Pigeons starting a family on my balcony.
Making bread #2
My second attempt to making bread was mainly lead by this video, which describes “no knead” recipe. Only difference was, that I used fresh yeast instead of dried one.
Problems: still a bit too yeasty taste, too little salt (as contrast to previous try).
Journey to Consonance, day 2 and 3
Second and third day were going in the similar manner as the first. I have managed to generally stay out of the modern music, listening Gregorian chant for approximately 2 hours in total a day. I realize, that this amount needs to raise for my experiment to work, but it is not easy. I am already becoming annoyed by the lack of my favorite “tunes”, and from time to time, when I hear some accidental part of a song, I catch myself diving into it.
I experience some own musicality as well, I unconsciously hit objects in rhythms, sing melodies for myself and play with various things around me just to create some sound. Although, I probably do these things normally, only now I realize it in full dimension. It really appears that I want to fill up the hole which left in my audial life; one could say kind of a “detoxication”, demodernization.
To the whole concept and expectancy of results, so far I cannot see myself change after two weeks in this regime. I try not to be pessimistic or optimistic, but so far I don’t see - hear any changes in my perception of Gregorian chant comparing to other things. Maybe it is too soon to say anything, the seed needs to start growing and yet is just hidden under the soil of my previous musical years.
Journey to Consonance, day 1
Today I started my Journey to Consonance. My audial life is going to be forced to strange position for two weeks and I try to have no expectations.
Journey to Consonance is my experiment with perception of music over time, temporary adjustments to certain aspects of compositions and harmonies. I got this idea from Radiolab podcast, where I heard a story about man, which had one exciting experience. He once worked at archive and situation came up in a way, that he had to listen exclusively to Gregorian chant - middle-age, monophonic liturgical music. After he came out, and was confronted with piece in radio, he asked suprised, “What is this cacophonous music?”. “Well, it is Johan Sebastian Bach”, they answered. Apparently, after he got used to the specific musical constructs, intervals and methods, he experienced our definition of melody and consonance as dissonant. He experienced, what probably experiences every old musical generation, but in more direct, radical way.
I am going to try to replicate this situation, by excluding any modern music from my daily life for upcoming 14 days and observe any changes in my perception. I will listen to Gregorian chants recordings only and avoid any (even accidental) musical situations.
Day one
I started the day off with silence. I didn’t want to push anything, since there is only kind of music available for me now. I normally listen to various genres for 2-4 hours a day, it is important part of my day. I also watch shows during my work in kitchen and suddenly I realized, none of that is so easily attainable, since there is usually music present as well.
Around noon, I played myself a couple of chants. Listening to church music, recorded in church is of course very special for me. It is none like the common things I listen to and therefore it creates spectacular atmosphere. Sudden clarity, pureness and religion. Very basic melodies, combined with beautiful reverb of saint place, what else would you expect anyhow. I don’t know the lyrics yet, but I will probably get to them during the project.
I try to keep up with it until evening. My friend Nico is helping me when I come to his place for visit, plays some chant he finds online. Later on, when we are watching some videos online, I also try to avoid ones with music present, but sometimes it is unavoidable.
Therefore I cannot say I was 100% strict today, but I believe it can be taken as starting point. So far, I cannot really evaluate anything. Yet, upcoming challenge seems to be even harder than I imagined.
