as "Slinkitzer" with my scratch vocal from Friday:
Shivers and -Umbles by Listing

I might tweak the lyrics a bit, but I don't think the first attempt was too bad. Joe and Jonathan played with some drum, bass, and guitar ideas for this one, but ultimately we weren't able to check anything off the list that night.

Sunday was a day off (I saw The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus with my brothers), so we're much refreshed for the new week.

Notes on writing lyrics

2010-01-09T21:06:00.007-05:00

Sometimes people ask me how I write songs, and I usually give cagey, unspecific answers. This is mostly because I can ramble endlessly on the topic, and partly because the writing of songs is, in my experience, a lengthy and frustrating process that I don't imagine would be as interesting to others as they might suppose.

However, because I am in the midst of a songwriting frenzy, I thought this might be a good time to organize some thoughts on the subject - specifically, on writing lyrics.

In these current sessions with Joe and Jonathan, the composition process has been very collaborative. We usually begin with instruments; it is rare for us to begin with a vocal melody and to write instrumental parts to accompany it. In the beginning, we usually have a rather bare-bones musical arrangement, and maybe some idea of what the song could be about. Sometimes we have a title, and sometimes the title determines the lyrical content of the piece. Other times the original title ends up being discarded after the lyrics are written.

On Monday, we began writing the song provisionally titled "Slinkitzer." We started with a wandering Wurlitzer/guitar/walkietalkie jam. Joe had mentioned to me that he wanted to have a song about capillary action. To paraphrase, he said we should have a song about things being pulled through other things. So I looked up related terms on Wikipedia: capillary, capillary action, wick, and I followed all of the "See Also" links. I wrote down words that interested me from the entries, words like "perfused" and "everted." I looked at pictures of frost flowers (ice formations that are formed as the result of capillary action in plants) and from there I looked up other types of frost: hoarfrost, hard rime and soft rime. I went through my notes from the last few months to see if I could grab words or images (no dice there, this time, though usually this kind of synchronicity does pop up). I wrote a list of words that I liked that day, words like wish and asp and aluminum. I wrote a list of colors that have been mentioned in the songs we have already written for the album, and then a list of colors that have not yet been named. I wrote down this question: Would you draw me through?

Another resource that I tapped was a book that I recently started reading: Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them. There were a surprising number of instances of the term "capillarity."

I also grabbed some phrases from Joe's notes. "It pushed back" and "radiator smell." We have agreed that we can steal words from one another. Don't worry.

We came back to the "Slinkitzer" recording on Thursday, and made some structural decisions about which chord progressions would comprise the verses, choruses, etc. These decisions made, we put an audio file on my iPod and I spent much of Thursday and Friday listening to the song on repeat while trying to organize my lists of words into lyrics.

So far as I can tell, there are no rules for lyric writing. Sometimes the lyrics and melody seem to spring from my mind fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus. Upon further reflection though, I have to admit that those moments that feel like inspiration are usually the result of months of verbal accumulation - ideas, notes taken, things people have said. Other times, it takes ages for lyrics to sit right in the song. Sometimes I write the whole thing out in sequence on a piece of paper and the words stay that way. Other times I shuffle things around.

For this song, I did a lot of shuffling. To make it easier to switch things around and organize, I used a program called FreeMind, free mind-mapping software that I usually use to outline essays and papers. You can see an image of the song in progress at the top of this post. This song is a lot more wordy than my lyrics usually get, so using this software really helped me to play with/refine meter and phrasing, without wasting tons of paper. I also find that switching up writing media can help me get through blocks, so going from pen & paper to computer can loosen up the ol' word machine.

Finally, after two days of focused work, I had a draft and was ready to sing a scratch vocal (the scratch vocal is a rough performance that is not meant to be kept, but is used as reference for the other parts, and so I don't forget the melody in my head). Performance-wise it was a little bit rough, but all in all I think the song is going to be really strong, and having the vocal melody in place sparked other ideas and has allowed us to move on with the song - this is what we are doing tonight.

For me, melody is almost always the easy part. Words are hard. But for some reason, this is the only thing that I am compelled to do year after year, even when it is difficult, when it feels impossible, when I think I suck, when I think I'm all tapped out and I have sung everything I have to sing. The words are out there. I just have to discover them.

