Last night around 1am we finished mixing the album!  Now is the time to share some of the demos around befure putting on the final touches.  Here’s one of the tracks from the album that means the most to me.

‘The Scar’ relates a story of abuse and pain, seen from the outside…

Have a listen to the song and take a moment to try and feel what we’re going for.

Was the mix good?  How did the song make you feel?

Is it something we should be proud of, or do we have more work to do?

I’m really looking forward to hearing your comments.

Listen to ‘The Scar’ (mp3)

So what do you think?

• That was the best song I’ve ever heard!
• That was pretty cool
• Its ok
• Good try guys, keep trying

Here at the Stanford GSB Virality Bootcamp, part of the Power of Social Technology.

Key Thoughts:

Dave McClure

• ~A lot of people are trying for virality, but a great product that people like is better.~
• Paid user acquisition is under rated, especially since.
• The major value of TechCrunch is for investor valuation.

Ed Baker

• Example of growing too fast.  Should have rate limiting.
• V = X Y Z

Hendrickson

• “Bootstrapped marketing is all about personally touching people.
  (And helping them touch each other.)”
• Using twitter to reach people.
• Zynga - 30% of revenue acquiring new users.
• Best way to get featured in TechCrunch is to work at TechCrunch.

Benjamin Katz (failed investment banker, filmmaker, coveroo.com, cafepress)

• “Rolodex: smile, dial, and rile; you are Billy Mays”
• Celebrities: they’re just like you! [except that epople pay attention to them]
• Look big: sleep with Bill Gates, Leland and Yoko
  • coveroo.com
• Harness the groundswell: Press, video, social media, email
• People want to care about something - give them something to be excited about
• Call hundreds of people per day to get in front of them
• Jigsaw - rolodexes
• Having a PageRank 7 site link to us helps with SEO.
• Make videos because it’s just complicated enough that it keeps most lazy people out.

I’m reminded of my interest in using the internet to bring people together.  The best way to increase the amount of love in your life is to give love to someone near you who needs it.

Working on the album for the last umpteen months has taught me the importance of great tone especially for bass. We all know great tone when we hear it - it’s the essential element of music that distinguishes the various instruments in a band and yet it is hard to control because tone is not described with the traditional pitch/time notation of music.  Good tone sounds good when you play a single note.

So what makes great bass tone?  Bass is a tricky instrument because great bass is more often felt than heard.  And although loudness is important for this, there is a crucial element of not stomping on other instruments in the band.  A lot of concerts I go to see to solve this problem by pumping the bass through a hard lowpass filter set around 100Hz or so, so that all the punch and definition of the bass is rounded off.  This is great in a big band because the bass stays out of the way of the guitars.  Also if the attack of the bass is rolled off then the kick drum will totally dominate.

Still the recordings that I like the best in small band settings the bass plays an essential role, because it needs tone to fill in so the guitar can be versatile.

Some Examples of Great Tone

First let’s consider a couple recordings with what I consider great bass tone.  For each I’ll describe the bass tone with words and then look at it from a signal processing perspective to see what else we can learn.

Alice in Chains - Would

This is a good song to start with because it opens with a repeating 2-bar bass figure.  The notes used are low in the register of a four string bass with an sixteenth-note rhythm and melody that emphasizes first downbeats and then upbeats.

This bass tone is thick, with a fair amount of breathy or puffy sounding highs which give it an explosive, percusive quality even without the kick or toms in.  The overall emotional quality of the sound is urgent, tense, and growly. There is also a fair amount of reverb to give it fullness.  What does this look like in signal processing land?

