We have tons of rabbits hopping around in our new neighborhood! Love these little guys.

Something that took me a few decades to learn about playing music is that there's no one way to do it. There's also no one reason to do it.

On one end of the spectrum, music can have this perception of being something that "comes from the heart". Images of La Bohème come to mind, the artist that wears their emotions on their sleeves, the ever-romantic. They play what they feel. And yes, that's a part of musicing. I even quite like that part of it! But that's not the only part.

On another end, you can imagine a discipline-driven approach to music. Think child prodigies, the movie Whiplash, or any experience you may have had as a school band student where the aim was to ace your state marching contest. There are some benefits to this approach to music for some people. Personalities with that competitive spirit and skill-acquisition-for-the-sake-of-skill-acquisition can lead with this. I'll admit to having spent a great deal of time driven this way.

Here's one that sits neatly in the middle of the two: music as a puzzle.

Pick your favorite analogy: sudoku, crosswords, knitting, solitaire, wordle. Mine is Pushmo: A Nintendo handheld game where you play as a little guy trying to solve spacial puzzles to reach the top of a structure. The pieces are often shaped like cute Mario characters.

I got to thinking about this while watching my mom work on Jigsaw puzzles during a visit. After I had practiced piano, I started to notice similarities:

• There's a set of rules that requires more than purely logical reasoning. It's often spatial or even economy of movement.
• It's low intensity. Many of us spend our days on problems that require loads of thinking. These are typically great compliments since they keep us moving intellectually, but with a different part of the brain.
• It's often repetitive. One puzzle piece after another. One measure at a time.
• It's cozy. Great to do in the evenings before bed.
• The end result is something beautiful or satisfying, though most of the enjoyment comes from working out the solution, not having it.

I like highlighting this because it takes the pressure off of playing an instrument — needing it to be for some grand purpose. You can simply enjoy doing it!

I see too much advice either in the vein of "You show up in the practice room whether you feel like it or not!" or "Just follow your heart!" The truth is, sometimes I truly don't feel like it, and sometimes my heart is not particularly jazzed about anything on a given day.

But I am regularly curious about solving that puzzle of sound, motion, and phrasing.

Both React Native and Expo have great quick start guides for getting your hands dirty.

If you're really in a rush to see what developing with React Native looks like, I've boiled it all down to one file for you!

import React, { useEffect, useState } from 'react';
import { View, Button, StyleSheet, Platform } from 'react-native';
import { Audio } from 'expo-av';
import { Sound } from 'expo-av/build/Audio';

type SampleComponentProps = {
  soundSource: any; // an MP3 File
};

export default function SampleComponent({ soundSource }: SampleComponentProps) {
  // React hooks work as expected
  const [sound, setSound] = useState<Sound>();

  useEffect(() => {
    const loadSound = async () => {
      // Handle mobile device interactions with expo libraries
      const { sound } = await Audio.Sound.createAsync(soundSource);
      setSound(sound);
    };
    loadSound();
  }, [soundSource]);

  async function playSound() {
    if (sound) {
      // Run certain logic on specific platforms
      if (Platform.OS === 'ios') {
        await sound.setPositionAsync(0);
      }
      await sound.playAsync();
    }
  }

  // Use core library components to render elements
  return (
    <View style={[styles.container]}>
      <Button title="Play Sound" onPress={playSound} />
    </View>
  );
}

// Style components with CSS-like properties
const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    justifyContent: 'center',
    backgroundColor: '#ecf0f1',
    padding: 10,
  },
});

Let's dig in:

State Management: For the most part, you're writing React code. Hooks such as useEffect and useState work just as they do when writing for the web.

Core Components: A big difference, though, is that you'll be using React Native's Core Components instead of HTML elements. This ensures smooth transitions between the different platform environments. You can see me using Button and View as replacements for html button and div elements.

Expo Libraries: Expo comes with some great handlers for interfaces such as zooming and touch interactions. In my example, I'm using the expo-av library to handle playing a sound on button click.