Studio Recap: Day Five

2010-01-09T12:04:00.002-05:00

On Friday, it was time to evaluate our progress. Granted, this project is mad and ambitious, but when we sat down to make our to-do list I must admit I was awed by the sheer amount of work that remains for the next week. Luckily, we have an in-house drill sergeant (Joseph) who keeps us forging ahead:

Joe cranked out an accordion part for the pump organ song - now entitled either "Sunday" or "Sunday Looked Down" or suchlike - while Jonathan pounded out some drum ideas and I looked up types of frost formations on Wikipedia in the service of lyric writing.

The accordion work apparently was a breakthrough for Joe's lyric-writing and arranging of "Sunday." We also tried to record some backing vocals (I sang some multitracked ooh-aaahs), but we may discard them.

I finished a draft of the lyrics for "Slinkitzer," and threw down a scratch vocal that turned out rather well in my estimation. I may post a clip of the demo later today. Putting vocals on the track sparked some ideas for further work on the song. It is exciting when things start to come together.

We will start working later in the evening today, so I am going to try to write a post on songwriting, or maybe just lyric-writing. We'll see how it comes together.

Studio Recap: Day Four

2010-01-08T13:08:00.007-05:00

Yesterday started with a bang because Joey found a violin. It only had three strings. (violins normally have four?) None of us know how to play, but we never let things like lack of skill prevent us from doing things that are awesome. Things like forcing poor violins to make beautiful awful sounds.

We also took some time to make some structural choices regarding the Wurlitzer-based song we started on Monday. It is useful, I have found, to decide which chord progressions will comprise the verses and choruses (and pre-choruses!) in order to facilitate the writing of lyrics.

But we also had to take a lunch break, and after lunch we were sleepy. Jonathan and I took refuge in our laptops:

Joe was working on music, apparently, whilst we basked in the screen glow.

I ran off to live room B to work on lyrics for the aforementioned Wurly tune provisionally titled "Slinkitzer." Jonathan usually gets to pick the working titles for the songs, which seems only fair, because the final names almost always come from the lyrics that Joe and I write. This way Jonathan gets some naming glory, but we also have to call the songs things like "Slinkitzer" (or "Slinkitizer," or "Slinksville") until we come up with the titles.

When I returned to the control room, Joe was ready to enlist all of us in vocals for the number he'd been working on. Even Jonathan sang!

Thus concludes the day four recap. Today I have made a list of everything we need to do in the next week and a half, and it is terrifying. So back to work I go.

Studio Recap: Day Three

2010-01-07T11:12:00.005-05:00

Yesterday we spent our entire eight hours of studio time on the pump organ piece we started Tuesday night. First we made structure choices; we decided which parts would be called things like Verse, Chorus, Bridge, and my favorite, Pre-chorus. When the dust settled, we were happy to find that we had cut a 14-minute jam down to less than half its original length. Then the boys played some drums. Then Jonathan played some guitar. Then Joe tried some lyrics. Feeling good about it.

Here's a short clip:

Convey Demo by Listing

Studio Recap: Day Two

2010-01-06T11:42:00.002-05:00

We started around 11am yesterday with Joe on drums. Accordion/guitar/wurlitzer jam in the afternoon. Took a break in the evening, then went over to Nick Sibley's studio and played the pump organ for a while. Productive day all in all - two or three potential new songs....

Studio Recap: Day One

2010-01-05T10:00:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was our first day back in the studio this year. This is how we spent it:

Played with slinky
Kidnapped Wurlitzer
Bamboo tubes
Goof wheel guitar
Drums
Brainstormed words for lyrics
Bent Casio

Key words for the day were:
Capillary action
Propulsion

We worked for about nine hours, and at the end of the day we had a meandering noise jam. But if there is anything we learned from last January, it is that our songs never end up sounding like the first recordings. The slow sludge jam is expected to evolve into a short, sweet, and nasty little pop song.

We're off for day two shortly. Will post progress.

Soundwalk: Brooklyn Botanic Garden (Work in Progress...)

