I did some work over the weekend. I found this Indian tabla loop on  Garageband, and I'm using it for one of my songs. After listening to Sgt. Peppers, I've always wanted to record something that sounds Indian. I was trying to record this one to sound like Heroin, but it just didn't work out. I didn't have enough interest in it. But for this Indian version, I'm always excited to work, which is necessary and vital. I'm using an old Squier strat as an Ostrich guitar, which means that all the strings are tuned to the same note. The sound has a lovely shimmer and it sounds like a sitar, at times. I actually rewrote the whole song lyrically to fit the music. I have the rhythm track down. I need violin and lead vocals for now, and then I'll mess around with overdubbing if I have time. I had a change in ideas for another of my songs, Tony & Jen. I was thinking some guitar part, like from Run, Run, Run, and talking the lyrics over the music. But this weekend, I couldn't stop listening to Sweet Jane and Rock & Roll. Those were the two songs for the weekend, and I was influenced enough to make Tony & Jen sound like a Lou Reed tune. I've already come up with a chord progression, and I have some ideas. This one will be easy hopefully. The Non-Sequiturist by Mark Lesseraux is a good song to follow for this one, too.

Today I began to doubt whether or not I could finish this EP. I'm definitely retreating to a fallback position. I haven't done much work, and it's basically summer out, the weather's nice, and all my friends are constantly calling me to hang out. It's really hard! I haven't lost any motivation in completing the EP, though. I'm just going to have to change things around because of the loss of time. I'm cutting out my last two songs I had written, which are Blue and Good Morning Vietnam. I think these were my stronger songs of the whole bunch, in terms of lyrics, but they were the least interesting to me. Usually, when I think about a song of mine that I'm really into, I get excited to record even if I haven't started laying down anything, but these two songs don't catch my attention at all. They're done. I wrote them, and there's nothing more that's going to come out of those two songs. I'm definitely remorseful that I don't have the time to at least try to make these into recordings, but I know that if I tried now, I would have a horrible time. 

I have an idea for an Intro, too. While I was recording my first song, I was looking through the loop library, which has a lot of interesting sounds. There's this loop called Delicate Piano and I just slipped it into the beginning of the song. It's quiet and fades out by the time the song actually begins, but that gave me an idea. I remember records where the intro track carries over to the beginning of the second song, like  Sgt. Peppers into With A Little Help From My Friends. My idea is to have a single piano playing some riff while I do a monologue that I'll write. It'll be a weird mashup of these two scenes from Tarnation, one a young Jonathan Caouette talks about his life and mother while the other is an older Jonathan filming himself. I'm not sure what it'll be about, but it's keeping me interested. I'm excited (and scared) to write something that isn't a song.

Right when I started to record today, I realized I forgot my mic wires at school. I wasn't that disappointed, though. My plan B was to write my last song, which is exciting because I have written in forever. I listened to Tim Buckley's Sing a Song for You, which inspired me. I like the lyrics in that one, and sometimes, one good song is all I need to get myself back into action.

Another reason that I'm dying to write is that my project is starting to feel old. These songs were written at least one month ago, and they've been sitting around waiting to be recorded. I know recording old songs isn't a big issue; everyone does it all the time. But I feel sort of detached from the work. Songwriting is still relatively new to me, and I think as a songwriter in this early stage, I'm blooming and growing exponentially. I'm moving through different things quickly, and thus, I'm progressing at a fast pace. The songs I wrote a month ago made sense to me and I loved them, but I feel like they're sort of fading away now. I remember I was watching this Radiohead documentary and Thom Yorke said something about how after he's done with an album, the work isn't his anymore. Since he's lost the emotion captured in those songs, after he makes the songs, they're someone else's, like the listener's. I don't really agree with this 100%, but I have a sense of what he might be talking about.

I'm supposed to be writing my PIG paper right now. It's due on Tuesday and I'm not letting the stress hit me. But truthfully, I am scared of not finishing it.