“Would” - Time Domain View - First Note

The figure shows us the following basic characteristics of the sound:

• Attack:
  • peaks at +/-0.35 (-10db)
  • there is plenty of high frequency (2-4kHz) from the pick attack (-20 to -30db)
  • the pick attack precedes the low frequencies sound by about 1k samples (20msec!?)
  • the bass turns on with an impossibly steep step around 1k samples
  • initial bass risetime is 110 samples (2.5msec)
  • the compressor lets through only about 25msec of bass attack
• Sustained level is at +/-0.2
  • the compressor is on here and there is almost no decay here until the next note begins
  • there is a fundamental at about 40Hz, which matches the pitch of the low E string
  • there is quite a bit of second and third harmonic
• There are subtle differences in stereo imagning for the bass tracks

“Would” - Frequency Domain View - First Note

• fundamental of 40Hz is 15db down from the 2nd and third harmonics which are about even
• everything about 250Hz is 40db below the primary
• general signal rolls off around 40db per decade - some of this looks a lot like a reverb decay curve
• noise floor is around 80db down from main signal
• it appears that the band from 2.2-3.1kHz has about 10db of heat

In general the waveforms look a lot less regular than the comb structures I would expect to see for an single note from a stringed instrument.  In particular none of the peaks stand more than 20dB above their neighboring frequencies.

Let’s look at another song.

Deftones - Change - Thick and Throaty

This song is a little harder to pick apart because the bass line is with the drums and guitars, but its a good example.  The song begins with a guitar riff at -12db(peak), picks up to -6db(peak) from a synth and some noise on the second repetition, and then is at 0db peak when the bass and drums come in.  When the whole band gets going in the chorus, the subjective sound is much much louder.

Note that the drums play a big role in the sound of the bass.  In particular the kick drum in the spectrum analyzer looks like a Mauna Kea with a loudness of 10dB at 60Hz and a 10db bw of about 60Hz.  Almost all of the apparent attack of the bass is actually the kick, since the bass notes that are played between the kick have a totally different quality.  Listen to this short wave file to hear what I’m talking about:

ref-deftones-change-note2

Sweeping a pretty steep filter through various frequencies shows the following sweet spots:

• 30-40Hz - (the heart) this is the ultimate feel good spot for the bass and where the bass gets its thickness.  Even through headphones I experience these frequencies in my chest with a tickling sensation that is really great.  This seems to be the magic missing ingredient.
• 70-80HZ - (upper chest, lower) I can just begin to make these sounds if hum really low, but I’m really digging in the bottom of my range.  On this track this is where most of the sound energy is and it gives the bass a deep growly, thunderous quality.
• 110Hz - (the throat) - We’re firmly at the bottom of the male vocal range and the tone here sort of a low throaty hum.   There is enough definition here to bring out a little distortion and gravel, but it can start to get boomy.
• 140Hz - the mouth - This particular track has this frequency rolled off pretty well.
• 2-4kHz - the breath - This range appears to be boosted and is where the bass gets its consonanty breathyness, which mostly a “ba ba” sound.

Deftones - Change - Time Domain View

This riff is mixed with all the instruments, but the bass is the loudest element in this section of the song except the kick.   Guitars are pulled back about 10-15db in comparison until the chorus.

There are three notes played here but notice that there is very little attack.  The peaks at the attack are only 30% higher than the rest of the peaks and the attack lasts only about 30msec.

Deftones - Change - Frequency Analysis

Notice the following features:

• Fundamental is loudest with second harmonic close behind (only 3db less).  Third and fourth harmonics drop 10-13db. (This could even be guitar).
• Note the lift in the 2-4kHz band again (though this is not necessarily bass), though it is still 25db below the bass frequencies.
• Overall rolloff is around 15-20db/decade
• Lots of structure here.  The peaks of the sound stand about 20db above the nearby noise floor (some of this could be the analysis window though).

So this is a very different sound from the Alice in Chains recording, but still quite good.

Tool - 46 and 2

In my mind Tool sets the standard for bass tone.  All the parts work together, but Tool’s bass lines are so tight they are unworldly.

The intro for 42and2 starts with a pedal bass on the high D string (D2: 73Hz) and fingering intervals around the D an octave above (D3: 146Hz).  There is a phaser effect going and some reverb.

The character of the bass is very crisp on attack, and yet the sustain is quite rich because of the effects.

