Music by Thomas Perez

04/26/2025

Update on Music Technology

I've been holding off on innovating as I continue to work on my litigation scenario.

I do consider myself to be a Music Technologist as enhanced by my understanding of philosophy including that of technology and ontology.

I very much plan on continuing my work on Waveform Rhythm and Holophonic Texturing as demonstrated in many of my videos. This work will largely have to wait as I continue to protest the condition the State has forced upon me.

I look forward to developing many more technologies and techniques in my rhythm, soloing, and singing and have many ideas toward doing so.

My playing continues to improve and develop as well as metamorphosize over time which is also personally exciting to me.

I wish to thank my supporters as I continue to get used to having supporters! (I was startled by some positive comments at my last public performance. I failed to get the right sound setup yet my playing was still appreciated.)

Thank you. ❤️😁

08/13/2024

I love this old post of mine that came up in my memories as it goes over some of my approach to music and how I adapted it as inspired by Einstein.

Here's the writing from the old post:

"There's a lot of cool commonalities between Einstein's thinking and music.

"It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception." -Albert Einstein on relativity

Intuition and musical perception led to relativity theory?
How could that be?

Bertrand Russell concerning Albert Einstein's theory of relativity (1925)

"Matter, for common-sense, is something which persists in time and moves in space. But for modern relativity-physics this view is no longer tenable. A piece of matter has become, not a persistent thing with varying states, but a system of inter-related events. The old solidity is gone, and with it the characteristics that, to the materialist, made matter seem more real than fleeting thoughts. Nothing is permanent, nothing endures; the prejudice that the real is the persistent must be abandoned."

-Bertrand Russell, The History of Materialism (1874), by Frederick Albert Lange English translation of the second edition (1925), Introduction: Materialism, Past and Present by Bertrand Russell, p. xiii

The myriad systems of inter related events AKA process ontology describes what governs how knowledge is actualized into being.

Unfolding processes and their continuity can be visualized similarly to the way a song unfolds over time.
Continuous movement from one point to another. Like a 3(or more) dimensional spiraling interwoven tube of sine waves, the points in which they intersect along the way are the notes. The range of ups and downs as well as patterns of repetition forming call and response, point and counterpoint, tension and release.

A visualization of a cross section or slice of this would appear very similar to a kaleidoscope but instead of it being holographic, it's holophonic.

Much of this can be learned to be felt intuitively.

Einstein very much believed in the power of intuition.

"The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it Intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don't know how or why."-Albert Einstein

Knowledge is both a production and a discovery. An ontological process of both a production within the mind of the subject and a discovery within the infinities of objective possibilities. The yin and yang of the cosmos.

"The music of Mozart is of such purity and beauty that one feels he merely found it - that it has always existed as part of the inner beauty of the universe waiting to be revealed." -Albert Einstein

"There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance." -Albert Einstein

If you understand the essence of something enough to understand why rules and methods return the results they do, if you intuitively understand the scope and range of something, then the (old) rules or guidelines are irrelevent.

Don't try to think outside of the box of linear rational ideology and symbolic/linguistic understanding.
Instead, try to realize and understand the truth.
There is no box.

"The Real is what most resists symbolic signification." -Jacques Lacan, Psychoanalyst
(Symbolic referring to language as processed in the mind.)

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. We will not solve the problems of the world from the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. More than anything else, this new century demands new thinking: We must change our materially based analyses of the world around us to include broader, more multidimensional perspectives." -Albert Einstein

“Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses- especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.” -Leonardo Da Vinci

Creators need to move away from strictly focused representations and more toward understanding the individualized interconnectivity of subject and object, centralized or decentralized and open to all metrics of relative dimensionality.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." -Albert Einstein

For the artist/musician, the philosopher Deleuze suggests we ask ourselves: What can you DO with what you have in order to maximize the quantity of your actualized potential through differentiation and repetition over time? How can you maximize the quality as well as quantity of your personal values as well as musical values(notes, motifs, phrasing, expression, repetition, details, nuance, references, etc.) and raise their intensity? How can you be most original through applying difference in ways that are not linearly representational?(Ways that loop back on themselves, no need to have a central reference or point of origin or spreading and growing in all directions like a potato at every possible node and coalescing at modal points.) Forming relational maps of rhizomatic interconnectedness with which to intuitively work from.

Meaning is defined through the quantitative aspects as well as qualitative degree of relative difference.

