Death by Triple Fiddle

The problem with Death by Triple Fiddle (Joshua Bell, Edgar Meyer, Sam Bush, Mike Marshal) is that it is bound to classical music instruments, and it has no lore. The only lore you could put to it would be from some era many years ago. It sounds like something from the 1800s. But our world has changed.

We have things like video games, now.

World of Warcraft's Kul Tiras soundtrack is incredible because, though it uses classical instruments, it has the make-believe world of WoW to supply the ground for the music. It is all instrumental music, but Boralus and Kul Tiras are legendary locations. Tiragarde Sound is beautiful to explore. There are professions you can work toward in the game while residing in the area.

Classical music, by itself, is dated and archaic. It was created in a world before we could record human voices and thus provide lyrics to go along with music. Also, it was created before we had video games to provide the ground for the music to stand on.

Video games are a better ground for classical music than movies. Movies don't let you enter a world, but video games do. And the Warcraft games, created in Irvine, California, became the supreme world for such music.

KPop is trascendent music. Its lyrical space is Korean-dominated. But the titles of the songs are often in English. We get small shooting stars of English lyrics in most songs. And when we don't, we still live in a world where tourist visas let us enter South Korea. We can take it on faith that the singers are singing about good subject matter.

KPop music, and the music from the Warcraft intellectual property, are better than Chopin's body of work. There is no comparison. People who posture in the opposite direction are gross.

Timer Songs

I have a certain personality that can fixate on songs that sound like they're counting toward a climactic deadline.

Final Fantasy VII's (Nobou Uematsu's) Hurry! is a song that sounds like time is running out.

Robin Schulz's Same is a slower song that also sounds like time is running out. Or at least like time is of the essence.

Red Velvet's Happiness is a song that sounds like time is running out. You can hear this in between the chorus.

Blackpink's famous Pink Venom is an apocalyptic song. It sounds like time in the world has run out, and like the end of the world is taking place as the song moves along.

All of these songs are interesting to me.

The Substance of Friendship

I think there is a substance that needs to be built for people to enjoy talking to each other. C.S. Lewis use to say that friendship required a "matrix of friendship" and I feel like I'm starting to recognize what he was talking about.

In mid-April, I went to a meeting of software developers organized via meetup.com. When I left, I connected with all of the people who had attended via LinkedIn. A few weeks afterwards, I messaged all of the attendees from that day via LinkedIn. In general the attendees didn't want to talk to me. I don't blame them. I'm not sure that I had much to say to them.

In February, I joined a couple of programming Discords. One was dead and the other did not gain my interest even though some people were talking in it. I left those programming Discords.

Talking about tech in the name of friendship is kind of strange. IT is a job and its application is scattered across space via fiber optic cables. Why would we setup tech discussions when we already have to worry about that at our jobs? How is talking about tech an example of substance? Can't anyone just login to the Internet and Google whatever tech topic they are interested in, rather than depending on a coordinated meeting? For example, if I want to learn about Golang, I can just start programming in Golang and lookup things on the Internet as I encounter barriers. There is no need to wait for, and go to, a tech meetup and talk there with the attendees about whatever programming obstacles I am encountering while learning Golang.

I have one friend who I occasionally talk to about tech, but we used to work together. When we worked together, we got to know each other across some points of drama and others of technical challenge. That background has provided a substance of friendship.

I joined a KPop Discord and I am at least motivated to talk to the people there. I dislike IT people by default because in this world, intelligence is seen as a weapon instead of something that places you into a high rank in the formation that is a nation. This is a part of the reason I didn't stick around in the tech Discords I mentioned above. But KPop is still a rebellion in the west. It thus provides a substance for conversation. I've enjoyed some of the exchanges I've had in the KPop Discord.

I have no interest in Twitch channel Discords. I've been in one in the past and don't want to go back to that experience. A Twitch channel Discord, to me, does not provide a backing substance for conversation. If anything, it takes away from the backing substance by diluting the weight of your sentences. This is not to say that I don't find Twitch to be an environment for conversation. I do. But I do not see channel Discords as an extension of the substance I've built inside of Twitch chat. I've built substance using bit donations, and also from the fact that I've played video games to show my honor.

People who are gregariously friendly without first waiting on the substance of friendship to provide a grounds for conversation, are annoying. You won't recognize this if you're a dullard or lonely, but if you perceive life to be a contest of perseverance, then conversation without a backing substance of friendship is not interesting.

What Is a Kind-Hearted Song?

A kind-hearted song is a song that an artist makes to offer comfort to those who are fighting some of life's losing battles.

