Ro <walking backwards>: Look mommy, I’m walking forward, looking backwards!

Mommy: All a matter of perspective….

Today I’m experiencing heavy side effects from a new medication my doctor prescribed. Usually you only glance over the possible side effects, but this morning, when I woke up with back pain I checked my prescription:

sore muscles – check

dizziness – check

general weakness/sleepiness – check

cough – check

Sounds like I have to stop taking this nonsense drug. I can barely concentrate while sitting at my desk…

“Wenn einer eine Reise tut dann kann er was erleben” (The traveler has stories to tell). That was true for our latest trip around the world to attend a wedding in Madurai, South India.

The flight from Austin to Chennai via Houston and Frankfurt had some high lights, though none of the usual stuff like lost luggage. On the way to Chennai, I experienced the hardest landing I’ve ever witnessed in a commercial airliner. The 747 literally stopped flying at 20 ft and fell onto the runway with a big bang. I was worried about the landing gear coming through the wings, but the bird is built tough. It needed it that night, while landing in heavy winds with rain.

During our landing at Frankfurt we landed on the new runway in the north of the airport, only to wait for 15 min before we were allowed to taxi to the terminal, due to some mysterious new night operation regulation for Frankfurt – odd and annoying.

On our return flight, the surprise was again fetched by Frankfurt ground operations. After a taxi marathon that took forever we finally deplaned to a bus! That bus then brought us to the connecting terminal for our next flight. It was cold and rainy, and as passengers flying from India to Texas, two warm places, we were utterly unprepared for the onslaught of European winter. Next time we’ll opt for Dubai as our connecting hub. Frankfurt just isn’t worth the trouble any more. The airport is a maze, little support for families, pathetic ammenities, and all facilities are too small in international comparison for the passenger volume. The German “friendliness” doesn’t help the experience.

After we were on our way from Frankfurt to Houston, we flew a very southerly route to avoid severe weather over greenland and Newfoundland. We departed via Paris and hit US mainland again at Washington D.C. – a route I’ve never experienced. This added about 45 min to our flight and made MrsM and Ro miss their tight connection in Houston. So we had to for the next flight to Austin, were I could only get a standby seat. Everything worked out fine in the end, but the added drama after 20hours on the road is unwanted.

Immigration also refuses to have priority lines for families with kids, so standing in line for 40min with a toddler who’s inner clock points to 3am isn’t exactly fun.

After boarding our plane for the short hop to Austin, we were stuck for 70min on the tarmac without access to bathrooms or service – the delay was due to weather. We finally departed 1:15min late. The remainder of the trip was uneventful – the luggage had arrived, only MrsM’s suitcase had lost a wheel which made pushing it harder. We finally got dropped off at our car and paid the $102 parking bill over Thanksgiving with a smile – who said travelling was cheap?

It was good to be home after having travelled around the world. The dogs greeted us warmly and now I’m sitting here at 4am CDT wide awake – It’s 3:30p according to my inner clock!

Music touches our minds in ways that are still mostly a mystery for us to understand. I view it as a massage for the brain, stimulating different centers that are inaccessible to us from the rational part of the brain. Rhythm helps to generate repetitive patterns of brainwaves that causes effects in our mood that can last for hours. Sometimes a tune echoes for the remainder of the day – you just can’t get it out of your head.

Looking at the way music is created and then produced, we find different steps involved. First someone conceives the theme and constructs a piece – this is the composer. In old times they were sitting in front of an instrument scribbling down what they were hearing in their heads, playing fragments, trying, retrying, tweaking and printing.

Then there’s the question of arranging the piece, filling the melody with different instruments, voices and sounds. This part can have a very profound impact on how the brain conceives the music. In today’s pop music, which is rather simplistic by construction, the arrangement makes up a huge part of how a piece is perceived. For example, I can arrange the same melody with a Dixie Ensemble, Jazz combo, classical orchestra or a Techno synthesizer. If I change the rhythm group along with the style, you would end up with very different sounding pieces, despite their common composition.