There's nothing that is more effective than a confident "just do it" attitude when it comes to actualizing potential. Boldly being different relative to others. No one makes a difference through being similar.

Intuitively knowing the musical relationships of a song is equivalent to knowing what to play and that is what unlocks the best performance.

“There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.” - Johann Sebastian Bach

"Life without playing music is inconceivable for me," he declared. "I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music ... I get most joy in life out of music."- Albert Einstein
"
I have since had to back off this approach due to it being scary effective and having had unforeseen consequences....

Groove is relative

03/18/2023

"You Never Said Goodbye"

Original lyrics and new lyrics with chords.

03/18/2023

"Still in Love With You"

Original lyrics and new lyrics with chords.

03/18/2023

Some thoughts on originality.

This video describes some of the key aspects and concepts of Deleuzian philosophy as they apply to answering these questions:

"How to create the new?"

How can you create something truly original?

How can you be different in an effective way?

Deleuze would suggest applying concepts like non-representational thinking and rhizomatic exploration as described in the ~13min video.

In striving to be an original musician, ask yourself;

What can you do with your instrument that makes use of it in ways that haven't been done before?

How can you learn to play your instrument that is not an imitation of other's playing?

Most musicians/guitarists very definition of what "great playing" is, is based almost entirely on the playing of others as represented in their head.

Using only the playing of others as a metric, the best you could be is a faulty representation of someone else.

As for what's possible, what constraints must remain, and what could be done away with?

How many new ways could you develop sets of thorough intuitive rhizomatic maps of the various aspects of the instrument as it relates to tone, rhythym, volume, etc. with which to work from?

How can we depart from what is signified while still maintaining a great degree of effectiveness?

What are the limits(min/max, etc) of the system of interactions that we are dealing with?

What needs to happen consistently/effectively?(what is the output?)

Music is a causal relationship with the listener.
Here is a bit of an explanation from Joe Satriani speaking on Eddie Van Halen's playing:

"Eddie was such a wonderful compositional improviser and he was obviously a really great composer on guitar. He figured out a way to write these really fun songs, but they were really groundbreaking in how he arranged his guitar parts. You can hardly find any songs where he's strumming and then overdubbing some other part. It's a very different way of playing. He's in a trio, and he's trying to fill up the space with a kind of an orchestral style of playing. Then, of course, when he goes to solo, we know from his interviews that he improvised and he tried to capture the spirit of the song and of the band, I guess, of the live event, which is a whole kind of style in itself. It's very different than PINK FLOYD, the way David Gilmour would approach a song. And all equally valid but uniquely different. The odd thing about Eddie is that sometimes he would play stuff that didn't make any musical sense but made sense in terms of how much fun it was to listen to. When you heard the whole band, you went, 'Oh, that's so much fun,' but if you go back and you learn it note for note, you go, 'That doesn't make any sense at all.'

Satriani continued: "There are no rules in music; there's just cause and effect. That's really what it is. And I think he understood that more than most people. He would never get held back by any kind of preconception that there was a rule that stopped you from doing this chord or that note or whatever. He just went with what felt right and what sounded right. And his sense of timing was probably the best I'd heard in decades. When he came along, I was, like, 'Wow. That guy's got a right hand of doom.'"

As for effectiveness, since when has any artist stood out and made a valuable contribution by being similar/conformist/boring/forgettable?

What is valuable is what is rare as
scarcity drives value.

Being different is of greater quality(value) because it is rare.

For example, one easy way to add rare values is to add more of the "surprise" effect in the music. The downside being that it's like ketchup and too much reduces the art value.

Maximising causal potential could be achieved through maximizing the quantity of qualitative values that can be reflected in the art product that would register a reaction in the neurons of the mind of the listener.

Basically, maximizing qualitative intensity is what makes for the most broadly impactful(potent) music.

Being different, detailed, and qualitatively dense in effective ways is key to maximizing potential impactfulness.

Some factors such as the beauty of simplicity can be of great quality/value despite a lower value quantity. Quality is not quantity, and vice versa.

Creativity is not meant to be limited to follow the same old forms, the old limits of notations, and defined by existing rules only to repeat what is already signified by past generations.

Developing a style/ability that is most effective is a lifelong process of becoming.

All of these ideas and processes are described in detail within Deleuzian metaphysics.

