Month: August 2006

Loren’s Blues

Despite an end-of-the-summer cold and headache, I’ve been having fun playing around with Apple’s Soundtrack.

Though I found the first attempts at creating a soundtrack totally frustrating, with more time I’ve managed to create some pieces that I’m not totally unhappy with.

One thing I’ve discovered is that a program like this helps you to re-discover your favorite music because when you’re faced with what appears to be an infinite number of choices you tend to gravitate to the music that you’re most comfortable with.

In my case, I guess that would happen to be the blues or jazz fusion. It seems to me this piece isn’t too bad if you take into consideration I’ve never played an instrument or had a music lesson in my life.

Imagine what someone who‘s actually had music lessons could create.

Postscript:

Here’s an image that shows how you build up layers and modules of sound in order to compose a piece. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy to do as this image suggests because there’s thousands of sound samples to choose from and I’ve been unable to find a text that explains how to go about choosing samples other than through trial and error:

Out On a Limb

It’s four o’clock Friday here in the PNW, and the sun has finally broken through the clouds, much too late to help in the taking of pictures. Although it didn’t rain this morning, it was a gray morning and I had to turn the camera ISO up to 400 to compensate for the the lack of light, though I really didn’t notice a particularly high noise level in today’s shots.

I had another confrontation with a doe and her fawn where they simply weren’t going to let me go by. Luckily I was nearly at the end of the trail, so I didn’t push the issue.

In my first walk-through, I noticed that the barn swallows were particularly frantic today, and on the way back I knew why when I spotted these two chubby guys sitting on the rail next to some adults. It must take a lot of insects to feed these two:

Not only were there a lot of Barn Swallows, there was also a lot of Great Blue Herons at the wetlands. About the time you think you think you couldn’t possibly use another heron shot, you find another shot you just have to take.

I’ve seen herons in trees before, but always so far away I couldn’t get a decent shot. This one let me get so close:

that it actually made me a little uncomfortable when he turned and stared at me: