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LONG_SEGUE

                                             September 30, 2010
                                             November  17, 2011


   I went through a phase where I
   was obsessed with burning
   "audio magazines": internet         An odd combination of technical
   sound files collected on dvd+r      circumstances led me into it...
   disks.
                                              SOUND_CIRCUMSTANCE
   Most of the sound
   files I'm interested
   in are quite long:
   radio shows,
   lectures, etc.

           And actually, that's funny--
           in a familiar sort of way--
           because the typical mp3
           enthusiast went the other
           way.  They regard it as
           revolutionary that they're
           no longer forced to buy an
           entire CD to get that "one        The mp3 revolution:
           good song".                       the return of the single.

                     (I wonder who these
                     one-hit wonders are
                     they're fascinated by...)



   Nevertheless, despite the length of
   the tracks, I found myself gradually
   thinking more and more about how to
   arrange them, much in the way I always
   have, thinking like a DJ.

   What transitions would
   make the most sense?

   Am I likely to want to listen to
   several of the same things in
   sequence, or would I rather keep
   switching between different kinds
   of things?

   I was applying the same reasoning I've
   always used when playing radio DJ, though
   with tracks of over an hour long,
   you're unlikely to experience more than
   one transition in a sitting...


   And I started getting obsessive about
   searching out new and different kinds       Far too obsessive, really.
   of tracks, thinking about themes to         It's not like there aren't
   work with:                                  other things I need to be
                                               doing.

     SONIC_WEAVE


         The segues were almost, but not *quite*
         conceptual: typically they exist in your mind
         at the planning stages, and historically in
         your memory, but you only occasionally
         actually listen through a transition and let
         the thematic change play across your mind in
         real time.

                I find myself trying to think of
                things I can do that might create a
                situation where I could focus on one
                of these disks for a longer period
                but that's a difficult trick.  Even
                the manual labor I want to do isn't
                really manual labor.

                But in the absence of the need to,
                say, mop the floor at Cellspace for
                a week, I typically dip into these
                sound files for very brief sessions.
                And yet the mental structure between
                the topics still exists, there's
                still a context there that has some
                meaning.



                    And after a day on the computer,
                    I watch a Doctor Who episode,
                    and then decide to go for
                    a walk through the night,
                    ending up at the donut shop
                    with notebooks and books in
                    hand...

                    I set up one experience so that
                    it goes well right after the
                    other, planning seques for an
                    audience of one.
                                                      Planning a "career":

                                                      Arranging appropriate
                                                      transitions between
                                                      increasingly longer
                                                      segments.

                                                        And eventually,
                                                        you think about
                                                        segments longer
                                                        than your lifespan.


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