my ukulele progress

I found the sound I was looking for. I combined the Em6 with the D Kumoi.

I would pivot on the E of the Em6 by valorizing the E in the strum and then transition to melodizing using the E not as the tonic of the chord but as the supertonic of the D Kumoi. One thing about the Kumoi that is really challenging to someone like me coming from a Roots tradition is playing the 6th instead of a flat 7. It just doesn't sound right to my ear. But that's the point of using the Kumoi; it presents a slightly different pentatonic sound.
 
I had one of my favorites poached eggs with my beans. The beans I embellished with red and green chilis. And poached eggs are my favorite with the yolk gelatinous without being runny. It is a thing of beauty which I find very few people can do properly. I gave up ordering poached eggs when dining out twenty years ago.

I played around with the E Kumoi spanning two octaves when I found I could do it without resorting to just sliding up and up the A string; that always feels so amateurish. That opened a lot of possibilities since that spanned 10 frets. There were countless possible detours to make along the way to make what I was doing less squamous and more melodic. And I didn't just play the high frets. I was able to connect to lower shapes like the C# Aiolian b5. Of course I was also able to insert minor pentatonics for variety.

At some point I started working in some 6th double-stops and I don't know why, especially since they resolved to G although I had been playing in E.

Lastly I started vamping with F#ø, B7b9, Em7 with a turn around of Em7, Em9, Em7#9, Em9, Em7. I was interchanging that with the sub-tonic shape of the E major pentatonic.

All these things were separate and I didn't try to string them together in some amorphous melange.
 
I had one of my favorites poached eggs with my beans. The beans I embellished with red and green chilis. And poached eggs are my favorite with the yolk gelatinous without being runny. It is a thing of beauty which I find very few people can do properly. I gave up ordering poached eggs when dining out twenty years ago.

I played around with the E Kumoi spanning two octaves when I found I could do it without resorting to just sliding up and up the A string; that always feels so amateurish. That opened a lot of possibilities since that spanned 10 frets. There were countless possible detours to make along the way to make what I was doing less squamous and more melodic. And I didn't just play the high frets. I was able to connect to lower shapes like the C# Aiolian b5. Of course I was also able to insert minor pentatonics for variety.

At some point I started working in some 6th double-stops and I don't know why, especially since they resolved to G although I had been playing in E.

Lastly I started vamping with F#ø, B7b9, Em7 with a turn around of Em7, Em9, Em7#9, Em9, Em7. I was interchanging that with the sub-tonic shape of the E major pentatonic.

All these things were separate and I didn't try to string them together in some amorphous melange.
Do you have an egg poacher, or how do you do it?
 
I do have a poaching pan with little cups in it, but in the past I have done the chef-approved technique of swirling the water with a chopstick and then dropping the egg into the vortex.
 
That method sounds like more fun.
if you put the eggs in a fine mesh strainer first, you can get nice eggs without the puffy fluff that tends to make the water boil over.
A different method I just saw where you soak the eggs in a water/vinegar bath for a few minutes first to keep the eggs rounder seems cool for special guests but uses a bunch of vinegar.
 
Strictly speaking, if you place the raw egg in a small container which is then placed in the hot water, that is not a poached egg but a coddled egg.
 
the container I have has holes in the bottom so that when you place it in the water, the water enters and poaches but the container keeps the egg in a nice shape.
 
today was a day for metronome and discipline. Using the metronome to strictly count the measures I played 4 chord progression in A: Am, Dm11, Em add9, Em. The last chord serves as a turnaround. I would play that for a few iterations, then I would switch to melodizing for the last two measures using the E on the 12th fret as a starting point and either moving down the E Kumoi or up the E Kumoi. These last two measures I would squeeze in as many or as little notes as the metronome would call and end on an E so that I could transition back to the top of the progression. It was good practice and it lasted about an hour non-stop because there are so many variations possible or sometimes I just repeated what I did before or slightly develop what I did previously. The metronome was essential because without it I would have just drifted off in wankerdom extending those last two measures into indefinite doggerel. With the metronome the structure made it musical.
 
It is officially autumn in New Mexico. If you arise early enough you can see airships in the sky and homeless people draped in counterpanes staggering out of their drug dens and stumbling down the sidewalk to set up shop. It will soon be cool enough to wear waist coats once again.

