Reileen van Kaile

I finally sat my ass down and started working through a book I've had for a while, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory by Michael Miller. I've always felt a little odd as a pianist who's played since 3rd grade and yet had no idea what the hell was going on with those damn intervals and chord progressions and such. If I'd just wanted to recite pieces, I probably wouldn't really need to learn the stuff - I'd just have to memorize the pages and pages of notes. But since I'm foraying into original composition, I have to learn how this shit is put together and what piece of this shit is called in Musicalinese and yadda yadda yadda. Which is a bit brainbreaky, but a girl's gotta do, y'know? I got a little extra help from vyctori the Music Major, who helped me out with a few tips on memorizing the formal names of scale degrees (tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant, leading note).

I managed to cover chapters 1 and 2 today (respectively, pitches/notes and intervals), including all of the audio exercises from chapter 1 and 1/3 of the audio exercises from chapter 2 (which I'll finish as soon as I write this entry). I have to say that having my extensive background in playing an instrument (and, uh, having composed a few original songs and covered others already) helps a lot in the audio exercises, since I don't have to futz about trying to remember which note is where on the keyboard, and my musical ear seems to have developed enough to the point that I can identify the really simple one- or two-note soundings with relative ease. Next up in chapter 3 is scales.

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This macro of our president-elect kills me ded. Obama is the new fandom bicycle in political RPF! (Taken from this Fandom Wank entry, in which Gay Politicians is Serious Business.)

In this short film, it is thusly proven that God is a DJ. (Thanks, dantaron!)

Four toys that have gone to war for America.

I don't even really know what to say about the complete idiocy of this next one: In Soviet Russia, all your smiley are belong to us. Seriously. (Thanks, Eridanus!)

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My friend kiirobon likes to write song lyrics. This is all well and good, except that his lyrics tend to be...not very singable in their original form. Which sucks, because he's always got interesting things going on in his lyrics. With his approval, I took the title, images, and themes from one of his recent songs and made it into something more resembling standard song structure.

Gospel of the Shadow of Nobody

I'm the doorbell that rings your mind
At three-thirty in the morn
I'm the cab driving you late to work
Taking a million detours

I'm the specter of past lives lived
Appearing in shower steam on glass
I'm that little light of hope
You know will never last

Hate me, berate me
Stick me with knives
Hallucinate me burying you alive
And cry yourself to sleep when you realize
I'm the Nobody part of you that will never die

I'm a parent who kicks you out
Knowing you'll come back
To black eyes and insults thrown
Around your ghetto shack

I'm your god who lives
On your sweat and blood
Who drinks the cup of your tears
And grinds your dreams into mud

Hear me, fear me,
Fuck me with your hate
Smear me with the crow that you ate
Deny it all you want or blame your fate
I'm the Nobody part of you that you create

Yeah, though I dwell in the valley of death
I live in the broken mistakes of your life
And though you think you can know me
You'll never outgrow me
Never throw me away
But show me what you got
And just try to take one last breath

Hate me, berate me
Stick me with knives
Hallucinate me burying you alive
And cry yourself to sleep when you realize
I'm the Nobody part of you that will never die

Never die, never lie
Never die, never lie
Never die

Now here's something to ponder. When I was reading the original version, I was thinking to myself that it sounded like something that was meant to be either spoken word or rapped. Then, as I was doing mental revisions, I thought that maybe the music could be something jazzy (which may or may not have been influenced by the fact that I was listening to Vienna Teng's "Boy at the Piano" earlier yesterday...). Then, as I was actually writing the lyrics, potential music started manifesting itself to me as metal rock. ("It's like a revolving door of genres!" sayeth vyctori.)

Which pretty much prevents me of having any hope of performing this song myself, since a little Asian girl with a piano isn't exactly the most hardcore image ever. I imagine there are some gifted individuals who could make piano sound hardcore; I can't imagine I'm one of them. (Though it'd be nice to do more angry songs someday a la Emilie Autumn.)

-Reileen
the pain is much more than physical, beyond belief

Re-worked the lyrics to "Fallen Goddess", which has been sitting around for years. Likely as not, these won't be the final - it would depend on what comes out for doing the melody. I'm not entirely happy with the lyrics as-is either, but I figured I should get something passable down so I can practice my music composition.

This will be a difficult song to deal with, though. It's manifesting in my head as a symphonic/gothic rock piece, and I'm nowhere near talented enough at this point to make that happen. And I even have an idea for how it'll be arranged on an album: it'll be preceded by a recording of my poem "Your Move", which will fade into the opening riff of "Fallen Goddess", and succeeded by a quote from "The Charge of the Goddess", all with audio effects and musical stuff and that sort of jazz that I have no skill with doing at the moment. (It's also not very practical given that I still live at home and I don't exactly have a garage or basement to myself where I can make all the noise I want without bothering anyone...)

Your Move

Save sinners and redeem them for rewards at City Hall!
Baptize them in their own blood - all of them, all!
Send a Pentecost of bullets upon their heathen heads!
Three points for every hand you nail, ten points for a knife between the eyes
And multiply by two the number of lies you’ve told!

Gehenna-gone fools, I pity you
Who presume to know what your Lord would do.


Fallen Goddess

Once upon a time, you were mine and I was yours
Warm embraces and twilight lullabies
I delighted in the grace from your eyes

But good things were never built to last
Even temples of stone bow before time's mighty throne
Our paradise has died to the past
Can we make another one alone?

My fallen goddess
Marked by time, marred by folly, blinded by light
Though I've strayed to find my own way
I will never abandon you

Once upon a time, I believed in you and you in me
You were the truth and all that was right
Until I thought to spread my wings to take flight

So this paradise has died to the past
Was it ever anything more than a dream?
Good things were never built to last
For longer than a wish, it seems

My fallen goddess
Marked by time, marred by folly, blinded by light
Though I've strayed to find my own way
I will never abandon you

The gifts I gave, you ceased to take
The hymns I sang, you ceased to listen
The prayers I said, you ceased to answer...

My fallen goddess
Marked by time, marred by folly, blinded by light
We've lost each other now, but I give my solemn vow:
I'll remember you always


Excerpt from The Charge of the Goddess

Whenever ye have need of any thing, once in the month, and better it be when the moon is full, then shall ye assemble in some secret place, and adore the spirit of me, who am Queen of all witches.

I'm also doing a piano arrangement of Dar Williams' "Mercy of the Fallen". It's a very lovely song, though I'm puzzling over the lyrics.

-Reileen
-where half-dreams may dream without end