Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I didn't sleep enough Tuesday night; felt not quite right all Wednesday; realized in the evening that although I could probably have coped with rehearsal, I was not up to the drive, so I called in sick; had been unable to sleep despite being can't-concentrate tired, so I made a "tryptophan bomb"; still failed to sleep (the tryptophan helped make me feel sleepy instead of just tired, but not enough -- I probably shouldn't have tried to save calories by skimping on the size) and was too out-of-it to do much more than post a few comments and note a bunch of things to get around to commenting on when I'm more awake; finally felt drowsy enough to try sleeping again; nearly nodded off, and was suddenly awake again ...

So I picked up the guitar next to me in the bed (yes, I sleep with a guitar, most nights ... sometimes other instruments, and right now there's a mandolin in the bed as well ... this is what they're in bed for) and started noodling, thinking that at best it would relax me and at worst at least I'd get some practice in and be distracted from how frustrated I was about not sleeping.

About twenty years ago, I wrote a rude bass line. It's something I wrote specifically to be rude; it's deliberately difficult for other people to work on top of -- the idea is to make them laugh and say, "wiseass" -- (but I keep thinking something really cool would come out if anyone ever meets the challenge, and maybe someday I'll get around to making a machine play it for me so I can try soloing over it myself). It's mostly in 5/4 time, but every few measures it drops a beat. When it finally wraps around to the beginning, it's out of phase with itself. I started playing that a few minutes ago, and then thought, "What would happen if I made a polite version of this, in some time signature that's easier for other people?" So I lengthened and shortened notes and made it swing a little, and quickly found a version that felt sane and normal-ish.

I counted out what I'd just come up with. It's in 12/8.<.p>

And on realizing that, suddenly I was awake enough again to get up and post this. Whoops.

Hardly the most obscure time signature out there, but just uncommon enough that once I write it down I know somebody's going to look at it and go, "Urk?!" for a moment. But now I'm dying to find out whether other people will find it feels as natural to play as it does to me, despite the time signature.

Anyhow, I'm reminded of the first time I played in 5/4. Ray, my second roommate, the paranoid one, was teaching me some stuff on guitar (which I was still a beginner at, at the time), and he decided he wanted to have me play a simple chord progression so that he could solo over it. But I kept screwing up the beat. I couldn't keep it straight in 4/4, so over and over again I fell into 5/4 by accident. This drove him nuts for two reasons; first because I couldn't keep it together in 4/4, and second because in his worldview no human[*] should find 5/4 more natural than 4/4. A few days later when he saw me walking while playing in 5/4, that bothered him even more. "How are you able to do that?!" (I dunno, if you think in pairs of measures, it becomes a ten-count, and that's an even number like the number of legs I've got, so it works out, eh?) I did eventually outgrow my problem with 4/4, and nowadays the time signatures everyone else is familiar with are the ones my hands most often fall into by default (uh ... assuming "everyone" includes enough Celtic musicians for slip-jigs to be in the set "everyone else is familiar with") but oddball beats still slither out of my brain from time to time.

[*] No, he wasn't completely convinced that I was one, but the idea still bothered him.

"When you change your name, who you are doesn't change, but the answer to the question 'Who are you?' does." -- kuritzky, 2003-11-23.