I think a lot lately of the analogy, that we are in a stormy ocean, an ocean of thoughts.
Most of the time we are drowning inside.. and like a fish in water,
we do not know we are in water, we do not know our consciousness is absorbed in this
stream of thoughts.
Once in a while, perhaps with the help of meditation, perhaps by `chance'-
where the Buddhists would claim this `chance' is a result of good mental qualities
developed in the past, our head is above the water.
We are with the reality of this moment, not panicked, not exhausted.
It feels we have `made it' for a second. But the ocean is stormy,
and a huge wave comes - a sexual fantasy, a thought of resentment about
a co-worker\friend\romantic partner that did not act like we wanted him\her to.
For the first second it seems we can keep our head above the water,
not get sucked in; but the pull of the wave reveals its strength more and more.
Like water it flows through any empty space you leave it..
it can come as thoughts about `hahh.. look how I am staying present
and not getting sucked into thought..hmm I am getting so developed..
next time I meet this girl she will feel how much more developed I am..
and then our meeting will go so much better, we will end staying at my place and..'
and after 20 minutes again you wake up for a second.

You get sick, and at the same time there is a clog in the pipes
and your house get's flooded after you take a shower.
You're tired, you're bored.
You start having thoughts like
`maybe I should have kids so my little sister won't have to take care
of me when I'm old'
You listen to the audio version of `the art of living'
by William Hart. A teacher in the Goenka school,
that you even had the privilege to take a course with.
You understand: Only the truth can give real refuge.
The truth of impermanence. The experience of the fact
that `you' are just a collection of a physical process and 4 mental processes
interacting with each other and changing every moment.
You feel the inner body. You see how it feels as good and alive regardless of the
state of the outer body. You see how the happiness of the awareness of impermanence
can be accessed at any moment.

https://soundcloud.com/ariel-gabizon/ex8380-400
https://soundcloud.com/ariel-gabizon/360-380allvoices

A few thoughts inspired by an interview with David Cope

http://www.psmag.com/culture/triumph-of-the-cyborg-composer-8507/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9puyNuMXkEw


The beauty of a diamond does not depend on whether it was reached by a human
with a shovel, or by a drilling machine.
Similarly, the beauty of a musical piece should not depend on whether it was `mined'
by a human or computer.
Here the mining is done in the space of all possible combinations of notes in space and time.

You would not compare a cellist and pianist and say `Oh the cellist is not as good because he could not play fast sequences of 4 chord notes' or `The pianist is not as good because he cannot control the nuances of  the volume and color of a single note'.

A piano is a tool created with technology: You have a machine that plays the actual strings for you. You lose some control over the details, and gain the ability to play more complicated combinations of notes.

Similarly, music mining technologies will be a tool with it's own disadvantages and advantages.
They will not eliminate the need for creativity and talent of the user. As pianists are compared to each other,
users of these new tools will be compared to each other on how well they use them.

A bit of topic, now that much of the world is secular, people are looking for things to deem sacred.
One such thing is human creativity.
And there is always the question: Was this musical idea\physics law\technology` invented\created' or `discovered'?
I tend to view things more on the discovery side..like exploring a new land,
we are exploring the lands of sound combinations\mathematical notions\ect..
which at a more general level are explorations of all possible manifestations of mind and matter.

'Write me', he heard her say.
He wondered if through channeled voices he was letting her voice out.
When she was tied by conventions and constraints, he would be her voice,
God's voice, in that small echo of God
s voice, that resonated in the air since their first meeting.

He could not tell the difference between mental masturbation, and wishful thinking,
and real, meaningful words.

She just pushed him to spit out, sentence after sentence.
He was drugged by the storyline.

Two fair away friends, working, developing, the ground for the time when
a war could be fought and won on it.

So much to do,
so many places to go,
create a new layer of thoughts and emotions.
Make it believable that you were just another fantasy..

but at a moment of silence,
it becomes clear..
you are underneath it all.

I was curious what would come out from a graph of bach transitions, under the constraint that the bass or soprano has to pass through all notes in an octave by order (chromatically) up and down.
https://soundcloud.com/ariel-gabizon/chromaticbass-370-410
https://soundcloud.com/ariel-gabizon/chromatic-soprano-370-410