2009-12-16T14:11:00.004-05:00

Soundwalk by Meg Kramer

Here's the current version of my soundwalk project. The music in the first track is an early demo of one of the Listing tracks...and that's me trying to overcome my congestion and recent laryngitis in the voice-over. I haven't really achieved my ideal here, but I'm getting closer. Here's what I wrote in my intro for my classmates:

In this version, I decided to take more control over the listener's encounter with this space.

I used the following strategies:

* I used the physical experience of the soundwalk form to alter the listener's consciousness in the space of the garden. The use of personal headphones creates a dissociative effect in the listener; the audio information they are receiving contradicts the evidence of their other senses. The movement through space at a predetermined pace creates an interesting tension between the active physical state and the passive - following instructions - mental state.

* I borrowed from radio ballad methodology by using found texts. In this case, rather than using the news, I used history, literature, and scientific writing as the building blocks of my script. The listener experiences the space physically, but is also placed in historical and cultural context.

Ideally, these strategies will result in an active, yet meditative, experience for the listener.

The Process

2009-12-08T12:26:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I wonder why I am not a more prolific creative person. After all, I have ideas, drive, and a smattering of discipline.

Today, I believe I have figured it out. It's because my creative process looks like this:

and it works like this:
1. Write a bunch of stuff down.
2. Lose everything.
3. Find some pages, but not of what I'm looking for.
4. Acquire scissors.
5. Cut pages into pieces.
6. Explode them all over the room.

I bet Dickens didn't write all of his novels by cutting up little pieces of paper and exploding them all over his habitat.

The Mid-November Total Life Assessment

2009-11-16T10:58:00.003-05:00

This fall has been all about the big questions for me. Who do I want to be? What do I want to accomplish? What kind of life do I want to have?

I make a lot of lists. By default I tend to rebel against any method of organization, strategy, or planning, but my mom is a list-maker and when I was young she used to make me write out to-do lists. When I was an adolescent I thought that was a perfectly stupid way to spend my time. After all, I know what I need to do, or want to do, so why waste the time and the paper writing it down? But still, any time I found myself overwhelmed with all of the projects I had taken on - dramachoirmediaworkschoolcrosscountryandsoforth - Mom would sit me down and say let's make a list. Eventually, I had to admit that it felt good to cross off completed items. A few years ago I began listing on my own steam.

I can make lists of my goals, of places I want to go and things I want to do, but right now it doesn't seem to be making things clearer. I think that this is because the goals are really simple, and they don't need to be elaborated or broken down into tasks. Life is short, and I want to enjoy mine. I want to see as much of the world as I can see, and I want to make beautiful things.

My Twitter diary is up and running. I started it November 1, but I accidentally erased the first post. I'm not going to worry about it, though. So far, I have managed to be very disciplined and post every day, usually right before I go to sleep. The most interesting challenge so far - other than trying to hit exactly 140 characters - is negotiating the public nature of Twitter with the desire to document things that I don't necessarily want the entire world to know. One of the goals of this project is to create a document that will help me remember what has been important to me, and when things actually happen. So I've been playing with different ways to code information that I want to remember, but don't want to make public. It's a fun game.

I'm letting NaNoWriMo go this year (again). I was slammed with schoolwork and social obligations at the beginning of the month, and now I'm far too behind to catch up. I'm not beating myself up about it, because I've been pretty happy with some of the other writing projects I've been working on. Yesterday, I submitted a few things to 12th Street, the New School's literary journal. I think that my subject matter might be just a little too strange for 12th Street, but we'll see. My submission last year was rejected, so I'm not terribly optimistic about it. That's okay, though, it just means that there's another home out there somewhere for my stuff.

The soundwalk project I mentioned a while ago has been graded and peer-reviewed, and I was surprised at the positive feedback I received. Maybe my dreams for the project were too ambitious...but the responses made me reconsider abandoning the project. Maybe I will return to it for my final project, and try to make the audio walking tour of my dreams!

I haven't been working on music much. Tried to attack a lyric problem, but my head's not really in songwriting mode lately. BUT, I have been coordinating with Joe and Jonny to finish the Listing album, and we've blocked off studio time in January. The new Close-Far studio is going to be gorgeous. Jonathan lost his old studio space this summer, and at the time it seemed like a tragedy, but now I think that it may have been a stroke of luck. The new place is in a former radio station, so it's already set up for sound, and I think it'll seem a lot more legit to his potential clients. I am also looking forward to recording in a space that is not a basement. I mean, I have fond memories of basements, but last January I spent the better part of the month in the dark, embracing a space heater, and shivering.