I did my weekly shopping but this week I will need to suffer the added expense of some online shopping for some specialty comestibles not available at my market. I am running low on my hot sauce. I am a devotee of Bunster's, an Australian hot sauce. It is around 100,000 on the scoville scale which is rather negligible in the world of hot sauces although that's still about 30X hotter than vinegar-based store brands. I like it because it is still food. Other sauces use extracts and are hotter but you cannot eat them as a condiment; they are more of a prank. Bunster's, as long as you only use a dollop, adds heat but also flavor. It is natural and based in Scorpion peppers but it has a citrus profile and cilantro and carmelized onions. It is a great condiment as long as you are stingy with its application. Chili sauces are hot but they subside after every swallow. Pepper sauces, however build up. So that the second mouthful is hotter than the first. And so on. If you aren't careful, the heat can almost be unmanageable by the end of the meal.

I also need more garbanzo flour. My market does have some but I have found that all garbanzo flour, or Gram as it is called in Asia, isn't the same. I have a particular brand that I fancy.

I also want some more decaf mokka java and I suppose my wife would want some mixed nuts. It will easily be $100.
 
The fiesta is in full-swing this Saturday. I awoke to see several dozen airships in the sky. I've said this before in this space but I am always a bit awe-stricken by this sight because I have read and entire corpus of Edgar Rice Burroughs and the sight of those airships reminds me and my imaginative soul of the bellicose airships of the red martians, so that my visceral reaction at the sight is: oh crap, they're coming!

Speaking of my literary life, I finished one of the Horatian epistles which I've been revisiting and it was interesting to say the least. This book of epistles was written to demonstrate to its readers how to be a kept man but still retain some dignity and independence. In the epistle I just read (number 8 of 20) Horatius writes to his patron and apologizes that he will not, as promised, be able to visit until the following springtime. In the course of the epistle Horatius does praise the patron for being the kind of guy who not only gives but gives people what they need. That being said, Horatius does say he could survive very well without anything the patron has given him. It is quite a gambit. But Horatius does establish himself as an independent soul. Maybe the patron takes pride in having such a truculent person within his retinue. To me this whole scenario is fascinating because we don't really understand it. To operate under an autocrat and yet to preserve some dignity is so far beyond my experience and that is rather stimulating. Horatius is treading a very thin line. His patron has endowed him with a modest farm from which he sustains himself whilst producing literary works which we are reading more than 2000 years later. I suppose that is his leverage; the patron knows he is getting his money's worth to be associated with this poet. And that allows Horatius to be a bit sassy without suffering repercussions. Maybe that's the lesson this epistle is meant to teach: be excellent, be worthwhile, and you can punch your own ticket as long as you don't push it too far.
 
I didn't have a lot of time to play today so I was just strumming thoughtlessly:

Am7
D add9
Gm13 (I know this chord isn't diatonic)
E add 2
E m6
E°7
G#m7
Am7

That was the basic pattern into which I inserted some melodies. The epicenter of what I was doing seemed to be around the 12th fret, so I based the start of the melody on the B Mixolydian b6 on the 11th fret and then finished up the soloing with the same mode but on the 16th fret--ending on a high note
 
I don't think I have ever had a real poached egg or one that was stolen.

It has been awhile since I have had a soft boiled egg. Those happen when I am shy on making them hard boiled. But I do like a soft boiled egg. I shall have to try and make some hard boiled ones again sometime that are not cooked long enough. A soft boiled one is a good treat.

I can strum thoughtlessly pretty well. Though I confess I do hook together patterns and chord changes that are pleasing to my ear. My wife thinks I am playing songs.
 
I had a fairly rare experience for me in the kitchen. I usually can find a silver-lining and make things work, but experimenting with eggplant was not a good experience. I cut an eggplant into julienne strips and used it in a stir fry. It just wasn't very good. It was bland and yet bitter. I categorize it with okra as something that would be okay smothered in a sauce and cheese, but not otherwise. I read that there are things you can do such as using salt to remove the bitterness through osmosis, but that begs the central philosophic question: why? Why would I go to the trouble when approximately 25% of my market is devoted to produce which is edible right off the shelf? I am not a picky eater and I eat a very wide variety of vegetables but eggplant has never been one of them and never will again. Life is too short and there are too many good things to eat to waste time on eggplant.