Bangers are important because they promise us that the rebellion is coming. But they alone are not all that is terrific about music. Kind-hearted songs are at times even more important than bangers.

IU said that she made Love Poem expressly to be a comfort for those going through difficult times.

Other songs I'd say are kind hearted include My Immortal by Evanescence and Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley.

This topic came up for me because Lady Gaga's song Paparazzi came on, and I made the comment that it was probably her most kind-hearted song. I received an objection which is that the song's lyrics tell the tale of someone obsessed with someone else. I then recited a form of the above. I judge Paparazzi by its sound, not just its lyrics. It sounds like it is yearning for something that I can't put my finger on.

The following songs are not kind-hearted because they pick the low-hanging fruit that is a romantic breakup:

Adele's Hello. Adele's Someone Like You. James Blunt's Goodbye my Lover. Lewis Capaldi's Someone You Loved (and even Before You Go, for that matter).

Romance is 5% of life.

And to those who would say that My Immortal is about a breakup, my response is that I never saw it that way and that's not why I fell in love with the song. Whereas my appreciation of the blacklist above has a lot to do with the fact that they're centered on romance.

We Need to Talk about Red Velvet

Red Velvet's music makes me feel like they are in touch with my dreams and subconcious. It is similar to the feeling I used to get when watching South Park.

South Park, particularly in its glory days, used to feature dialogue that sounded perfectly stereotypical of one fool or another. I would watch the show and feel like Matt and Trey were cheating by examining my dreams and pulling their script from my dream world. When a character on the show had a critical fault, it felt new to hear him or her speak and yet it felt perfect because it made me feel like I was dreaming while awake. I refer to my dreams here as though they inform my predictions of how people really are.

When I hear Red Velvet, I don't feel like they're just recycling the same two themes that circulate most kpop songs (have confidence and get a boyfriend). Rather, I feel like they're stretching their necks into the cosmos, finding whispers of calm, serious, rigid fearlessness, and handing this loot over to me in the form of their songs.

Here are some Twice songs off the top of my head:

1. I Got You
2. Chillax
3. Go Hard
4. Dance the Night Away
5. Knock Knock

These songs fit the expected mold of kpop. They are about being nice, having confidence, even being a little cocky. Here are some Red Velvet songs:

1. Umpah Umpah
2. Parade
3. Psycho
4. Nightmare
5. Will I Ever See You Again

There is no comparison. Red Velvet is interested in the other-worldly, the edges of what we know. They don't just recycle the cliche themes.

Much of the allure of Red Velvet lies in the simple catchiness of their music. I used to like EDM music and sure, Red Velvet scores points with me just because their sound is euphoric. But when they're excited about fare that would seem mundane to someone who didn't know they were making music with it, it elevates them to the highest level of entertainment.

By my judgment, Red Velvet is 10x as good as Taylor Swift. 3x better than Lady Gaga. 2x better than Twice. And I say that as someone who eagerly clicked the Twice I Got You making-of video as soon as it came out.

Everglow’s Slay

I hadn't been near music for some months and I recently went to check out what has been going on among K-Pop groups I like. One of them is Everglow. I went to listen to "Slay" and I was disappointed.

Everglow has historically been a group that tries to be really tough and cool, and I've always found that their music videos have imaginative and wall-breaking machinery in them, so that calling their music cool feels safe. But Slay felt like it was just demanding a label of "cool" without earning it. I did not see coolness in its core machinery.

I have not added Slay to my playlists.

Something similar happened to Itzy's Born to Be. It's not that I don't think it is cool. I don't think Itzy is the type of group that strives to be cool like Everglow does. The sound of Born to Be is generic to my ears, particularly the chorus, even though its opening gimmick is catchy.

The sound of Itzy's Untouchable is okay and I added it to my playlists.

The group I've found a surprising affinity for is Red Velvet. I love how weird their music is. It's consistently weird and yet right on target. I've dug up some of their less popular songs, like "Nightmare" and "In My Dreams" and they're terrific finds. I have a small playlist of Red Velvet music that I prefer to, say, a small playlist of Twice music.

Blackpink has a couple of entries on my very large playlist, but a lot of their early hits I've excluded (even though they were quite good). I'm just not interested in their old stuff at this time.

Ive Inspires Me

LOL! WoW didn't last long as a shelter. But that's okay.

The K-Pop group IVE inspires me. Their IAM is really good but Kitsch is almost just as good. I've been listening to Kitsch and it makes me feel like programming.

I've commmented that programming is something that is exciting to me. Not fun, but exciting. I still don't find it fun but it does feel like breathing to me. I can watch YouTube videos, and YouTube music videos, but eventually I want to interact with my world and the only way I know how to do that is by programming.