The electricity essay is coming along. I wrote a chunk about circuits and hacking, and my professor compared me to Jacques Cousteau. I hardly have to tell you how happy that made me.

The Open Source Outbreak

2009-11-04T01:26:00.001-05:00

Wrote some stuff, made some plans.

2009-11-01T22:57:00.003-05:00

Here's what I accomplished this week:

The Soundwalk - I'm not exited about the finished product. Voice-over work is hard! I think I'll set this ambition aside and focus on the other bazillion things I want to do.

Wrote a new chunk of the electricity piece. This bit's about hardware hacking and battery licking.

Started the Twitter diary today.

Will start NaNoWriMo tonight, after I do some studying for tomorrow's midterm. Don't ask me what the novel is going to be about. I have no idea. But you know, the last few years I spent a lot of time thinking about stories, and what do I have to show for it? Not much. So maybe winging it will work out better for me.

Didn't have time to work on music, but I did buy my plane tickets to go to Missouri for a month this winter, so I expect to do some intensive music making during that trip if we can wrangle some studio time.

And of course, the most important thing: I put together a great Halloween costume!

Fall Projects / Internet Presence

2009-10-24T12:16:00.005-04:00

So far, I've been using this blog as a platform to share things that interest me, but I have been thinking that this is not the best use of the blog format. Or, rather, that there are more efficient tools that I can use for this purpose: Google Reader, Facebook, etc.

The question is, what is a blog good for? I have a bit of a horror of using this format to talk about myself, or about my feelings - I got that out of my system with my geocities page in high school. Still, this form lends itself to the personal and the informal more easily than anything else.

With these things in mind, I have decided to use this blog to write about my projects. Here are the things that I am working on now, or planning to begin:

1. Music - my solo project. Four songs are currently in the works, and I'll post recordings as soon as I feel confident that I won't embarrass myself! This project is all electronic so far (except for vocals), using Ableton Live and Reason. The music that I've performed or otherwise put out into the world has been made collaboratively, so writing songs by myself is very new and challenging.

2. More music - Listing. In January of this year, my brother Joe and our friend Jonathan and I decided to try to write and record 10 new songs in about 3 weeks. We thought that this was an ambitious, if not impossible, task. After weeks shut away in the studio, we walked away with 9 songs. I call that success. However, some of the songs are more finished than others, so there is talk of reconvening this winter to augment and polish the collection. Hopefully we'll have something ready to release out into the wild in early 2010.

3. Writing - the electricity project. I started writing a piece in the spring about the BENT festival (a gathering of circuit-benders and hackers who, generally speaking, make music with their creations). Its becoming a monster, and now I imagine a sprawling piece about DIY culture, the physics of sound, electricity, and the human body. It might turn out to be a series of essays on these topics.

4. Writing - a Twitter project. Why did I start a Twitter account? It's like Facebook status updates, except that hardly anyone I know uses Twitter, while everyone uses Facebook. I've been trying to think of *something* interesting to do there. So, I'm going to try an experiment: a Twitter diary. Here are the rules: I must update every day. I must use exactly 140 characters. I must try to represent what I have actually done that day, and I have to be honest. I must try to make each entry beautiful.

5. More writing - NaNoWriMo! November is National Novel Writing Month. Every year I try, every year I fail. This time, it will be different.

6. Audio project - Soundwalk. This weekend, I'm producing an audio walking tour of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for a class I'm taking. It's an assignment, but I'm kind of falling in love with the idea of using sound to transform our experience of a place...so depending on how this actually turns out, I may try to continue producing these things.

& Other Stuff - Other preoccupations that are probably in the future: making music videos for Listing songs, short fiction projects, and possibly trying to write something in graphic novel form.

Repurpose

2009-10-24T12:06:00.001-04:00

Documentary on a community of Montreal hardware hackers, by Jack Oatmon.

Sometimes I make noises.