Tool -46 and 2 - Time Domain

• Notice the two very high frequency spurs on the opening attack - these impulses are only 20samples wide, which gives them a bandwidth of about 2kHz.  This is a very fast risetime on the pick attack.
• Unlike some of the previous waveforms the high frequency (2-3kHz) components here are quite pronounced, perhaps only 12db below the bass frequencies.
• The compressor closes after about 4.6k samples (50msec).
• Attack peaks are 6dB above the floor maintained by the compressor.

Tool - 46 and 2 - Frequency Domain

• Here we see the first three harmonics virtually equal in size, and towering over the noise floor in that frequency range for a nice clear bell like tone.
• Everything from 300-400Hz is at least 35dB down.
• As expected the consonants at 2.2kHz are very hot and only 16db below the fundamental.
• After 5kHz everything is rolled off.

Our recordings

Most of my bass tracks were recorded direct and then reamped and are a combination of the following:

• the DI sound which is pretty clear and bright with little distortion or growl
• an fx sound with an Amplitube guitar patch intended to give the bass some dirt on the high end
• reamped through a Mesa 2×12 cab in a room, which gives the track a little more growl, rattle and reverb

• The tone is very clean.  The harmonics stick out 30db above any nearby noise!
• The breathyness at 2kHz is 50dB below the fundamental.
• The second harmonic is 24db below the first harmonic.

This section is in a high octave so the tone here is probably ok as it is.  The real problem is these are guitar notes and not bass notes.  But it is interesting to consider what things could sound like with a different eq and filtering arrangement.

I had the privelege of seeing Sep Kamvar talk about his new book on Friday and I feel inspired by the blending of engineering and art.  He spoke about the emotional nature of blogs and how some bloggers feel the need to put their feelings out there no matter how raw.  The project WeFeeFine.org is just beatiful, as is the piece IWantYouToWantMe, but both raise interesting questions.

• the web is increasingly about feelings and relationships.  Is google missing out by defining its mission as organizing all the worlds information?   Information is so impersonal, but even organizing thoughts would be much more personal.
• is the era of openness on the web just a fad?   Privacy concerns on the internet are on the upswing it seems, and this whole experiment of self disclosure may produce some undesireable results.  Already I see a trend of more experienced users of social networking sites being more conservative with their information.

Still an inspiring area of research and I’m excited to get my hands on a copy of the book.

On the road the other day I came across a post on the New York Times Climate Blog referring to this news story from Xinhua News Agency - “Verdant Mountains Cannot Stop Water Flowing; Eastward the River Keeps on Going“.  The article describes how Chinese Premier Wen Jibao travelled to Copenhagen to play a pivotal role in the climate talks.

I am by no means an expert on climate change or emissions policies, and in fact I take the somewhat pessimistic view that climate change is inevitable. 

By various estimates we have several decades of proven reserves left, and the number of people on the planet and their appetites have only increased with time.  The existing stocks of fossil fuels will be used in 50 years or perhaps 70 years - what is really at stake is who will be burning that fuel.

To see that this is correct consider the number of vehicles on the planet is almost certainly larger every year, and the owners of these vehicles, having commited to a large sunk cost to purchase them will not let them sit idle as long as the cost of fuel is small compared to the cost of the vehicle.  This is true for all manner of energy consuming devices from lightbulbs to computers.

So Copanhagen is an interesting political forum and there is a lot at stake, but that is not what is interesting about this article.  Consider for a moment that the article is written in a narrative style that places Premier Wen as the protaganist of a thrilling story.

From 16 to 18 December, in the nearly 60 hours Premier Wen Jiabao spent in Copenhagen, he held intensive talks and consultations with other leaders to drive the negotiation process forward. We, as members of the travelling press corps, witnessed the roller-coaster, nail-biting negotiations at Copenhagen. But more importantly, we experienced the sincerity, confidence, resolve and effective efforts Premier Wen brought to Copenhagen, which fully demonstrated China’s image as a responsible big country dedicated to development and cooperation.

