i'm very slowly moving through that introduction to quantum physics lecture series (which is really a course in applied linear algebra, as i learned it in first year), and it keeps reminding me of this old demo i did with sean - which was the one & only rabit is wolf track that i did not remaster, remix or otherwise play with. it's the one and only track i was actually happy with...

i've tended to resist commenting on sean's vocals, because i think i'm sort of out of line doing so. there really was a total division of labour; he may have asked for an extra bar or two to work out a lyrical idea here and there, but he really had absolutely no musical training whatsoever, and i really had no interest in interfering with his expression. but, i keep thinking about this...

the way this track worked was that sean came in with a vocal idea for a song he wanted to call "released with your sigh", and i built the song up after he left, sending him a demo over...i can't remember if it was icq or msn. but, he came back about a week later and did the vocals for it in one take, and that was really the extent of it.

after listening to it, though, i insisted on naming the track "psi" - as the howl at the end was essentially a wavefunction collapse. in fact, i initially stylized it with the greek letter itself, ψ, but that didn't survive in a pre-mathml browser reality; what i just did to get that psi was very simple, but would have actually been very frustrating back in 2002. so, i just started calling it psi and it stuck....

he asked a few times, and i just told him it was a greek letter. i'd known him since we were kids, and was aware that his scientific literacy was very low. i think he tended to think i was naming it after something jungian, perhaps from a tool influence. but, it was more of a bowie-esque play on words.

so, this tune keeps coming up in my head, when i'm eating.

i'm working through this slowly because......the concepts are not new to me, but i have never taken a formal course in quantum physics like this before, and some of these concepts are things i've barely looked at in 20 years. the math is...it's weird. it really is. i think the weirdness has more to do with the geometry being wrong, but i will have more to say in due course. for now, i'm making sure i'm going over it well enough to really properly grasp it.

i would expect that future lecture series will be a little faster.

i think i know more about brahms via fawlty towers, frankly.

hey, i'm not actually an encylopedia. everybody has something to learn about...

brahms is actually a bit of a black hole for me, in the sense that i legitimately have heard very little of it. but, this is in the general style of dark, aggressive romantic music that i like, and would seem to have been a large influence on rachmaninov; perhaps the missing link between beethoven and rachmaninov was brahms, and just right in front of me all along, without me realizing it.

this was apparently an early piece, so, like the chopin piece, it may be more indebted to beethoven than later pieces are. if you had told me it was beethoven, i'd have believed you.

but, this is new exposure for me, so i'm going to hold off a bit. i at least like this, i can commit to that.

it's at the end of the month, but they've already cancelled it.