Discover Prompts, Day 24: Elixir

An elixir is a clear, sweet-flavored liquid used for medical purposes, to be taken orally and intended to cure one’s illness.

Or is it ?

ELIXIR unites Europe’s leading life science organisations in managing and safeguarding the increasing volume of data being generated by publicly funded research.

And then again;

Elixir is a functional, concurrent, general-purpose programming language that runs on the Erlang virtual machine, designed for building scalable and maintainable applications.

So there it is… one word with at least three completely different meanings.

Depending on the life experiences of the person reading this, any one of the descriptions could be the first which comes to mind when seeing the word elixir.

This often happens in written language where the context is not clearly defined. The reader comes to this post with an expectation of the content, based on their own preconceptions, yet this may not be the same meaning intended by the author.

Understanding the context is vital to understanding the meaning.

For me, Elixir means;

ELECTRIC GUITAR STRINGS

“Elixir® Strings deliver the presence, punch, and detail of traditional electric guitar strings. But when it comes to tone life, there is no comparison. Players report with Elixir Strings their tone lasts longer than any other string, uncoated or coated.”

Discover Prompts, Day 23: Note

It all starts with the first note.

Deliberate first strokes of pen on paper, or idle doodling of drifting thoughts, all notes are worthy.

The intent may be to generate a list for grocery shopping, the beginning of that long overdue autobiography, a future bestseller, a brief poem, an ode to a loved one, a major orchestral symphony, a to-do list.

They all start with the first note on the page.

Discover Prompts, Day 22: Tempo

There’s an underlying theme this week, Music, Instrument, and now Tempo…

Tempo relates to the speed or timing of the beat in music, typically measured in “beats per minute” (bpm), which could be 60-80bpm for a slow song, to 140+bpm for a faster piece.

However this speed is a dry measure without context.

To create music, you need the tempo, a style, a rhythm, and the feel.

Tempo sets the base speed of the beat. Style is the Time signature which sets how many beats are in each Bar (eg Waltz has 3 beats, most music has 4, but can be 8, 16 etc). The first beat in a bar is usually slightly pronounced when playing, so you get a “drum-dum-dum” for a waltz, or “drum-dum-dum-dum” for ‘common’ time.

Within this time-signature, the rhythm is used to provide musical accent in the same way speech can be accented, to provide movement and flow through the piece. Often this can be a repeated rhythm, but can also be random or alternating.

On top of this is the performers capability to input their own self-expression, their interpretation, their “feel”, where the rigid structure of tempo, signature & rhythm can be stretched or compressed to add space and dynamics, accented to a greater or lesser degree of volume, lengthening and shortening individual notes… this is when music adds life to its tempo.

Discover Prompts, Day 21: Instrument

My family has inherited musical instrument skills, garnered from our parents. On one side we have players of piano, violin, piano accordion, and from the other we have cornet and euphonium

At my level in the family we have experience with piano, cornet, flute & tambourine.

When ours sons were growing up they became interested in playing, one on trumpet, and the other on guitar… at the same time as I started trying to learn it.

Needless to say, my sons’ talents rapidly outstripped mine, and where they are now both serious professional musicians, playing around the globe, I am still struggling with simple chord structure, pentatonic scales, and trying to get my fret-fingers to bend in unnatural ways to make clean sounds.

However, I am preserving with the help of a lot of research, trial & error, and practice.

My current “go-to” guitar is this Epiphone Nighthawk Custom Reissue, not to everyone’s taste, but I love it;

I prefer the slightly smaller body guitars, and my collection has a couple of Yamaha’s, a couple of epiphone’s, a Les Paul style, and a couple of travel-sized models (one acoustic). Each one has its own unique sound due to the type & mix of pickups, so getting the right tone is not difficult… if only my playing ability was as good as they can sound 😕🎸

Discover Prompts, Day 10: Music

“If music be the food of life, play on” William Shakespeare.

I need music in my life. It is an essential part of every day life. For me, a day without any music leaves me feeling empty, lacking emotional fulfilment, and can drive unwanted moods.