Especially entertaining is this description of him deep in thought on the plane ride:

After this mid-air briefing, Premier Wen called a meeting of the accompanying ministers to analyze the position of various parties. Then, alone in his cabin, the premier looked out at the sea of clouds outside the plane, staring intensely, deep in thought. It was not a light-hearted mission, he knew. So many things needed to be considered before the conference could be brought to a fruitful conclusion.

Not only is Premier Wen a very serious and thoughtful person, but he also gives great advice, as great leaders do:

Premier Wen said that as long as there was 1% hope, we must exert 100% efforts and not give up easily.

And he is the example of perfect health and vigor, and a hard worker as well:

At 8:30, Premier Wen walked into the meeting room, brimming with energy and ready for a whole day of intense meetings.

Reading this encouraging portait of the Chinese leader almost makes me wish I were Chinese. 

So what is interesting about the fact that the Chinese news agency writes its coverage as pro-government puff pieces?  It is well known that the Chinese government is not very tolerant of dissent.

But no one could imagine for a minute the American press casting Obama or any US President in such a favorable light.  Since when was a US President a role model for ordinary people.  Sure after the election Obama had his honeymoon, but Americans are fairly skeptical of their leaders.  Is this just a natural difference between China and the US?

Actually I think that it is not.  There has been a change in the way Americans see themselves, which is at once encouraging and crippling.

I was raised on the outskirts of an Ohio military base at a time when American pride was low.  Oil shocks, American hostages in Iran, fresh wounds from Vietnam, assasinations, economic uncertainty and an arms race with the Soviets were all headlines of the day. 

And yet I remember vividly the portraits of American heros which we were inundated with as school children: General Patton, General Eisenhower, the marines of Iwo Jima.  Even as the Vietnam war was still fresh in the papers the narrative of American greatness stemmed from the claim to have saved the world from Hitler three decades earlier.  As long as we believed we were the greatest, most free nation on earth the news in any particular paper was just a temporary setback - a difficulty to be endured and prevailed over.

But that is all different now.  What must happen for us to regain our sense of pride?  Our sense of purpose?  Our willingness to work hard?

Now I am not asking for a return to the false and harmful arrogance of the Bush years. 

But if you take two groups of people and ask them to do a job, and one group believes in themselves and the other group is full of self doubt, what do you think the results will be?

And how long has it been since people have thought that Americans as a people were the most fair, smartest and hardest working people on the planet?

If you have everything, but no purpose,
what you have is meaningless and empty.
If you have nothing at all but a sense of purpose,
that purpose will sustain you. 

I’ll end here with the closing words of the Chinese article.  The Chinese news agency makes a convincing appeal that the Chinese are the standard bearers for the whole world and that the “flowing water” of Chinese pride and ambition will flow ever eastward.

History has shown once again that the biggest challenge of mankind is mankind itself. Unity is the source of strength and cooperation leads to a bright future. The Copenhagen conference has put China on a higher and broader world stage. China has reason to be proud and China will work even harder!

Verdant mountains cannot stop water flowing; eastward the water keeps on going. The Copenhagen conference is a new starting point and from here, the international process of combating climate change will keep forging ahead.

 Who can write a convincing narrative for us?

Went to the train station to play a couple of songs and try to change the rules of the whole music thing.  Normally bands form, play in bars to friends and strangers, and hope to sell CDs, become famous and all that.  But the bar scene here is a tiny slice of people as a whole and I dont care about selling merch and CDs as much as putting together some good songs and getting people out of their shells.

So the train station at 6pm is a bunch of people headed home after a long day at work - mostly singles, but a few groups - all dressed professionally and with tired and slightly stonewally expressions on their faces.  I sat down and played a few songs near the entrance where people had to cross the tracks.  Lately.  The Rose.  Pretty mellow stuff.

About half the people had headphones on and I played quietly, more or less practicing because I dont have the songs down yet.  It wouldn’t be hard to get a crowd of 100 people moving through there though everyone is in a hurry.  They rush by in 10 or 15 seconds, but then they might have to wait for five minutes on the tracks.  Here’s a perfect audience for the taking.  Of course once there on the other side of the tracks it’s hard to reach them with anything other than a song, but thats probably good enough.