My musical meanderings and maunderings fared better. I was playing with the piongio scale which is a hexatonic scale that is very hermaphroditic because it doesn't have a third so that it works in a major or minor context. I have only scratched the surface of this concept but what I enjoyed doing today was playing the Em rooted on the 12th fret and accompany that with the usual suspects like a B7, a C#m, Gm13--in short, a rather minor line-up. But then I would play the A piongio over it and although the piongio is rather ambiguous in its leanings it did work in this context. i haven't made a final verdict yet.
 
I had a fairly rare experience for me in the kitchen. I usually can find a silver-lining and make things work, but experimenting with eggplant was not a good experience. I cut an eggplant into julienne strips and used it in a stir fry. It just wasn't very good. It was bland and yet bitter. I categorize it with okra as something that would be okay smothered in a sauce and cheese, but not otherwise. I read that there are things you can do such as using salt to remove the bitterness through osmosis, but that begs the central philosophic question: why? Why would I go to the trouble when approximately 25% of my market is devoted to produce which is edible right off the shelf? I am not a picky eater and I eat a very wide variety of vegetables but eggplant has never been one of them and never will again. Life is too short and there are too many good things to eat to waste time on eggplant.

My musical meanderings and maunderings fared better. I was playing with the piongio scale which is a hexatonic scale that is very hermaphroditic because it doesn't have a third so that it works in a major or minor context. I have only scratched the surface of this concept but what I enjoyed doing today was playing the Em rooted on the 12th fret and accompany that with the usual suspects like a B7, a C#m, Gm13--in short, a rather minor line-up. But then I would play the A piongio over it and although the piongio is rather ambiguous in its leanings it did work in this context. i haven't made a final verdict yet.
A friend of mine is a very good cook. When she does eggplant, she soaks it in salt water. Puts it in a colander with a towel on top and stuff on top to press it down, squeezes the bejesus out of it, and then, if I’m not mistaken, repeats the process. Talk about labor intensive! That’s of course before the real cooking begins.

I’m with you. It’s not as if the result were stupendous. It’s just OK.
 
My mother usta make me eat eggplant once in a while, and I fought it down then. Though she was an excellent cook, and, even though I guess she cooked it well, it was a gag for me. Later, my wife decided to try it, but it wasn’t a bit better. We didn’t eat much.
 
My mother usta make me eat eggplant once in a while, and I fought it down then. Though she was an excellent cook, and, even though I guess she cooked it well, it was a gag for me. Later, my wife decided to try it, but it wasn’t a bit better. We didn’t eat much.
I class it among the expendable vegetables. If there were some kind of agricultural disaster that made eggplant extinct, would anybody care?
 
I class it among the expendable vegetables. If there were some kind of agricultural disaster that made eggplant extinct, would anybody care?
I think its properties are nature's not-so-subtle way of saying do not touch. However chilis and peppers have a similar sign-post because of their capaicin but we still eat them.
 
I played around with the piongio scale and I discovered a few things.

First of all its high string's note have to be broken lest it sound very squamous. In E those notes are C# D and E. If you play those notes in a row it just doesn't sound very musical.

Second, since the scale does lack a third interval it is ambiguous and it does work to some degree in a minor or major context. I used both a I IV V in E and a minor II V I in E with the A Piongio and it sounded okay although I didn't quite like the differences in pitch between the chords and the melody.

Third, what I really liked was the 7sus2 and this scale. The 7sus2 has all the chord tones in it and it has a diagonal in its shape. To me it sounds great to strum or pinch or arpeggiate, e.g., the B7sus2 and then melodize with the E piongio.

Fourth, the first four notes of the scale sound very tasty with a bit of a bend.

I didn't combine the piongio with other scales to see how well they play together.
 
I think I'm going to fill my pen with ink and re-do my little page of exotic scales. First of all, I think I can condense it because I have some scales twice. For example, I have a scale called the Japanese which is the same as the Hirayoshi and Japanese #2 is the same as the Piongio. Secondly I currently use just dots to mark the notes. I think it would repay my time to replace the dots with the intervals so that at a glance I would know which scales possessed the chord tones I needed and I think it would be easier to imbricate scales if I new the intervals.
 
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