I'm almost finished with my first song and I started messing around with my electric guitar for my song, My Silver Knight. I really like the clean electric guitar sound and texture that I'm getting, and it's fun to play with. I still haven't fixed the ground loop problem. I might bring the amp to school and record there if possible or borrow my friend's amp. I've been through 3 wires and a bunch of outlets, but still nothing. I won't be making progress on it for until Tuesday because of PIG. But I have an idea for my last song. It's really simple with just acoustic guitar and maybe violin. It's like one of those simple songs that are last on a soundtrack or comes on with the credits once the movie's over. Something like The Wrestler by Bruce Springsteen or this pop ditty called Winding Road by Bonnie Sommerville. It'll be a letter of sorts to my mom. The lines I have so far are: Mama, it isn't enough. That's the first line. 

Laid down the acoustic track for the first song Grow Up. I put the mic back 2 feet from my guitar amp and gated the buzz out. The result is this surf rock kind of sound, so I put down this track of rapid strumming. It's alright. I'm tired now, so tomorrow I'll put down the basic violin track. I read somewhere that John Cale used mandolin and guitar strings on his viola. I might do something like that. I have a few spare violins lying around the house. I also want to try tuning each string on the violin or guitar a whole step, another technique the VU used. I'm adding tambourine and maybe a background vocal on this sooner or later. I tried out the lead vocal today. I'm looking for this soft, kind voice. A problem I'm running into is that my b and p sounds are making weird bass thuds on the track. I'm not sure what it's called, but I think that's why people have fishnets or screens over their mics. I'm using a little condenser mic so I'm not sure how I'm going to solve this one. I could borrow a nicer condenser mic from my bandmate if nothing works out.

This first one's a simple one. But I need to be more clever with arrangements. I'm banning myself from the acoustic guitar for the next few songs. It's a nice control or rule to have, and I'll definitely make a lot more use out of the electric guitar if I restrict myself. The problem is that I have this fucking annoying ground loop from the amp. I stole Luke's amp because my Fender amp had the same buzz, but the Vox amp is having the same problem. I need to get on fixing that quickly. 6 songs. Jebus Christ.

Shit, forgot how difficult recording is. I'm not a very clean acoustic player, and a lot of the defining tracks on my songs are acoustic tracks. There's this weird buzzing coming from my guitar. The strumming is awful and messy. I'm so exposed. I've yet to figure out how to produce my songs. I'm not sure which tracks to make louder than others or how loud I show make them, etc. But Luke can help me with that kind of stuff. Today's recording session was a nice slap to face. When you're stoked on a project, you always envision it coming out perfectly like a record that was produced in a professional studio or a film that is really smooth and nice. I forgot how rough or rather, how Garageband-y, my songs sound. I also forgot how long it takes to put together a song. I spent close to an hour setting up and getting a decent acoustic track, which I'm going to throw out and re-do anyways. It's okay, though. I haven't lost hope. I'm  way too excited to finish this thing to pussy out now.

I've begun mapping out ideas for my film project. I was stuck for a bit, and I just spent time playing around with ideas and seeing where they went, but at one point during the night, I figured out what I want to do! All this time I just needed an idea to start with, a stepping stone. I had all these secondary ideas, but no start. Luke gave me this documentary to watch called Tarnation, which was a real trip. It's all collection of footage on handycams and Super 8 film. It's about a man who shows his childhood and how he grew up, while highlighting how the life of his mother, who is mentally insane, affected his. I'm basically ripping off Tarnation almost entirely. It's another work on parents, but this time it's both, not just my mother. I have tapes of old footage of me as a baby and a kid, and my parents when they were a lot younger. I want to show three parts of the film with old and new footage of each member of my family: one would be a part for my Dad, another would be for my Mom, and another would be for me. Maybe I'll include my brother. At first, I was uneasy about copying Tarnation so blatantly, but something feels so right about this, like I've always wanted to do it and for that reason I don't feel any guilt at all from ripping off Tarnation. I'm even stealing this one part at the end where the guy talks into the camera while in the bathroom, except mine will be a message to my parents. If I actually follow through with this, this project will be the most personal piece of art that I've ever done. It'll be a real emotional trip, for sure. Sometimes I like to talk to myself as if I'm talking to my parents and halfway I break down in tears. I think I'm being brave by confronting the issue so directly, in addition to the fact that I'm going to have to show this to others. When the idea hit me, it felt so appropriate, like I've been waiting for this moment to address this conflict I have with my parents. Even now, it's surreal. I can't believe I'm actually thinking about going through with it, but what the hell. On another note, the drive for this piece is mainly the soundtrack. I have a bunch of songs that I love and that I know my parents loved when they were young'uns, stuff like Dancing Queen, Chicago, or Elton John. A lot of my influence for this film comes from the movie Once, which was also shot completely on a handycam. There's something gorgeous about a scene with documentary footage and a beautiful song playing in the background.

http://en.vidivodo.com/video/lies-once-ost/230617

That's the scene from Once that I want to replicate. There's this other scene where it's one shot following a girl while she sings this love song. It's great. I've yet to see La Jetee yet, but I read up on it on Wikipedia. The concept of using narration over still photos is rad. I might even watch it right now. 

