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Traffic is heavy but the responses are relatively muted, at least until A____ and her two kids arrive around 8:05. Cuteness is always welcome, and the chorus of horns that greets little Z__'s HONK IF YOU LOVE OUR PLANET is uplifting. "Glad to see you've got some help today," calls out a man in a grey sedan, and the sentiment seems to be widely shared.

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Today I try a different approach to my 7-note third/scale exercise. Rather than simply build a line from notes of equal length, I craft a version of the cell in which the note durations diminish over three cycles: 6+5+4+3+1+1+1 = 21. The first note lasts 6 beats, the next 5, and so on.

3/

This creates a nice "cascading" feeling where the line picks up momentum as it goes along, with the final three quarter-note values leading nicely back to the Sam of the next set. Clapping along with it is a very interesting challenge. When singing equal rhythmic values, the "voice-timer" which handles sung durations in my brain can simply operate on a default setting, but with this sequence I have to be very alert.

4/

it takes me many passes through the sequence at a rather sedate 113 bpm before I really feel I've internalized it. But by around 8:05 I can begin pushing the tempo upward by 5s, eventually winding up at 133 bpm by the time I make my video at 8:25. Craige and I do a well-intentioned but not particularly coherent duet on "Imagine," and I pack up my stuff for the walk home, leaving him to stand for a few more minutes.

5/

The news is endlessly appalling, with the broad-daylight abduction of Tufts grad student Rumeysa Ozturk the latest outrage in a seemingly endless stream. The ignorance, malice, and nihilism of the current administration is a stain on our country, making a mockery of our national pretensions to moral authority. Shame on us.

6/

I am grateful as always to music for providing a solace, a respite, a reminder, a place to stand. These rituals of resistance are not grand gestures; they are entirely local, as personal as they can get — and in their rootedness they offer nourishment and fortitude. We cannot back down from this struggle.

See you tomorrow.

Man With Sign

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