Most people just breezed by, but I noticed they were more comfortable with eye contact that the last time.  Maybe sitting down helps me see more approachable - or maybe its the mellow tone I adopted.  One kid gave me a smile, which helped a lot with my confidence.  It’s funny how little things matter.

As I watched the people getting of the train I thought to myself that of all the places I’ve played these people probably need music more than anyone - they are tired and the train station can be so drab.  But it takes a certain kind of music to pick people up and make them feel better when you only have 15 seconds to impress them.  I need to think about that one.

Mostly I noticed that I need more practice - my guitar playing is ok soft but things start to fall apart at loud volumes.  Also I’m not using my bottom two strings in the new tuning and I need to bring them in.  Practiced with the metronome tonight, which is something I should start doing daily.

But for now the train station is there every day.  Two down, 98 to go.

I’ve been setting up to play some more guitar but ran into a problem translating songs between the six string drop-D tuning I use on guitar and the ADADG tuning on my five-string bass.  So I decided to try to tune my guitar down to ADADG tuning and relearn a couple of songs. 

The advantages of this tuning are :

• the two low pairs of strings are copies of AD, so you can hop octaves just by moving across strings instead of across and up.
• I dont have to relearn any drop-D songs or scales that I already know (this is how I got to ADAD in the first place)
• Since I’m forced to use different fingerings I might stumble on some unique sounding riffs

Disadvantages:

• I cant use standard guitar chords or scales
• Learning new songs will be harder because I cant use standard tab
• the low A string on the bass sounds funny - especially tuned down 1/2 step you really only hear the overtones - this is true on the guitar as well

I’ve thought of going to a tuning in fourths like ADGCE.  If I used that I could use standard guitar fingerings, i’d just have to shift the roots five frets. 

I’ll stick with this another week or so and see how it goes - it’s good to stretch the mental muscles a bit.  So what kind of triads can we build with this tuning?  Here goes:

Major triads

Scale degrees indicated by number:

The root position chords actually sound pretty full once you get four strings going and it’s not too hard to shift major and minor.  They are for the most part just variations of the C shape,

Minor chords require very slight modifications:

Minor

Note that its very easy to find chords with repeated roots and fifths, but getting a single major third with the root on the D-string is tough.

Related to my last post on emotional journeys I wanted to write a beat by beat analysis of some show and record the emotions displayed.  I chose episode 3 of Glee as my subject.

The highly incomplete list of beats is below.  A few important points stand out:

Tempo is Fast

Feelings change every 1-5 second.  During most of the dramatic scenes the feeling being expressed changes quicky.  A scene might last 45 seconds or so, a line might last 5 seconds, so that’s ten lines per scene.  Many scenes have sub-second camera cuts showing reactions or hinting at future conflicts.

Modern writers rarely seem to dwell on the same emotion so after a feeling is expressed or stated they quickly move to another one.  This keeps the show moving quickly.

Transitional devices.  There are a few transitional devices in the writing of the episode that are worth mentioning.

Feeling vs feeling

The camera or dialogue cuts between two characters expressing conflicting feelings.  This could be fairly static or have some kind of build

Forced transition

A common comic device is to present a feeling of discomfort (like getting the door slammed in your face) followed by something upbeat (like a dance number).  This transitional device makes light of the suffering or unfortunate circumstances (getting thumbs cut off, being taken to the emergency room) and lifts the mood - sort of like the story shrugging its shoulders and moving on.  In some cases these emotional shifts are accompanied by actual sighs or musical cues to denote that a situation is comic.

Musical numbers

These typically stick with the deeper development of a single feeling. “Bust the windows out your car”.  Instead of the microfeelings of a single camera cut, the music and pull us deeper and deeper into feelings.  Because most musical numbers have single point of view it is hard to accomplish the rapid alternation of conflicting or independent feelings that can be experienced in theater.  This raises an interesting idea of a duet of feeling vs feeling.

