I came up with this after a long afternoon spent beating my head against a wall trying to get best quality recordings from a Roland digital piano. This music could be a basis for something more substantive. But really I think I just wanted to sing.
Cables from the piano go into a TASCAM mixer. The TASCAM sends the signal into a Sony DSLR. I can’t seem to get rid of a white noise that inhabits moments of silence or near silence. The white noise is not present if I send the audio into a field recorder, which is a far more sophisticated sound capture device than a DSLR camera. I know recording audio into a separate device from the camera is the way professionals do it. I remember noticing that when a film crew came here to document my use of the Lenovo Horizon 2 as a sheet music reader. But I endeavor to focus on the music and keep technical details of post-editing and such as streamlined as possible. So I’ll live with the white noise. But if anybody reading this knows what I am talking about and can clue me in on how to get rid of the white noise I’d be happy to hear from you.
I am starting to think the TASCAM does nothing useful for what I am doing.
I’ve been intending to move content from Sorabji.NYC over to Sorabji.COM, where much of it originally resided. I’ve come to dislike my use of the .NYC top level domain. Something about sticking “NYC” at the end of something in an attempt to perk it up or make it exclusive has come to seem gratuitous, and even distasteful. I think I’ve come to this conclusion from paying too much attention to the the ebbs and failures of LinkNYC, that horrible project which will put mammoth LED advertising platters every 50 feet on virtually every street in New York. Every street in town will burst into flames of advertising, and there appears to be no reason for citizens to do anything but take their objections and shutup. The very name of LinkNYC has become irritating to me, and perhaps by extension so has my use of the .NYC TLD.
I’ve heard others remark that the .NYC TLD is pretty wanky. I can understand that point of view but I disagree. Certainly compared to the countless other utterly garbage TLDs that have polluted the web world .NYC actually means something. I don’t have a problem with most other uses of the .NYC TLD. Just mine. My use of it makes no real sense.
Today I went to the cemetery and recorded a 20-minute collection of stories which involve my experiences in the area around the Soldiers Monument. I intend to transcribe the recording and re-record it, but the re-recording will probably not actually out there. It is too unpredictable an environment for me to make quality recordings. Today I recorded 10 minutes of ambient sound from the area around the Soldiers Monument. I will attempt to record the voice part of the stories at home, using those sounds as background. So it’s almost like I am actually recording from there. Heh. I like the idea of recording stories like this on-site, though. I think it brings a certain journalistic authority to what is not specifically a journalistic pursuit.
One of the stories I recorded today caught me off guard. I had no idea how painful one particular memory was going to be. I think of this incident often and it feels, as a memory, dignified and stately. But uttering its words aloud brought forth sadness I guess I’d never felt. I have never told anybody about this event. This was the first time I ever said anything of it out loud. I could not record the words with a straight voice.
I am no longer surprised when these revelations come unsuppressed and I experience a minor meltdown. 6 months in therapy turned up more trash and garbage in my heart than I had reason to think still lingered. It just keeps coming.
I had intended to record another piece in the chapel but it was locked.
I’m going for a beer.