I just keep throwing days away. I haven't done anything this weekend, except maybe think about stuff a bit. Since April, I've been really good at shitting my time away. I hardly do homework anymore. I just sit in front of the computer and kind of wait for something to make me do something. When I'm at work or outside of the house, I'm always antsy to get home so I can do art, but when I get here, I really don't do anything. My god, I haven't even finished my last song yet. The problem is that I'm thinking of adding two more songs. Something about the album isn't complete yet, which isn't a surprise because I haven't worked on it in so long.

I'm a lot more deliberate when I write now. I've gotten better, and I've stopped excusing myself when I wrote some shitty filler lines. I'm trying to be more efficient with how I write, which I've noticed as I was working on my most recent song. The best lyrics are the ones that are short and sweet, but leave you with the right picture in mind. You can capture a lot of emotion and vibe with only a few words. A good example is the first line of Radiohead's Blackstar, which goes:
"I get home from work and you're still standing in your dressing gown well what am I to do?"
Whenever I hear that line, the same image pops into my head: a husband walking in late at night to his shitty apartment with the T.V. on and his wife with her hair in curlers standing with her arms crossed and the bitchiest stare. It also reminds me of this picture I got off the Joker's wikipedia page: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/95/Jokerorig.png.

I've got to start recording soon. I'm doing film as my side salad and for my Quest project. It's gonna be a short movie or documentary. I know that so far, but I'm stuck on an idea. I spent time during my AP physics test to write down all the ideas I have for the film. They're all little bits from movies that inspire me and I want to use. Songs give me a lot of ideas for film as well. I remember I used to think about movie ideas in my head when I was in middle school, and the way I'd keep track of the plot was through the soundtrack I'd arranged. I haven't given up any enthusiasm on the EP, even though I'm stoked for the film thing too. I wanted to do something with photography, too, but maybe I'll save that for the summer.

Recently finished Mark Lesseraux's Low Cool, which was recorded mainly on an Iphone. I tend to be attracted to things or situations similar to my own. I'm digging Low Cool because it has a lot of overdubbing, which is the main method of recording for me (I do one instrumental part at a time), and it was recorded not in a studio, but on an Iphone. If I were to film a movie, I'd try to look for movies that were filmed on handycams because I would use a handycam. I'm drawn to inspirations that are in the same battlefield as me, so to speak. I'm afraid of entering into untouched territory alone. It's guaranteed that someone has already ventured there at one point in history, but I need to have a reference that I can look back on at all times.

On another note, I love how specific Ellen's posts are. They're like Luke's posts about his paintings, which are very step-by-step. They seem less like a daily report, but more of a broken down walkthrough of the process to preserve each step. I like how Ellen is putting up rough demos of her songs, which is the proper thing to do. I should do the same, but I like the idea of presenting everything in one package. I don't want to spoil anything, but I know writing my thoughts down will help me through this project.

I've decided to break down my album.

The first song is, for now, called Grow Up. It's mainly about childhood, and I have two ideas of what the song should sound like. The first is something like Sunday Morning, with a distinct xylophone or celeste riff, which is similar to the music box sounds of kids' toys. It's a simple song, but I have a more acoustic style in mind, too. Something like Norwegian Wood or this song, Thinking About You by Radiohead. I like the idea of doing two takes of the acoustic guitar and doubletracking it, so it sounds like a duo of guitar players.

The second song is Satellite, which I've already recorded. I'm changing the chorus a bit because it was lacking and I'll move some parts around, too.