My musical experience started with my parents listening to classical, jazz and popular music of the day. Being the early sixties, this included the big names of Beatles, Elvis, Cliff Richard etc, but also the Seekers, Val Doonican, Donovan, Batchelors, and a host of “folk” singers like Dylan, Baez etc. This list grew through the 60s until I discovered the likes of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Hendrix etc.

During the 70s the interest broadened to Bowie, T-Rex, Roxy, and ultimately the UK Punk scene, but lurking in the background was always an element of classical & operatic content. The release of Isao Tomita’s version of The Planets suite, and ELP’s Fanfare for the Common Man brought genres together, and this continued through 80’s & 90’s with the likes of Tiesto sampling classical music as the basis of creating electronic Dance music.

I am not enamoured with the modern R&B and pop sounds, which sound very artificial, and lack musicality.

Luckily my two sons were growing up in the 90s and both liked music, taking it further to actually start playing. This inspired me to finally take up guitar (though my capabilities are still left wanting to this day).

Many years on, and having successfully completed Music degrees at Uni, they are now both exceptionally talented performing musicians and this is the career they have each made for themselves.

I still have my music collection from the 70s onward, to which I’ve added some earlier recordings, and a few recent additions, and I’ve also added an extensive classical collection, and Classic FM is now my favourite radio channel.

I love music of all genres, with a very small number of exceptions, and having professional musicians in the family completes my musical world.

Discovery Prompt, Day 19: Three

So what is special about the number three (3) ?

From song lyrics, to mystical and religious hypothesis, there seems consensus on three being a “magic number”

One is for the love
Two is for the soul
Three's the magic number
And four is forever

From Crashdog (a Christian punk band !!)

“Three is a magic number
Somewhere in the ancient mystic trinity
You get three, it’s a magic number
The past, the present, and the future
Faith, hope, and charity
The mind, the heart, and body
Give you three, it’s a magic number”

From folklore, there are; three wishes, three guesses, three little pigs, three bears, three billy goats gruff.

In Christianity there is the Trinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Time is divided in three: past, present and future.

And the best time is three, as that is afternoon tea time ☕️🍶🍰

Discover Prompt, Day 18: New

From the old comes new, from the past comes future.

From history comes knowledge, from knowledge comes awareness, from awareness comes inspiration, from inspiration comes innovation.

The known pathway from old to new is well trodden, yet only those who are truly aware will provide new innovation for the future.

Discover Prompt, Day 17: Distance

Distance can be a measure of physical separation (like miles or metres), emotional isolation (such as maturity, commitment or even IQ), or perhaps time (light-years).

There is also a distance in our knowledge and understanding of the natural world, and in this current period of global pandemic, social lockdown and the loss of loved ones, the world continues turning, living, growing and quietly recovering from the human lack of environmental care.

The text below is not my own, but whoever wrote this has eloquently shared similar thoughts on the distance between global reality and human perception;

We fell asleep in one world, and woke up in another.
Suddenly Disney is out of magic,
Paris is no longer romantic,
New York doesn’t stand up anymore,
the Chinese wall is no longer a fortress, and Mecca is empty.
Hugs & kisses suddenly become weapons, and not visiting parents & friends becomes an act of love.
Suddenly you realise that power, beauty & money are worthless, and can’t get you the oxygen you’re fighting for.
The world continues its life and it is beautiful. It only puts humans in cages. I think it’s sending us a message:
“You are not necessary. The air, earth, water and sky without you are fine. When you come back, remember that you are my guests. Not my masters.”

Discover Prompt, Day 16: Slow

It’s now been many hours since today’s prompt was announced… I’ve been slow to respond, something which happens at times, when the mind drifts onto other things.

I thought it was “an age thing”, but realised I’ve probably had this since my early years, distractions are often more interesting than tasks. The tasks always got completed correctly, but there was additional fun alongside the end result.

Slow often achieves a more enlightened outcome.

Discover Prompts, Day 15: Scent

I believe the appeal of any particular scent is very much bound up in the moment.

Charlie Red, or Brut 33 could have been just perfect as a teenager at the school disco, yet a night at the opera would call for the likes of a Chanel.

In contrast, I always found that tuning the carburettors on a bike or car engine always worked better if you could smell the exhaust at the same time as hearing the engine tone.

Different scenarios, but still an intriguing link between sound and scent.