New Music Tuesday XXIV: “Weird Doll”

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While I was looking for an image to accompany “Lazy Sunday CDV: Music Lessons” I found the manuscript for an old piece called “Weird Doll.” As far as I can tell, I never did anything with this piece, so I decided to slap it together yesterday morning. I based the doodle on this creepy old doll my Mom had growing up, which is made out of some kind of strange rubberish polymer. It was so creepy.

Indeed, it was two dolls: a boy and a girl. I’ve depicted the boy in the doodle seen in the video below. The doll had these weirdly articulated eyebrows that were made from the same sculpted polymer as the rest of it.

As far as the mixing and such, I just added a “Ambient” reverb effect and turned the “room size” down from 100 to about 75 in Audacity, then a “Firm Bass” preset that I turned all the way up. I also applied a “Wide Synth Pad” chorus effect.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)

The Portly Politico7 Comments

While visiting my older brother the other weekend, we drove down to the AMC in Savannah, Georgia to catch Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026). I’m of the mind that if there is a Spider-Man movie, I must see it.

I’m not a huge comic book nerd (although I like them; I just don’t know all the deep lore and storylines and such), and I haven’t devoured hundreds of issues of Spider-Man comics, but I’ve always appreciated the character. Plus, my generation came of age with the Tobey Maguire flicks (directed by none other than Sam Raimi). I’ve heard it said that each generation has their Spider-Man; mine is Maguire (and my Mary Jane is Kirsten Dunst). Also, where else are you going to see Willem DaFoe lose his mind as a super villain (and not as just every other character he plays)?

That said, I love the character and his backstory. Spider-Man is basically a goofy kid with amazing powers who has to grow up fast and learn some hard lessons. He is duty-bound—“with great power comes great responsibility”—to protect those around him, even at great personal cost. Very often, Spider-Man doesn’t get the girl; sometimes, the girl gets killed!

That theme continues with the current iteration of Spider-Man as portrayed by the eternally boyish Tom Holland, albeit with a twist that I think Spider-Man: Brand New Day essentially nullifies.

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Lazy Sunday CDV: Music Lessons

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Now that yours portly is essentially semi-retired (although maintaining our household is a full-time job in its own right), I have more time to work on music for my private music students. It’s really broadened my students’ repertoires with some fun pieces, and it gives us some recital-style work to do outside of the usual method books (although we still work from those, too).

Ergo, I’ve been writing more about lessons and such, so I thought I’d share some recent posts that relate to the teaching of music lessons:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

The titular “Will” loved his waltz!

SubscribeStar Saturday: SCISA Talk 1: Supplement Your Income with Music Lessons

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

This Friday, 18 September 2026, I’ll be attending the SCISA Teachers’ Conference. I’ll be presenting two sessions, one about creating a “DIY Garage Band Music Program” from scratch, the other about teaching private music lessons.

I always like to have prepared remarks for any public speaking, so I’ve put together the following. I’m building a Google Slides presentation to go along with the prepared text, but it’s not quite done at the time of writing, so I’ll share that later.

For now, here’s “Supplement Your Income With Music Lessons”:

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

TBT^4: Remarkable Animals

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It’s been an animal-centric year for yours portly. Sweet Murphy crossed the rainbow bridge; Nugget is still going strong; and we’re likely adopting a puppy in a few weeks. The koi and other creatures are doing well—I even wrote an entire album about it (still 90% off with promo code koipond)—and our bird feeder continues to attract lots of birds—and lizards. I’ve seen a nasty skink slinking around, too.

That reminds me of this piece I wrote a few years ago, “Lament of the Lizardman“:

But I digress. It seemed apropos to reblog this series of posts about animals in all their glory.

With that, here is 11 September 2025’s “TBT^2: Remarkable Animals“:

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General Midweek Update: Beds, Tunes, WiFi, Peloton, Algae, Printers, Presentations

The Portly Politico2 Comments

It’s been a moderately busy week for yours portly, so writing has fallen on the backburner a bit. Dr. Wife and I spent much of Labor Day knocking out some projects around the house, including assembling a blue bedframe that has been the bane of my existence. I finally found some screws that would work to hold the footboard to the frame (I have no idea where I packed the original screws), so the bed is safe for human use.