Lastly the artist interprets the piece that was composed and arranged by different people. You can find huge differences in interpretation of pieces – this is quite apparent in the realm of classical music. Listening to different piano interpretations of Chopin or Debussy can be quite surprising. It’s even eye opening at times, when you hear someone else playing a piece on the piano differently from how you interpreted it, when playing it yourself. It sometimes sounds like a completely different piece! And that is with the identical composition and arrangement. You also see vast differences in pianists maturity playing the same pieces. Attend some of the pianist competitions with the latest wonder child performing Chopin. You’ll be amazed by their physical abilities to hit the keys, but nothing beats 60 years of experience – listen to the same piece performed by a pianist veteran and you’ll be blown away – mostly by the level of sophistication that comes from the musical emotional maturity. It’s that experience that lets the pianist’s interpretation shine.

There are also vast cultural differences in interpreting music. Asien trained artists, used to different scales and harmonies produce very different performances from western trained artists. This was quite a stunning discovery when I realized this. And there’s no right or wrong, it’s just different. We don’t want to limit ourselves to the interpretations of the original artist/composer – in fact many composers invite different interpretations of their work.

I’m starting to explore arranging music themes in different styles on my synthesizer and sometimes am amazed at how different they sound. Taken to the extreme, at times it’s hard to recognize the common underlying composition. I’m thinking that in modern pop music, arrangement is more important than composition – the right beat and set of instruments and effects will go a long way covering for a mediocre tune… it’s fascinating. And as other’s have said before for artists: you don’t need a good voice, but  a distinctive one that defines your own style. It’s more like building a brand than showing off versatility. Brands can be repetitive and boring, yet people flock to it for familiarity. As long as they’re interested in the little newness the latest iteration brings.

Next I need to figure out how to post music….

Today I learned that my friend and “Fliegerkamerad” Lukas had a fatal accident doing what he loved most: flying.

He was in a fatal crash with his Lancair 235 that he had bought earlier this year in May. Details of the crash are still unknown.

He leaves behind his wife and son of five years.

Lukas was an independent thinker – borderline crazy at times. We learned to fly sailplanes together in Neustadt/W. when we were 14. We all dreamed of a Lancair sitting around the bond fire at the local flying club. He was living the dream!

The world will be a more boring place without him. We’ll miss you!

I just saw a documentary on TV  about the Brooks wilderness mountain range in Alaska. A local was sharing some of his wisdom with us ignorant viewers on TV (PBS). His views did stike a chord with me (and yes, I’m ignorant in many ways). Pointing towards that big pile of rock he said: “Don’t talk about that mountain, because it’s so much bigger than what we think we are.” … and he wasn’t referring to its physical dimensions.

It’s so true.

In the context of Multinational Corporations wanting to take over our US wilderness areas for short term financial gains (oil), we (as the public, who has decided the destination of these lands already long time ago) should all stand up and shout at them: “Smarten up guys! Get better at what you’re doing (already) and do it somewhere else! Go AWAY!” Such action would even create engineering jobs – surprise! This advice doesn’t come from a tree-hugger but a nuclear power plant proponent. – Not sure this is much of an endorsement 🙂
Alaska *is* beautiful and worthwhile protecting by itself. We’re only starting to understand what role this country plays in the interdependent, multi generation, multi layered eco-system. Observe and try to make Heisenberg go away!

Preserve!

I definitely don’t want to see trucks in the park – F’off!

Yesterday I had my 40th birthday. I got an awesome gift from MrsM, this macBook Air that I’m writing this blog post on. I’ve been craving this machine from the beginning on. It’s just so well designed. Industrial Design done right. With Steve Jobs gone now, I felt it was the right memorial token, since it’s truly the first apple device I’ve ever owned.
I knew about the awesome user interface from my wife’s devices, and also from the EFI-X clone computer that I’ve put together. But this is the first real Apple for me – since the Apple IIe days….
The second awesome birthday gift was our birthday dinner with my parents at the Carillon, on UT campus. This top notch fine dining restaurant was serving us a variety of different foods. Everyone had the three course menu, and I had the four course menu with wine pairings. We finished off with a nice Cognac, desert and Espresso. After four hours of eating I could barely walk. What a treat!