The third song is called Tony & Jen. At first, I had in mind something like Jeff Buckley's version of Lilac Wine, with a nice spanish-sounding nylon guitar intro, like the beginning of The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill. This was the last song written out of the six, and I'm sick of writing a standard song, which has its distinct structure of verse and chorus and melodies. This song'll be something between Venus In Furs, the Black Angel's Death Song, and Run Run Run, which are all by the VU. I'm thinking of not singing the verses, but speaking them. That's the way it'll begin. I want the song to grow more chaotic lyrically and sound-wise as the song progresses, but that's just an idea. I want to use Ellen's tambra on this one as well.

The fourth song is called My Silver Knight. It's about alien abduction, so I want this song to have a creepy vibe. I'm thinking electric guitars only on this one, and no acoustic. This one I don't have any direct influences or stuff that I'm stealing from. The chorus is quite nice on this, I think.

The fifth song is called Blue. It's my version of Bones by Radiohead. A lot of my songs are conceived while I'm listening to a particular song. Then, I'll write my own version with the tune of the song in mind. This time, it was Bones. I really wanted a solid drum track on this. I'll look through my loops on the drum machine, but the riff has a weird syncopatedness, so I think the drum machine is out the window. I might record an actual beat live, or just stick to tambourines and tom-toms. A lot of the parts in this song were stolen from different songs from the Bends, a Radiohead album.

The sixth and last song is called Good Morning Vietnam, which was the song I wrote on my way to getting a haircut. The inspiration for this one is Happiness Is A Warm Gun by the Beatles. This one was the first written out of the sixth, so I haven't been thinking about it for a while. I'll be referring back to Happiness for instrumental parts and such.

I didn't get shit done today. There are a lot of times when I'm too distracted or lazy or tired to do anything, and today was one of those times. I wrote more lyrics in my head on the walk home than I did in class, but I'm not too worried. I'm on my last song, which I already have an idea for. I got excited today when Luke mentioned deadlines. It'll be nice to pretend I'm producing an album on limited studio time and have to pump stuff out within deadlines. I'll plan out when I'll have to finish each song during the next several weeks. The problem is I haven't figured out any of the arrangements for the songs. I'm a little scared of each song sounding too similar to the next. I want the album to have a variety of songs, like a shouty rock song or a mellow tune or a weird song. I was inspired by The Velvet Underground & Nico. They have some really beautiful stuff like Sunday Morning or I'll Be Your Mirror, and then some really cool sounding stuff like the Black Angel's Death Song. So, this week is finishing up my last song, starting to write arrangements and maybe putting down the first tracks.

I'm getting closer to seeing what the actual end product of my project will be. It's six songs. There's an underlying story that interrelates all six of them. When I first started writing each of them, they were all individual narratives, but I've been able to fudge them around to fit the main plot that I now what the whole thing is about. It's about a man, probably in his 40s, whose main frustration with life is his marriage. I'm not sure why he's frustrated. Sometimes, it's sexual and other times, he's just plain pissed that he has to live with this person he doesn't really like to be with who doesn't even like him back. He finds ways of coping with it, like trying to get abducted by aliens or fantasizing about killing his wife. I'm not entirely sure of the ending yet. The last song, for now, is this tune I wrote a few weeks ago. On the way to get a haircut in the city, I  collected different phrases I saw in the subway or on people's shirts, or different objects and people I saw on the way and built a story around that. It's really a nonsense song, and I feel like it has something to do with the plot with the frustrated man, but I'm not sure yet.

I've thought about my project and the plot, and I'm positive this thing is about me and my mom. Things have always been weird between me and her, and I've been thinking about our relationship a lot after the Enneagram. A book I have talks about the childhood origins of Sevens says that as children, they had a negative orientation to their mothers. Sevens feel frustrated by their mothers who did not make them feel secure and try to compensate for the nurturance they feel they didn't receive by getting thing for themselves. When I was 5, my brother was born with a defective liver. It was pretty much life or death for him, and eventually, they were able to transplant a piece of my mother's liver into him and now he's in middle school and doing well. He just came back from a track meet actually. I don't really remember any of this, but my mom told me once during that time, she had to meet with my kindergarten teacher because I wasn't participating in class at all. I would just look out the window by myself during class and just kind of sulk all day. My mom recently told me that while she was in the hospital with my brother, she sensed that her first son was in need of her and looking for her at home, but she couldn't really do anything because of my brother. Like I said, I don't have any conscious grudges against my mom for what happened, but looking back, I've noticed a bunch of things. I used to literally dream about running away from home and my mom catching me, only to be happy I was leaving or to make sure I had all my bags. I remember one of my nightmares was where some guy was wooing my mom and trying to marry her while she was giving in to it. With that said, I've realized that I've always been incredibly jealous and possessive of my mom's love. As a child, I've always felt something missing even when she was showering me with kisses. Even now, I've noticed that I'll argue with her or do stupid things in the hopes that she'll be the first to apologize. I'll push her away while hoping that it'll bring her closer to me or make her want me more. I can't really explain it. 