Yesterday, while a bit more relaxed, also feels like a bit of a blur. I set to work fairly early on writing and arranging some music for my students, including “Will’s Waltz,” the subject of yesterday’s installment of New Music Tuesday. I also arranged a piano version of the legendary Tetris theme song, available for purchase here, here, and here (or you can screenshot it, you cheapskate, and print a copy). The famous “A Theme” from Tetris is based on the Russian folk song “Korobeiniki,” which is about a peddler seducing a woman—whoa! Now we associate the theme with dropping blocks and clearing lines.

Today I’ll be installing a WiFi mesh (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchase you make through that link, at no additional cost to you—TPP). Our router from Spectrum isn’t cutting it in our house—the signal here in my office is very spotty, although my PC is connected via a dedicated Ethernet port—and my younger brother helped me find a scorching deal on the model linked above (which was almost $100 pricier the last time I checked). Our old house has plaster walls, which apparently disrupt WiFi signals terribly, so the three-point mesh should give us the coverage we crave.

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New Music Tuesday XXIII: “Will’s Waltz”

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One of my favorite ways to write new music is to take ideas that pop up in music lessons and turn them into something fun. One common counting issue that turns up without almost every student is the tendency to rush a sequence of quarter notes when they come right after a sequence of eighth notes.

Something like that happened with one of my students, the titular “Will” of today’s piece. There’s a piece called “Waltz Time” that features a sequence of descending quarter notes in 3/4 time. For whatever reason, students tend to rush those quarter notes, even though they’re not preceded by a sequence of eighth notes. Good old Will was doing it consistently enough that I pointed out he was essentially turning every other measure into 3/8 time and/or a set of eighth-note triplets.

That got us talking about music theory and multimeter pieces, and we started to play the piece wrong on purpose to see what we could come up with (then I insisted he play the piece as written so he doesn’t program his fingers to rush those quarter notes). I floated the idea of writing a piece that intentionally switches between 3/4 and 3/8, and Will seemed very excited about that idea.

So it is that I sat down this morning and put together this little piece, which Will and I will explore during his lesson later this week. It’s a piece that I can use with my other students, too.

As far as the mixing and such, I just added a “Large Room” reverb effect—my go-to reverb effect—in Audacity, then a “Bakelite” preset that I turned down a bit. It gives it that kind of retro, phonograph sound.

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Memorable Monday: Happy Labor Day [2026]!

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Ah, yes, another Labor Day here in the United States. Now that I don’t work full-time, every Monday is Labor Day, except since today actually is Labor Day, Dr. Wife is home, too. I might have to swing by Food Lion and pick up some hot dog and hamburgers and baked beans—’tis the season!

Today represents the spiritual end of summer throughout the nation, although most students have been back to school for three or four—or even five or six!—weeks already. It’s an odd, late Labor Day, as 1 September fell on a Tuesday. I imagine the kids and their teachers have been eager for this brief reprieve.

We’re still a good ways away from dog days of summer being over, but I’ve already begun detecting that crisp bit of autumnality stirring in the early mornings and at night. A little over a week ago I took a late walk as a storm was approaching, and it positively felt like I was walking through a Ray Bradbury story. I was positively chilly. It was the howling wind and swaying tree branches, though, that saw me cut my walk short and scurrying home to Dr. Wife and Nugget. I kept praying that the Lord Would Spare me from a massive widowmaker branch falling from one of the town’s ancient oak trees. He Saw fit to spare me for another day—and I’m sure I’ll take other walks in dubious weather again!

Fall is also a great time for music; if you haven’t already, you can still pickup Koi Dance for 90% with promo code koipond. You totally should!

With that, here is 1 September 2025’s “Memorable Monday: Happy Labor Day [2025]!; New Releases!“:

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Lazy Sunday CDIV: Witch

The Portly Politico3 Comments

I’m fairly convinced that Lindsay Clancy is a witch who sacrificed her children to Satan. Can I prove that? Absolutely not. Does it make sense? Probably more than post-partum psychosis. I believe that post-partum psychosis is real, but the devil had his hand in the infanticide of those children one way or another.

Regardless, I decided to link to my two recent posts on Clancy and her recent trial. More uplifting content to come.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP