Doug Skinner: An Archive on Your Gizmo

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Entries Tagged as '*Music'

Agnosticize

November 2nd, 2012 · 2 Comments

There have been many hymns to belief, and to disbelief, but not enough to suspension of judgment.  Here’s one.

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Tags: *Music · A

Nine Settings

November 1st, 2012 · Comments Off on Nine Settings

The “Nine Settings” are for voice and piano. The texts are by Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Ficino, Tommaso Campanella, Le Comte de Saint-Germain, Christopher Smart, Guillaume Apollinaire, Francis Picabia, Jean-Pierre Brisset, and James Joyce. I wrote them back in 1983, and have occasionally revised them. They’re based on my occasional praxis of four-pitch diatonic chords, randomized […]

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Tags: *Music · N

Give Me Clouds!

September 18th, 2012 · 2 Comments

I wrote a couple of rounds on snippets from Remy de Gourmont; here’s one of them.

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Tags: *Music · G

Fiction

September 12th, 2012 · Comments Off on Fiction

From 1994, clangorous counterpoint travels between the letters of the word “fiction.”  We separate narrative into fiction or fact; music deserves the same courtesy.

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Tags: *Music · F

The Imponderable Pillar of Worlds

September 5th, 2012 · Comments Off on The Imponderable Pillar of Worlds

A round on an epigram from Benjamin De Casseres.

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Tags: *Music · I

Flookem

August 29th, 2012 · Comments Off on Flookem

Some contrapuntal piano music, from 1993.

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Tags: *Music · F

Stint

August 28th, 2012 · Comments Off on Stint

According to the dictionary, a “stint” is a “a period of time spent in a particular activity.”  That certainly fits this piece for viola and piano, built up of repeated riffs.

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Tags: *Music · S

Radio Valentine

August 24th, 2012 · Comments Off on Radio Valentine

Following the Thanksgiving show, KPFA invited me back for Valentine’s Day in 1978.  I sang some songs, played piano, and played 78s.

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Tags: *Music · *Other · R

All Aboard for Dreamland

August 14th, 2012 · Comments Off on All Aboard for Dreamland

On May 2, 2012, Larry Ratso Sloman and Mark Jacobsen presented a “Live Radio Hour” at Housing Works, in NYC, devoted to Coney Island.  They invited me to sing a song about the place; I arranged Harry Von Tilzer’s 1902 tune, “All Aboard for Dreamland,” for viola and baritone uke, and performed it with David […]

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Tags: *Music · A

A Harmonic Database

August 10th, 2012 · Comments Off on A Harmonic Database

There are 840 diatonic four-pitch chords.  A number of years ago, I randomized them; and have often used them as a basis for composition.  I don’t use them straight; but re-order, transpose, and add to them in various ways.

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Tags: *Music · H