Primary arc of feelings:

• Excitement -> nervousness/tension (pregnancy subplot)
• Resignation -> Tension -> Frustrated/Concealed Desire (romance subplot)
• Confusion -> anger vs confusion (qb+subplot)
• Challenge -> Challenge -> Success (acafellas subplot)
• Challenge -> Challenge -> Overcoming -> Success (choreographer subplot)
• Frustration -> Comfort -> Disappointment -> Reconcilliation (gayvention subplot)
• Fear -> fear revealed -> comfort -> fear restated (gay subplot)
• Disappointment -> frustration -> fear -> decision -> overcoming (law school)
• … and more …

Beats from episode 3

• excitement - i cant hold it in anymore
• terry’s pregnant - pride, suprise, excitement // worry
• sigh
• toast
• 1:03: I’m really happy for you son
• “i was a mess”
• “that’s my fault, boys learn that from their fathers”
• “i was saving up for … law school”
• “didnt have “
• “guts!”
• 2:12———— dance
• frustrated looks
• “what’s wrong with the choreography?” - shock, nervousness
• “we’re a team now” - venom, cruelty
• nervousness fear
• “did you ever perform Mr schuster?”
• <new problem>
• 3:41 ————
• “oh no, theres none at all”
• “it’s great its wonderful”
• 4:26 ————- break room
• comic relief / disgust - “cutting off his thumbs”
• nervousness, discomfort, awkwardness
• “my life is a disaster”
• “i dont have thumbs” - misery
• “for he’s a jolly good fellow”
• “it’s creepy” <sigh> -> “this is how we do it”
• “testotertones”/acafellas
• 7:56 ——-bedroom——-
• “i hope so”
• “it was like she was trying to make a twin” - happiness
• <nervousness, fear vs. excitement>
• <sex>
• 8:21 ——-cookies——–
• “i just dont have time for all of it anymore”
• “all those in favor of hiring dakota stanley?” - confrontation
• 10:00——-hallway
• “glee is my one shot” -
• “i’ve moved on and I’m focused on my career”
• “you have feelings for me and you just dont have the guts to admit it” (realization)
• “yes” - confrontation
• 11:18———
• “i will not be satisfied…” - pride, gloating, evil
• “go after these glee clubbers one by one” - anger
• “i need a fog machine” - greed, gloating
• 12:12 ——-locker
• “have you ever kissed anybody”  - longing
• “but I want to” - frustration
• “we are superior to all of them” - pride
• <holding hands> - closeness
• “i dont think I’m his type”
• 13:28 ——-nightclub that girl is poison
• i felt like i was finally a star
• “yay! ken…” - false pride
• “this is huge”
• “i need their
• “prison food”
• 15:44 ——— break room ————–
• here come the acafellas - pride
• “stop right there william” - conflict
• “who is josh groban”
• “no sandy”
• “he’s looking for an opening act”
• 17:38 ——– parking lot ————
• until midnight
• vocal adrenaline
• “dont - hes a monster”
• 19:19 ———- vocal adrenaline - mercy ———-
• get off my stage
• 19:54 ———- parking lot ———————
• <new problem>
• how are we gonna get $8000
• 20:20 ———- practice room ——————-
• “i dont think I can be in the band anymore”
• “howards out”
• “is that what that was”
• “i have some bad news”
• “acafellas pressure is too much pressure for henri”
• “officially doomed now”
• “it was fun while it lasted”
• “i dont think you should give up”
• 22:10 ———–laptop ————————–
• i’m quitting glee too
• i didnt quit glee
• have the guts to stick with it a little bit longer
• trust me - i know
• 23:26 ———– moms ————————–
• i’ve got star potential/a cougar never disappoints/my above ground pool cleaning business went through the roof <pride><sex>
• if you mess this up for me… <anger>
• 24:28 ———— practice —————–
• swing that big old bat
• 26:19 ———— gay vention
• we need to have a gay vention
• you can do better
• what if I cant? nobody notice us <frustration/anger // sadness>
• kurt is sweet to me <hope/connection vs sadness>
• 27:13 ————- car wash —————-
• <sex>
• gratitude vs venom
• make it official
• that we’re dating
• i’m in love with someone else
• rachel?
• <violence> broken glass
• <sex/dancing>
• 30:05 ————-video —————–
• <sex/anger/violence vs anger/shock/surpise/confusion>
• 31:00 ————-menus—————–
• “at walking”
• “frankenteen”
• “you’re freakishly tall”
• “maybe you need someone whos going to lie to you”
• “do i want to be a winner of not”
• “wait” - barbara streisand
• “we’re gonna win because we’re different”
• “you’re fired” - anger
• 33:27  ———- dressing rooms ————–
• <nervous>
• “thanks for beliving in me”
• “josh groban is here” - excitement
• 34:41 — acappella number/tick tock you dont stop—-
• <dancing> <applause> <jealous glances>
• <not standing>
• 35:00 ——– after
• which one of you is sandy
• “this is restraining order” <comic surpise>
• “explosive”
• 37:45 ——— parking lot ————–
• “im sorry”
• “you were really good”
• “josh groban loves an alcoholic”
• “you ok?” “i am” - its enough for me …
• “you inspire people” - pride
• “i’m going to law school” - hope/pride
• 39:45 ———- locker room ————-
• “im sorry/i hope it works out”
• “i’ve never told anyone before”
• “the whole point of the club is to express what is inside you” <hope>
• “i cant… i’m just not that confident” <fear, doubt>
• 41:23 ———- sues office ————–
• “that’s the smell of failure” <anger vs fear>
• “when you really believe in yourself you dont have to bring other people down”
• 42:29 ———- dancing —————-
• “it was really good”