So now that I'm conscious of my relationship with my mom, or my side, at least, I'm still not sure where the frustration that the man in my story is coming from in my life. It might be that general frustration I've kept with me since childhood that I haven't really addressed until now, or it might be more current. Things have been pretty rough around the house lately. I'm leaving the house in a few months, so she's trying to get her last words in. She's being really clingy and getting worked up about every little thing, but on the other hand, I just want her to relax. I want to tell her that everything is going to be alright with college, but she's not responding the way I expected her to, which is to understand me and to leave me alone. Maybe I'm also secretly beginning to realize that as I leave for school, I won't need her support as a mother who cooks and cleans and buys me stuff anymore, so I'm frustrated that she's acting like I'm living with her (which I am). Nonetheless, I'm really happy that my issues have actually appeared some way in my work. It's good that I'm addressing my issues, but I need more than that. I need a resolve, a way to deal with my mom and to balance being an adult and her son at the same time. I have a feeling that this EP will teach me just that, especially that last song. Still not sure, though. 

I haven't made much progress since the last post because honestly, I haven't thought about it much. I've just been lazy about it and just been focusing more on finishing the songs I started before the projects began. A big problem is that I like a lot of the stuff that I've already written and would like to make actual recordings, but another side of me feels like I should start a fresh batch of material for my project. I'm also thinking that I could use the stuff I've already been working on. My songs are almost always narratives and stories about characters with interesting situations. The characters often portray the same "loser" persona: the hopeless romantic, the depressed widow, the husband with erectile dysfunction. So I think I can somehow thread these songs into one bigger story. The segmented structure of Pulp Fiction, where different storylines are shown one after another instead of a single chronological plot, appeals to me a lot concerning my project, so I'm definitely going to steal from that. On a side note, it's interesting to see how sometimes, creating art doesn't seem deliberate or pre-planned. Many times art seems to build itself and I just sort of follow it as it goes along, like I'm doing now with the album I'm putting together. Musically, I've narrowed down my influences to one of my favorites: the Velvet Underground and Lou Reed. This actually happened because of the limitations I'm running into. I record my songs alone, which means I use only the instruments that are readily available to me in my home. I don't have a functioning guitar amp, a bass guitar, or a drum set, so I'm left with acoustic guitar, violin, and maybe an electric guitar. The good thing is that the Velvet Underground's record uses a lot of the same instrumentation as I do. The drum parts are rather minimal, and John Cale's viola is a key feature in the album. I'm very interested in creating the most out of what little I have. Specifically, this means finding physical methods of playing the violin or guitar to create different textures and sounds. The VU's album has a lot of this, too. I want to create something that's conservative or tight, if those are the right words, as opposed to something that's expansive, like Sgt. Pepper's. There's also a very organic and clear sound to Lou Reed's music, like I can hear every single track on each song. That's what I was thinking the whole time when I listened to Berlin. So I guess I'll be listening to a lot of Lou Reed and Velvet Underground, not to mention other artists who I think are really good at making the most out of a little, like the Pixies. I'm excited to start thinking about the actual ideas for the ideas. I've laid down the boundaries and I've narrowed down a lot of what I need to research and study, so it's time to start filling in what's in between.