Styling: Very familiar to anyone who's used style objects in React. Knowledge of CSS translates largely here.

Platform Exceptions: Naturally, some devices handle logic differently. You'll see that I've added a check if (Platform.OS === 'ios'). Here, if running on an Apple device, I'm going to set the audio position back to the beginning of the track before playing again.

That's it! Once this renders out, we'll have a button playing the audio file passed into this component.

Very quickly becoming a big fan of Lynda Berry's work.

Listen on Youtube

From an interview with NPR:

One of the things you'll hear people say, when they tell me they wish they could draw, is, "I see it in my head, but I can't get it onto the page." And then I have to remind them that what they're seeing in their head is not a drawing. Drawing is something that has to come out of your body. And that horror they have is the same horror they might have if a bodily fluid was suddenly released, like suddenly they got a bloody nose or started drooling. It's that same shame about this thing that's out of their control that seems to be coming from them.

My task — and it can be done within 30 minutes — is to get them past that. ... The easiest way to do that is to have them close their eyes and draw. ... The trick is to show them that there's another kind of drawing that is very different than representational drawing.

There are different goals.

Sometimes the drawing that's left over is not as important as the fact that it can transform your mood. You can transform the way that you feel about something. You can crack you up. I mean, you can crack yourself up with an index card and a letter pen. I think it's pretty interesting.

You sense the opening...

You've traversed to this space several times now. Instead of becoming more familiar, it's only deepened in mystery...

Getting lost in the atmosphere of Liquid Drum and Bass... 💎🌊

Experience the Interactive Short Story 🔮.

Support the ablum on 🤘 Bandcamp.

Listen on 📺 Youtube.

Listen on Youtube

Just like a leaf that has flown away~

More experimentations in 3D

Some mediums are steeped in tradition and mastery oriented.

The map to success there is very clear. Practice your scales, play loads of rep, spend years studying the masters, and you will arrive at a marked destination.

Say, however, as a violinist, you want to take on writing a wholly new kind of music. You then explore genres — latin, jazz, folk, country, drum and bass, etc. Each of those genres has their own map. Their own guide posts for performing in the style so you pick up a few more and follow the maps as far as you'd like to go.

Once it comes time to write, though, the maps disappear.

There are perhaps other people you can gather inspiration from, they can tell you the paths they took, the rivers forded, and the shortcuts they found. But, at some point, it's time to let go of map following and brave the forest.

What guides you then?

Having followed a few maps, you likely have some skill in navigating tough thickets and rushing rivers. Direction, however, is not so clear.

At this point, it's time to reach for a compass. An intuitive, unseen force gives direction without showing the way.

It's risky. A direction doesn't guarantee a destination. A cluster of stars only suggests what could be on the other end of sailing a certain way.

But that's where the adventure is.

Unlike solely map following, there is no final destination. The journey becomes the destination. And the road goes ever on.

Listen on Youtube

All by myself in the morning~
All by myself in the night...

Arranged by Frank Vignola.

Dreaming of skating ❄️

From "Designing Data-Intensive Applications" by Martin Kleppmann:

Document databases are sometimes called schemaless, but that's misleading, as the code that reads the data usually assumes some kind of structure—i.e., there is an implicit schema, but it is not enforced by the database. A more accurate term is schema-on-read,... in contrast with schema-on_write (the traditional approach of relational databases, where the schema is explicit and the database ensures all written data conforms to it).

An interesting point that plays devil's advocate to one of the most popular features of choosing a document-based db solution such as MongoDB. I have yet to work in a data scenario where there's not a schema being set either by the relational database, the ORM, or through validation methods such as Zod or types.

When we hear schemaless, the main benefit we're looking for is the ease of adjusting the schema as the application evolves.

However, Martin goes on to highlight that both document and relational databases are capable of adjusting their schemas. Application devs will be familiar with simply adjusting the code for different scenarios at data read time. (For example: A new field is added to the schema. Code can ignore documents that are missing the field.) To accomplish this, relational databases perform migrations to convert all entries to the new schema. Either one can suit the needs of your application and its data.