Perhaps I don't know what it means to be original. The problem with keeping an open mind is that it keeps you open to influence and persuasion. One way or another, these ideas do seem to make sense to me.

What do you think?

Just food for thought.

My book: https://repeaterbooks.com/product/how-to-philosophize-with-a-hammer-and-sickle/Audiobook: https://repeaterbooks.com/audiobooks/how-to-philosophize-w...

03/18/2023

Some of my thoughts on style.

"The Unconscious is structured like a language."
-Jacques Lacan, Psychoanalyst

Creative expression is largely about allowing the unconscious to express itself freely.

As a songwriter, it seems that finding an authentic style is a matter of allowing the unconscious to be reflected in the art as a stammer of sorts.

Not just limited to vocals or lyrics, but on a conceptual level.

For example: A good lick or solo could be an emotional reflection of internal stammering.

Here's what the philosopher Deleuze had to say about style:
"I should like to say what a style is...it
is an assemblage, an assemblage of enunciation.

A style is managing to stammer in one's own language. (expression)

It is difficult, because there has to be a need for such stammering. Not being a stammerer in one's speech, but being a stammerer of language itself.

Being like a foreigner in one's own language.

There's no question of difficulty or understanding: concepts are exactly like sounds, colours or images, they are intensities which suit you or not, which are acceptable or aren't acceptable." -Deleuze & Parnet: Dialogues II, French edition 1977, English 2007, p. 3f.

It is often the role of a good artist to portray what is least acceptable in a given context.

Sometimes good art is about expressing what is most broken within us.

In short, what makes a person's artistic style unique is their stammering as a reflection of their unconscious.

I don't know if my heart
or my mind is more
broken.

—Emil Cioran

03/18/2023

Some of my thoughts on timing.

As shown in this video, Jimi Hendrix used to tastefully speed up and slow down his tempo as he played because it felt more natural that way.

Most musicians are often taught to play at a steady tempo, usually practicing alongside a metronome or backing track. That is often the best practice, but in the days of sterile, over-quantized, over-digitally-engineered music and auto-tune, music could benefit from returning to a more soulful and groovy playing style.

"...Jimi wasn't always perfectly in the pocket. However, he was always perfectly in 𝘩𝘪𝘴 pocket. He will subtly stretch or compress time and even ride the back side of the beat, which gives a very relaxed feel."

Think of playing TO the beat rather than always ON the beat.

The metronome may make for a great servant, though it makes for a terrible master.

When I first started learning music, I was obsessed with trying to be perfect with my timing. Eventually, I realized that quantized perfection is unattainable.

In a recording, you can zoom in on a performance and find that it's always a little off.

Because art is communication, art that most effectively communicates what the artist intends is the best art.

Perfection is when you feel what the artist is trying to communicate in a qualitative manner rather than what is beautiful in terms of what is quantitatively measureable.

This led me to explore what about timing is essential in music in order to learn about it. I figure it's important to go too far in order to find out where the limits are.

I've learned many things.
For example: from a performer's perspective, interesting timing is more a matter of ensuring that you are playing more exciting rather than playing excited.

I still practice with a metronome and backing tracks as it's still essential to learn how to play along to an intended tempo. It's particularly useful for learning to play effectively with other musicians.

However, a huge area of freedom opens up when you are intending to play by yourself.

There's so much more that I could write about time in music, but I'll leave it at this for now.

Over time, I hope to learn to -tastefully!- adjust my tempo as I play.

"Time is nothing more and nothing less than fractional divisions of eternity and they are irrational divisions at best."
-Frank Zappa

Thoughts and comments are most welcome!

A video in which we take a look at Jimi Hendrix's timing, rhythm and groove. We learn about the grid, quantizing, and why perfect isn't always as perfect as ...

01/05/2023

"In Love With You"
- original handwritten lyrics
I wrote the existing lyrics in pencil and wrote the new lyrics later when I only had a pen. Thankfully there weren't too many changes.

-digital transcript with chords

“In Love With You”

I know Feelings will go away over time
I know Tensions will build and cross over the line
Somehow I keep falling into a love with you
in love with you
I grow with every moment I spend with you
in love with you
What else is there for a guy like me to do
in love with you
You know I have a fear of being left behind
You know I would love to have you call me “mine”
Sometimes I just wish I could belong to you
in love with you
I'll show my love on my shoulder for you
in love with you
How else could I show my love for you
While i'm in love with you