4/24

I spent today's class trying to finish up two songs that I'm working on. For my main project, I'm thinking of putting together an EP of maybe four or five songs that I'll record. I didn't really look at the EP as its own project, but more as a collection of different songs. But now I'm thinking I should approach this more   artistically. For now, I've been writing songs here and there about anything really. I've been mainly trying to improve my writing skills. But when I think twice about the EP, the idea of a rock opera comes to mind. As opposed to an EP of several independent songs, a rock opera, like Lou Reed's Berlin, gives me a lot more room to explore a lot of things, like my music, myself, etc. It allows me to work more as an artist rather than a songwriter or musician. In terms of content, my lyrical themes have changed quite a bit. When I first began writing this year, all my songs were about girls. Literally all of them. But now, I'm touching upon much darker and more tragic issues. I recently wrote a song about a boy who has tinnitus, a type of hearing impairment. The one I'm working on now is about burying a dead body...I think. Also, I've noticed that I love to write in the form of stories, like Kate Bush's work, which is what pushed me to consider writing a rock opera.
On the other hand, for my side salad, I'm considering something relating to photography or film. I've been taking shots with strictly disposable cameras for the past few weeks. I've yet to develop them, so I'm not sure how I'll be able to use them. I've also wanted to film for quite some time. Everything is still up in the air for the side salad.

Songwriting Intensive

The intensive that spanned over the past few weeks has been an effective introduction to songwriting. Before the first lesson of the intensive began, I had already begun to write my own lyrics. At the same time, I was also listening to a lot of different records and learning some of the techniques and theory that were to be taught during the intensive. For instance, I was already familiar with the common use of the descending bass line and the I IV V chord progression and had already used such elements in some of my own songs. Nonetheless, there was still a lot I learned from the intensive.

Concerning the musical theory taught during the intensive, the most important lesson for me was the Approach chord, which is a major chord above or below the tonic that eventually resolves to the I chord. I recall that when I used to hear Approach chords in different songs, I couldn’t really tell what was happening to the key and thought that they were something of a one-beat key change. But now, such a chord is a vital tool that I use time to time in my songwriting. It provides a different flavor or twist than that of the usual pop tune. I’ve never actually learned about such irregular music theory, like the Approach chord or the Two chord modulation, but something interesting happened during the intensives. I started to switch the quality of certain chords in a progression to experiment. For example, I’d take a simple progression, like I IV V I, and make the IV and V chords minor instead of major. As I played around, the progressions definitely sounded a little off, but it was nice to see where things went, and I’m sure this technique of switching chord qualities around will present itself in my songs in the future.

Lyrically, I didn’t learn as much as I did about rock theory during the intensive. A lot of the blurbs in the packets focused on keeping the writing tight and specific, such as the concept of locked imagery. I try to stay away from writing too generally, but my lyrics almost always contain clichés. During the intensives, my main goal was to keep the span of the imagery as small as possible. For instance, if I was writing about a girl I was pursuing, I tried to write based off of one or two images in my head that I had of her. On the other hand, one of the last packets, which was the breakdown of Luke’s song based on George Harrison’s tune, was quite useful. It was reassuring to look at another writer’s process and notice some of the same things I do. Sometimes when I write, a lot of lyrics are pulled out of nowhere, and I worry that the method I use to obtaining these lyrics aren’t legitimate.

The intensives were great because they reassured a lot of the techniques I was afraid to use in my own songs. Actually, this is the only time I’ve discussed or learned about songwriting. Before the intensives, I would write and hope that my work and process were what everyone else was doing. In a conversation with Luke, he asked me if I liked the intensives when the assignments were specific and to the point or when they were more expansive. I replied that I liked the assignments when they were expansive and I had more freedom to do what I wanted. But now that I think about it, I actually preferred the restricted nature of the intensives. I really like the idea of working with a limit and trying to get the most out of the little that you have. I think that I was just really anxious to use the ideas I’d learned from the intensives in my own writing.

Expressionism

Expressionism is an art movement based largely on human emotion. I think expressionism is a very personal sort of art. All art is personal and is expressive of who the artist is, but non-expressionist art shows an artist's issues in a more subtle or hidden way. Expressionism is very obvious or direct in that sense and serves the single purpose of showing emotion.

Concerning the poetry, I enjoyed it a lot, actually. I don't have much to say because I left it at school, but from what I remember, the poems appealed to me like my own song-writing. When I write, I tend to take a bunch of images and thread them along together in a way that makes sense to me. I remember reading the first one and thinking "I could have written that". That said, I think the poetry was expressionist because all of the images in the poems were some description of feeling of emotion.

The operas and dance pieces seemed very impulsive and on-the-spot. The dances, especially, look like choreographed improv pieces. Everything is very sensual and non-linear. None of the dance pieces seemed to have a methodical structure at all.

I'm not sure where the themes of death or the speed of each piece plays into expressionism, but I guess I'll find out later.