2009-10-04T17:58:00.001-04:00

Composition by Meg Kramer

This is a piece I put together recently for an audio documentary class. It's made of several field recordings, which I looped and edited with Ableton Live and Reason. I recorded some of the source material myself, and some of it was recorded by my classmates. It's the sound of our lives in the city, with rhythm found and emphasized.

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe

2009-09-25T11:33:00.006-04:00

Carl Sagan -'A Glorious Dawn' ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed), by Colorpulse.

Creature Cast: Science with a side of cute

2009-09-08T12:58:00.003-04:00

CreatureCast Episode 1 from Casey Dunn on Vimeo.

Creaturecast.org is one of my favorite blogs right now. This is first Creaturecast video podcast, which is worth watching just for the squid scientists (who appear around 00:53). But don't stop there! It only gets more interesting.

It's amazing what can be done with some quick and dirty animation, a little bit of music, and great content.

Miyazaki!

2009-06-24T15:37:00.002-04:00

I am so excited for this!

2009-05-03T10:57:00.004-04:00

What an interesting device. I can think of plenty of practical applications, although setting your preferences for every type of item would be time-consuming. That could be a new market: selling custom sixth sense presets that would weigh the values of each individual user. On the other hand, I can also think of plenty of ways that this technology could be used that are of questionable legality. But maybe I've just been watching too much sci-fi.

Gristleized

2009-05-02T00:59:00.003-04:00

On Tuesday, April 28, 2009, Throbbing Gristle played their third show in New York City at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple.

The opening band, Emeralds, was finishing their set when I arrived, so I navigated through the crowd to the bar to get a beer. The Masonic Temple is in my neighborhood, so I'm predisposed to like the venue, but I was annoyed to learn that in order to buy a beer, I would have to go to yet another table to buy a drink ticket, and then I would have to fight my way back to the bar to purchase a beverage with said ticket. "I know," said the bartender, "It's really annoying." At the end of the obstacle course, I was rewarded with a six-dollar can of Zywiec lager - but it was a big can.

I decided to explore the balcony, where I found a spot to stand that afforded a decent view of the stage and the venue's columns and art noveau ornamentation. Then the house lights came on, and Throbbing Gristle took the stage.

Because the house lights were on, I found myself watching the crowd as much as I watched the band. At first, it seemed that the audience was fairly well-behaved, and I wondered whether people in general tend to be more polite when the lights are on. I noticed one couple dancing near the front of the crowd: a tall, thin man and a petite blond woman. They were the only people dancing as if no one could see them. After the first song, the couple managed to maneuver themselves into the center of the crowd, where they continued to dance with reckless abandon, the man lifting his arms up high. I was glad I wasn't standing behind them. As the set continued, the music became more intense and aggressive, and Arms-Up started trying to push up closer to the front. For the first time, the crowd started to become agitated - I wondered if this was how mosh pits started. Arms-Up was bouncing around like a pinball, he'd push forward and get pushed back, until finally a man turned around and punched him in the face. One, two, three times fast. I inhaled, startled, and looked around to see if anyone else had seen it. If anyone around me had noticed, they weren't showing it. Then it was over, just like that, and Arms-Up had bounced back to the blond woman, she was touching his face as he sagged and slumped. I watched from the balcony, feeling sick, my empty beer can vibrating in my hand.

Maybe I didn't see what I thought I saw. Maybe it's not that big a deal for most people if someone who is being disruptive gets their face punched in. In any case, Arms-Up was subdued for a few minutes, and just when it seemed that he had recovered, the venue's security personnel came into the crowd (everyone around him turned like synchronized swimmers to point him out to the bouncers) and dragged him away. I don't know what happened to the other guy.

The next song was dedicated to "the mentally ill who couldn't be with us tonight," and there wasn't any more bad behavior from the audience. We had the privilege of hearing a new piece, "Gristleizer," which used the Gristleizer effect unit. "Gristleizer" sounded like: Cicadas, wind whistling through bare branches, underwater roar, the laquer crack of billiard balls striking one another, and a howling constant tone ascending and descending in pitch. All of these sounds occuring in independent rhythmic patterns of variable tempo, the amplitude increasing until my ribcage was rattling.

