Wednesday, 1 November 2017

I got up early this morning but saved my walking for later in the day.

After breakfast, I walked into town to check on the progress with my phone. It's a good thing I did, because they apparently hadn't gotten my e-mail authorizing the motherboard work, so they were just waiting.

While I was on that block, I went to the pet store and was able to get a mouse for Goldfinger.

I walked back home by a somewhat circuitous route, taking advantage of the lovely day but staying in the shade most of the time. I also stopped and did a little grocery shopping at the Mega supermarket near the hospital. I used up the rest of the money on the gift card that Berlitz gave me for the holidays.

I did quite a bit of tinkering around with synthesis today. I had seen a video recently that said that, according to some research, 19 Hz is a frequency that can have an unsettling effect, so I decided to create a patch with a deep rumble and a LFO (low frequency oscillator) set at 19 Hz. By adjusting several other parameters slightly, I was indeed able to get a fairly ominous low rumble sound.

I then decided to create a patch with bell-like sounds. When I played with it, I came up with some really quite weird and wonderful effects that go beyond what one would be likely to get with real bells. Then I used a spreadsheet to generate randomized times, velocities, and notes for the bells. The result is quite a chaotic clanging!

I plan to make several more patches and work this all together into a very atmospheric, electronic piece. It will be interesting to see what I can come up with, and it will certainly be great practice using the synthesizer.

I had a salad with 2 hard-boiled eggs added, a cheese sandwich, and a few cookies for lunch.

In the evening, I walked down again to check on my phone. Now they're expecting it to be ready around noon tomorrow. I again walked home by a circuitous route, this one very different from the one this morning.

For today's pic of the day, I went way back to the pics I took last Spring when I was at the Kempinski Hotel in Jordan by the Dead Sea, for this view from my room's private balcony:

I didn't have my phone today, of course, but I'm sure I walked at least 9 or 10 kilometers in total.