Sunday, March 18, 2007

Would you like to play a game?

Yesterday I went to an ice-skating birthday party, and got to observe a whole slew of kids born after 1990 being subjected to music of the 70s and 80s. We parents were having a good time, and hey, we're paying the rental fees. So the post title is from that stroll through the zeitgeist of the 80s. But the post is about something very now, very happening, baby!

Scientists at Columbia University (Michael Mandel and Dan Ellis) have designed an online experiment on music cognition. Big deal, you say, we've seen that before. But here is the kicker: the experiment is set up as a game! Listen to a clip of music, and come up with tags describing that music. Earn points for originality and conformity. You get two points for coming up with a tag first, which other listeners also use. Earn one point for being the second person to use the same tag. Zero points for being a hanger-on. Play as often as you like, for as long as you like. And you can earn points while not playing, if others agree with your mind-blowing tags. Due to Columbia's rules on human subject testing, you can only participate if you are at least 18 years old. But the registration process is minimal, and the game is somewhat fun. I'm up to 5 points right now, well below the leader who is two orders of magnitude above me (damn you Paul!) So log on and copy my tags. Don't tell me you can't read my mind from there! You already know my music personality.

1 comment:

  1. VIOLIN SOLO
    After Erick Grossman’s Violin concerto

    By

    Consuelo Hernández (USA / Colombian poet)

    A lonely violin, alone in the night
    glowing in the lamp light
    two universes counterpoised
    as if up were down, left were right
    glowing wood, woven of stellar string
    sidereal miniature.

    Two suns revolve, exploding stars
    to be reborn as footsteps, dewdrops of light.

    Darkness of the sightless
    night of the silenced
    trembling hands
    of earth, your strings
    a sullen march of retreat
    from the bow, gentle notes
    slowpaced sadness
    martial frenzy, fierce chords
    amorous pursuits in allegretto
    folly of the followers, an andante.

    Youth, aged, love, oblivion
    children of the same silenced violin
    universe emptied in childbirth
    the instrument does not create its own notes
    the bow remains motionless without sound
    moved by hands feeling only the bow which touches it.

    And I saw in the moment of its anger
    a different birth from that of peace
    the ancient sadness which follows me
    the folly of the sexes on the sand
    the echo that we have always dreamed
    but hasn't yet sounded.

    Nobody has planted shelters in my body
    nor marvelous fleeting phantoms in my breast
    nor calcareous soil chocking in my throat
    the opacity of my universe-light

    The violins sound on earth
    I hear a song and see them throwing dice
    in the middle of the sea
    life and flotsam floating
    on mats of palm
    closed off circumstances
    with crazed faces of men and women
    on this screen.

    From afar, someone moves my strings
    and in that way, directs my days.
    I am leaving myself, it is part of the melody.
    I am visited by strange energies
    and the notes continue to feel
    limy in my rose mouth, far from reason
    wise journeying a fallen leaf
    searching for its own horizon.

    Red fire, brutal blast
    the bow steps into my secret zone
    my life becomes a show case,
    a boutique of a thousand trinkets
    the eyes only touch stars
    the head becomes a well of hips.

    Winter arrives, my strings are tuned
    my pegs writhe, I tremble
    I emit some notes
    unable to create the chord
    which may come from the rain forest
    from the mountains peaks
    from the stone of the turkey vultures
    from its enormous eggs
    from its nests, which cross my coastline through the mountains
    my mother brings the firewood
    to light the hearth...

    Suddenly the violin sounds again
    the smoke curls of boats taking off
    through the winged sea
    the flavor of moist shadows
    silver grey edge
    frenetic pounding of my doubts
    my mind shrinks
    and my heart rebounds
    my breasts grow strong.

    I am the hollow of a violin
    chords which tremble
    when the bow touches them
    my chords will snap one day
    I go forth the great healing void.

    And if I make no sound?
    indeed
    all the notes are
    daughters of silence.
    If I remain a violin
    forever needful of the hand which strokes me
    my notes will be only seven...
    Better yet I am going to explode
    I'll give birth to silence emptiness
    my own permanent nostalgia saudade.

    I don't want to be a violin
    I am going to mingle with stars
    without an ember remaining of my being
    I am going to flow into the ocean
    without being water
    I will become earth
    without being still
    I will break through
    these walls of wood which close me in
    these chords which imprison me
    I abandon this bow which works me over
    the invisible hands which put me into motion
    I transform myself into hand
    into bow
    into air
    into silence
    hotel of sounds.

    The hour has arrived
    first the sobbing... a good signal
    until giving birth to
    the scream forged in my depths
    it irrigates my eyes
    makes my teeth chatter
    it moves the changing lines of my mouth
    I vomit up my innards
    thus totally fulfilling
    my vocation of not being
    and I am that nothingness.

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