Two sketches had been sitting on my desktop for months — separately, doing nothing.
One generates rugs: deformed tangram grids, each cell filled with hatching, colors drawn from a random palette, tile edges warped by a slow sine function so the grid breathes instead of sitting still. The other draws mandalas: radial curves that follow the mouse, a handful of parameters controlling how the arms splay and bend and spread.
Let me be honest about something up front: I’m not really a piano student.
I’m a keyboard student. There’s a difference, and it matters.
In Is Generative Art Now Quaint? I ended with a question dressed up as a statement: I’m genuinely curious what’s possible now.
Overview # A browser-based piano practice app with four training modes, built to support my Learning to Play Piano at 70 project. It connects to a MIDI keyboard and uses real Steinway piano samples for audio feedback.
Overview # I’m learning to play piano at age 70. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do — and now, I’m going for it.
The mountains don’t care about your festival.
They were there before the fairgrounds and they’ll be there long after. They just sit above Quincy, California, the way they always have — patient, enormous, indifferent — while somewhere below, a fiddle starts up and people who’ve driven three hours from the Bay Area shuffle toward the sound.
I love getting together to play ukuleles with this group of fun people. For Valentines Day we met as we usually do at our local toy store and sang torch songs together. Bella loves going there too, especially since the place doubles as an ice cream shop (she’s fond of vanilla). Look for her. She’s partially obscured. I’m in the santa hat. (For Valentines Day ???)
We’re Dog On It, Johny McDonald, Ken Cawley, and myself. And we’ve been asked to play at the Drunk Brush on Fridays recently. Some good ol’ fun going on! Trying new stuff, new sounds as well as some old ones, of course. Why Dog On It? Because between Johny and I, we own 7 dogs.
It’s been 3 long years since the last Plumas Homegrown Americana Festival. One year was canceled due to Covid, the next due to the Dixie Fire. This year it was hot but we pulled it off and it was fun! I have my own section of the festival with a stage as well as several pop-up tents for work/play shops. Rickety Bridge on Barky’s Stage
Must … not … let … this … go!
I haven’t been working on learning the fretboard for months. Probably gone backward as a result.