When people really started dancing, they weren't trying to look cool or sexy. They shuddered and flailed ecstatically, and by the end of the final song, everyone is moving. Genesis P-Orridge moved like a puppet in citrus colors (lemon, tangerine, blood orange), the crowd shook, I tapped my foot. The show ended. There was no encore, though the crowd clapped and stomped until the band came out and took a bow together. I went out into the sticky Brooklyn night with stinging hands and a singing head.

Juana Molina rules the Loop

2009-04-16T15:45:00.003-04:00

I picked up Juana Molina's new album, Un Día, last night, and I've had it on repeat all day today. It's warm, lovely, and a little bit skewed. In other words, it's my ideal soundtrack for spring.

Brain-Machine Interface Technology, now with cute humanoid robots

2009-04-01T00:06:00.006-04:00

Came across this posted on io9.com; Honda is testing new technology that allows humans to control machines using thoughts alone.

...and I have to say: NO, it would not be convenient for the climate control system to adjust itself based on my thoughts! Just because I'm warm, that doesn't mean that I want to use more energy and spend more money! I don't want my every impulse to be manifested in reality. I want to make the decisions.

But I do want one of those helmet/cute robot setups.

Review: Efterklang at Mercury Lounge, NYC

2009-03-29T03:13:00.006-04:00

Efterklang - Mirador from Rumraket on Vimeo.

The Danish band Efterklang first came to my attention as a recommendation on my eMusic account. I took a listen to the sample clips from their 2007 release, Parades, and I liked what I heard: playfully melancholy melodies, vocals ranging from intimate whispers to belted-out multi-part harmonies, and a broad palette of sonic textures produced by electronic and acoustic instruments. Still, I couldn't commit to buying the album that day...I was interested, but I wasn't smitten.

My second rendezvous with Efterklang was last night, when they played NYC's Mercury Lounge. I missed the first two acts (Oh Land and Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers), but I was just in time for Peter Broderick's solo set. Broderick, a multi-instrumentalist, built compositions of looped samples. He'd play a few bars on guitar - or violin, or piano - and loop it, then play another part over that sample. Most of the songs were sparse, incorporating two or three instrumental layers, but on occasion he built sound over sound to intense effect. Broderick is also a member of Efterklang's line-up for this tour.

Efterklang's live show had some surprises. The elements that I liked from the album were present - the textures, the melodies, the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink instrumentation - but the balance was tipped from the delicate, lovely end of the spectrum over to the noisy, joyful, anxious, hedonistic side. There wasn't any loss of quality control; even the a capella vocal harmonies of Cutting Ice to Snow were impressively tight, and this at the end of the night. But I was most surprised by a phenomenon I have never seen at a NYC indie rock concert before: people were moving and smiling. Leaving the show, I felt happy. So that merits my heartfelt recommendation, and an album purchase, too.

Efterklang is playing a few more shows in North America. Info, videos, and free mp3 downloads are available on their website.

Efterklang - Caravan from Rumraket on Vimeo.

Society for Procrastination Research: Report #1

2009-03-27T15:51:00.005-04:00

The Kappa, a Japanese water-sprite. Image from Wikimedia Commons

The Society of Procrastination Research is an international collective dedicated to art and science of procrastination. It has one official member (me), but I like to think that most people are members in spirit. From time to time, I will share my procrastination techniques, tools, and insights for the edification of the SPR's silent members. This is the SPR's first report.

Wikipedia's "List of monsters"

It's one of those things that I never knew I needed. Not until I stumbled upon it one day and wasted the better part of an afternoon reading about Medieval English Heraldic Beasts. The Afanc, the Cockatrice, and the Basilisk turned me to stone - at least, that's my excuse for my lack of productivity. From Á Bao A Qu to Zzzax, the list describes beings found in mythology, folklore, film, literature, and video games from around the world.

"How does something come out of nothing?"

2009-03-27T01:12:00.002-04:00

Echoes from the Beginning from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Scientists and journalists discuss the Big Bang and time at the '08 World Science Festival. There are more videos available on their website; the clips are all short, fascinating excerpts from panel discussions.

The 2009 World Science Festival hits NYC June 10, and concludes on June 14. I didn't make it to any events last year, but it's on my to-do list for this summer.