All this certainly doesn't mean document DB's are a bad choice. It's just worth highlighting that, unless you truly are storing documents with a non-uniform data structure within a given collection, the schemaless nature is not a primary benefit of document DB's for you. Perhaps it's simply that you prefer adjusting the schema in the application code rather than migrating the DB schemas.

I watched a fascinating exploration of Library music's influence on modern music artists by Bandsplaining. My favorite bit:

The fact that library music was consumed subconsciously, building models of how you think, makes it an exceptionally powerful tool — Lulling you into a decades-old state of mind.

When talking to an artist about their influences, the most enthusiastic will drop specific names and bands.

(Allow me to over romanticise commercial music for a moment:)

There's something, though, to being influenced by a time and a place. That subconscious introduction — the music taken for granted, where you don't know the composer and you're not aware that you're listening to a song — in a way that sort of music can be more powerful because it's not relying on its own merits for impact and communication.

Some opinions would put music-for-music's sake on a pedestal as the truest form of the medium. Perhaps so. However, I seem to find myself drawn more and more to the music that played just a part in a greater whole of creating a mood and atmosphere.

Even if it was weather channel music.

It's February 2019 - 6 years ago from me writing this.

I'm in my first year of music teaching, fresh out of grad school, and in a bit of a rut artistically.

The normal medium didn't seem to fit as it did before. Practicing also felt more laborious than usual, even though I had technique to spare. I had reached a peak on the creative mountain. Instead of living happily ever after, I found myself continuously asking, "What next?"

So I was sifting through Twitter when this popped up:

Source

You may look at this and think "how cute!" or "hah, funny!"

But I had a moment!

Seeing this, everything about it hit several aesthetic sweet spots for me! And then, of course, the fact that in an instant, it created an atmosphere and a story, all with very simple melodic and visual lines — that was something else!

Is that crazy to say?! Over a silly little animation?!

I won't be shy about saying that I think Louie Zong's work is phenomenal! Expressive, loose, playful, and never-ending in output.

And while the aesthetic and subject matter may or may not light you up in the way it did me, I think there's something deeper that struck a chord with me.

Louie is prolific — Sharing something artistic nearly every day - mini albums, small games, remixes, sketches, short animations. You might be tempted to see that and think "This guy works really hard!" You may have also said that seeing me practice in music school. And certainly — I was working.

Louie, however, is very clearly playing very hard! Or rather, playing effortlessly!

That is what changed the game for me.

Ever since, I've maneuvered through a career change, transitioned my artistic medium, and redefined my relationship to creativity so that it can be uninhibited play.

I'm sharing this story for a few reasons:

First, it's a funny anniversary, but it's the anniversary of a significant moment. So it's timely! And it's been quite a while since I was struck by that lightning bolt of inspiration. I'm amazed at how much closer I've come to living a creative practice I only dreamed of just a few years ago. That's worth celebrating! 2019 Chris would be ecstatic!

I also think it's worth highlighting that, more important than what you practice as an artist, is the spirit behind it. I know coders who carry this same joy and enthusiasm in their work as engineers. I still know classical musicians who are just as light in their work. I can also say that, while I loved playing sax and teaching, there's an even greater joy and sense of adventure behind art, writing music, and software!

I'm also sharing in advocacy for art as deeply important. Pieces are the artifacts that come from a life lit up and inspired by the daily wonders in the world. Ultimately, artists have to create a piece of what they find interesting. Maybe that sounds self-centered. But that interest comes from a place of wonder in something beyond ourselves. So sharing art is a wholly generous act — with the potential to light up a life.

Whatever that resonance is for you, I hope you continue cultivating it.

Listen on Youtube

I cover the waterfront,
I'm watching the sea~
Will the one I love be coming back to me?

Arranged by Frank Vignola.

A good girl. 💛