(Click on the chart for a larger image.)

Everyone knows that a song should make you feel something.  Really good songs make you laugh, or cry, or feel closer to someone you love.  But how many different emotional notes or flavors are there?  And how do they relate?

Eckman describes five facially expressed emotions:

• anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surpise

In addition he later included the following:

• amusement, contempt, contentment, embarrasement, excitement, guilt, pride, relief, satisfaction, pleasure, shame

The Emotional State Machine

Think of these emotions as states in a Markov model - are all transitions between states equally likely, or are there certain directions that emotions progress? 

For example, sometimes and expression of anger could be the catalyst used to get people out of the fear state and into a state of acceptance. 

Similarly, there is a definite progression of feelings in the so-called “seven stages of grief”: shock, denial, guilt, bargaining, anger, sadness, acceptance.

Is it possible to create a set of songs that predictably and reliably moves people along this continuum from negative into positive feelings? Kind of like a train that makes a stop at each emotional way station finally delivering passengers to a happier and more positive place.

Emotions in Music

If you’ve been to the movies or a concert, you might have had several emotions:

• suprise: a sudden shift in tempo or arrangement
• tension: could be created by swirling dissonance or cacophony
• anger: many songs make one want to mosh - just think of the feeling where “rage against the machine” gets its name
• trance: a positive state close to rest, often created by moving textures and prettiness harmonic lines, with a slow tempo
• groove: a happy but not tiring
• pump: by this i mean a more beat-driven disco-like experience where people get pumped up

Last Stop Happiness

So for now I have this version of the emotional state machine chart.  Negative states are on the left and positive on the right.  The basic breakdown of states is by tense: whether a feeling or emotion is an immediate sensory experience, the meta-expectation of a future experience (or memory of a past one), and the overarching mood which might span days or weeks.   The meta-emotions are split into an active/passive axis (fear vs anger, hope vs desire).  I’ve also listed a few special emotional states as “transitional” in that they are temporary and lead to an emotional reset.

