And does it make your bus journeys kind of TRULY EPIC!!?

I stand corrected on the sampling thing btw.

I come to work every morning ready for battle.

And as you head back, forlorn and dejected, try a bit o this...



A cornucopia of orchestral colour.

Well that took the wind out of my sails

A friend of mine once categorised all music as either being pre-orgasmic or post-orgasmic, either working towards a climax or away from it. Of course, most music is a combination of both, but the music for action games seems to take a more tantric track, rising quickly to its climaxes and maintaining and reiterating them in a series of feedback loops.




...they don't call a game controller a joystick for nothing you know.

In a book I'm reading, The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, the author mentions that Liszt suffered from synaesthesia and his orchestra would often look confused as he would get short with them and say,"That's too blue", or, "Needs more rose."

Which begs the question; can non-synaesthesiacs ever play his music correctly?

Yes. Written notation is a very simple language. Whether Liszt would have liked this or that performance, or not, is another matter though. Olivier Messiaen was synaesthesic too, and devised a whole colour-based system to explain this to himself.

Animavore wrote:Which begs the question; can non-synaesthesiacs ever play his music correctly?

http://evolvingthoughts.net/2014/05/beg ... -question/

(OTOH, I'm not entirely certain that the sin this self-professed linguistic "purist" commits in the first sentence is meant ironically.)

Shrunk wrote:

Animavore wrote:Which begs the question; can non-synaesthesiacs ever play his music correctly?

http://evolvingthoughts.net/2014/05/beg ... -question/

(OTOH, I'm not entirely certain that the sin this self-professed linguistic "purist" commits in the first sentence is meant ironically.)

Having read John Wilkins stuff since the talk origins use net days in the 90's, I would say it is ironic.

Happy birthday John Cage.


Prepared piano: Tzenka Dianova
Conductor: Tania Miller
Victoria Symphony Orchestra
Cage 100 Festival, 2012

I've always found his ideas much more interesting than his actual music. But that's not to denigrate his importance; those ideas were and are tremendously influential.

Here's to a thoughtful and funny troublemaker who came along at just the right time, to provoke in just the right way.

Apropos the occasion, I visited the Whitney Museum of American Art a few days ago, and snapped a pic of this. I don't know the title, but it's by our birthday boy:

I love the lettering he uses on his scores.

orpheus wrote:I've always found his ideas much more interesting than his actual music. But that's not to denigrate his importance; those ideas were and are tremendously influential.

Here's to a thoughtful and funny troublemaker who came along at just the right time, to provoke in just the right way.

Apropos the occasion, I visited the Whitney Museum of American Art a few days ago, and snapped a pic of this. I don't know the title, but it's by our birthday boy:

That's beautiful. We're often reminded, and sometimes even warned, by suede-elbowed tutors and grey-bearded musicologist to keep in mind that the score is not the music - that the 'art' of music is in its realisation or performance, but this graphically insists that that the score can be an art work in itself.

Cheeky bugger.

Happy feast day of Hildegard von Bingen.

I thought about posting this in the thread, "Best duets: song - original or cover". However, it might be a little obscure. So, I guess it's time to revive an old thread with...

"Ciaccona del Paradiso e del Inferno"
Philippe Jaroussky, Fulvio Bettini


Here are the lyrics, if you want to sing along:

O che bel stare è stare in Paradiso
Dove si vive sempre in fest’e riso
Vedendosi di Dio svelato il viso
O che bel stare è star in Paradiso.

Ohimè che orribil star qui nell’inferno
Ove si vive in pianto e foco eterno
Senza veder mai Dio in sempiterno
Ahi, ahi, che orribil star giù nell’inferno.

Là non vi regna giel, vento, calore,
Che il tempo è temperato a tutte l’hore
Pioggia non v’è, tempesta, nè baleno,
Che il Ciel là sempre si vede sereno.

Il fuoco e ‘l ghiaccio là, o che stupore
Le brine, le tempeste, e il sommo ardore
Stanno in un loco tute l’intemperie
Si radunan laggiù, o che miserie.

Havrai insomma là quanto vorrai
E quanto non vorrai non haverai

E questo è quanto, o Musa, posso dire
Però fa pausa il canto e fin l’ardire.

Quel ch’aborrisce qua, là tutto havrai
Quel te diletta e piace mai havrai
E pieno d’ogni male tu sarai
Dispera tu d’uscirne mai, mai, mai!

O che bel stare è star in Paradiso
Dove si vive sempr’in fest’e riso
Vedendosi di Dio svelato il viso
O che bel stare é stare in Paradiso.

So lately I've been on a piano sonata kick. Got me into a few folks I'd usually been ho-hum about, Mozart specifically.

A lot of his stuff always was a bit too 'boyish troublemaker' for my taste, but the sonatas helped me to appreciate it. His rhythms are really interesting, I often find myself air drumming to them I suspect you could make some interesting drum pieces just using the rhythms in his sonatas.

I'm counting Bach's Well Tempered Clavier, even though they aren't sonatas (they're preludes and fugues) and they weren't written for piano. Because of this there seems to be so many different possible playings of it, fortunately I've found my favorite: Sviatoslav Richter! Too bad the recording is shit because the playing is divine. He's kinda the only "piano player as personality" guy I've come across so far, I'm trying to listen to everything he's played.

Also finally got into Chopin via his solo piano works! Also found my favorite version of that (Garrick Ohlson, though I really like Brigitte Engerer's versions as well). Really wanted to make me investigate the romantic era more, some of these guys were pretty goth!

Finally, FINALLY (been trying forever) making some headway with Beethoven via his sonatas. Many are still meh, but some are incredible. I never really got the hullabaloo about Beethoven. His symphonies just never did much for me, I know they're not really bland but they somehow feel that way to me. There's incredible moments, but they seem few and far between.

SafeAsMilk wrote:Finally, FINALLY (been trying forever) making some headway with Beethoven via his sonatas. Many are still meh, but some are incredible. I never really got the hullabaloo about Beethoven. His symphonies just never did much for me, I know they're not really bland but they somehow feel that way to me. There's incredible moments, but they seem few and far between.

I thought I had all the recordings of Beethoven's sonatas I could need, but when I heard Ronald Brautigam's I had to add them to the collection. He plays fortepianos built to specifications of instruments used in Beethoven's time. Whether or not that is the reason, I find a clarity to his playing that I don't hear from other pianists.

Shrunk wrote:

Animavore wrote:Which begs the question; can non-synaesthesiacs ever play his music correctly?

http://evolvingthoughts.net/2014/05/beg ... -question/

(OTOH, I'm not entirely certain that the sin this self-professed linguistic "purist" commits in the first sentence is meant ironically.)

I have never liked the phrase 'begging the question' and think it is far better suited to use as 'raising a question'.

As for 'stealing' the question.....as suggested in that article.......doesn't make a great deal of sense either, especially since many premises are not questions, but assertions.

I'd vote for 'assuming'..... the conclusion (or the premise).

Somebody mentioned Chopin.....

Oh yes...Love that one. His Etudes and Nocturnes are my favorite.

I have this guy's version of Bach's French Suites which I'm sorta on the fence about (the playing, not the pieces). Does this one quite nicely though.