Notice that there are two paths out of the negative bubble:

• anger -> effort  -> success/victory (think “Reducation through labor”)
• anger -> effort -> exhaustion/collapse (cant think of a song for this)
• sadness -> grief -> letting go
  (think “Holly Brook/Live Again”, “Journey/Dont Stop Belivin”)

It seems that the best progression is as follows:

• sadness -> grief -> letting go -> open
• fear/tension -> anger/struggle -> victory -> pleasure/pride

Set Design

In a typical movie, we would repeat ascending fear->anger->victory loops and perhaps once have the [sadness->grief->letting go] arc near the end.  This is perhaps because grief is more powerful and it is hard to really have people cry many times in a film.   There might also be a romantic subplot leading to a make-out scene late in the film.

Also most pop films would start with something happy so that the coming conflict would have a baseline to contrast against.  Unlike film, we might want to have a tear-jerker moment, but at a live show it should be early so people can dance more at the end.   We’d really want to trade the fear/tension->struggle->victory loop in film for more time spent in the “groove” or “pump” states at a show.

This might give us a set like this:

• Opening: baseline happy/fun
  • “hello we are here/soundcheck” song
  • happy song 2
• Sad movement: (anger/fear)
  • {loss -> fear -> anger/struggle -> victory} xN
  • loss -> grief -> letting go
  • {fear -> anger/struggle -> victory} xN
• Happy movement: happy/pump (repeat as needed)
  • ballady break/trance
  • groove
  • pump

Consider the following tweets, taken at random from twitter a few minutes ago:

• Going to bed feeling good. you are a godsend. I love you partner.

• I just got a hair cut!!!

• need to do a little meditation, then dive back in. hope by tmrw to have my
  broke shit all fixed; both physical & metaphysical.

• Looking volunteers for a Himalayan holiday  

What is going on here?

All Tweets Have A Conscious or Subconscious Purpose

Some of these have a clear purpose - to say thank you, to recruit people for a trip, etc.

Another popular use is blatant or subtle self-promotion.  Check out my web site, see how cool i am, etc.

But what about the “I just got a hair cut!!!” post?  This very minor status update seems hardly worth it.  Does anyone really care?

Or is the point of trivial updates to test the waters and actually see if people care about the little things in your life?

Tweets are Diffuse and Unreliable

As I see it, there are a few drawbacks to using twitter these days:

• Launching comments off into the void eliminates directness.  It’s like walking into a party and making statements at the room instead of at a person.  The opposite of intimate.
• Functional comments to get work done are great, but right now twitter lacks the critical mass to do real work.  Phone calls or emails are much better.
• Blatant self promotion is annoying.

But it’s still early days with twitter and the time is ripe to explore new ways of communicating.

Perhaps this week I’ll try an experiment and post more casual status updates, just to see what happens.  But what to post?

Tweets are a Subset of The Unconscious Thoughts of Many Many People

Consider the following sets:

• things I post is a subset of
• things I consider posting is a subset of
• thoughts I consciously have which is a subset of
• all thoughts I have conscious or unconscious

At each stage in the hierarchy there is a filter.  Perhaps the most interesting filter is the very first one, between thoughts conscious and unconscious.  But one of the bizarre things I’ve noticed about myself is that my “things I consider posting” category typically has more negative thoughts than positive thoughts.

For example, I recently dropped a board on my foot which caused me to limp for a few days.  The amount of pain an inconvenience made it very noteworthy to my subconscious mind, and I thought about posting about it.  Was I looking for sympathy on the internet?  And if so is there any sympathy to be had out there?  And if I did tweet about every little injury does that make me a hypochondriac?

I also think about posting about issues or problems that I’m having, but not so much when times are good.  “No news is good news” seems to apply even for me.  Or is this principle just a filter that I have been raised to believe?  What if my filter worked the other way - that I felt compelled to share positive news and no particular motivation to share negative news.

Should We All Try to be Super-Positive?

I know some people who are very careful to always present an optimistic exterior, at least in verbal statements.  If you talk to these people for any period of time it is not too hard to see the wheels turning and the way they are careful to package their statements in positive language.

In general, though, avoiding negativity has very positive effects and these super-positive people seem better than average at building and maintaining relationships.

Still there seems something slightly sinister about it.  It seems sometimes that conflict is a little bit more direct.  I need to think about this some more.