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carluva
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Name: Doug
Country: United States
State: Maine
Metro: Portland
Gender: Male
Interests: God, Amanda, classical music, cars, computers, mountain biking, debate, politics…hardly a comprehensive list.
Expertise: Piano, singing, writing, helping people; developing expertise: Conducting, composition, computer programming, engineering…
Occupation: Student
Industry: Computers (Hardware)
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
11/29/2004
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| This gem just in from a co-worker. "I solve problems. And if there aren't enough problems to solve, I make some up, and then solve them. It's called consulting."
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| Don't read this post. I'm serious. It contains unsupported arguments, railings against defenseless unnamed persons, and generally bad argumentation. It's blatantly biased, anti-Windows, and pro-Linux, not to mention unbearably nerdy. If you like Windows in general or Vista in particular, it will insult you. (Fortunately, I don't think many of my readers are particularly attached to that baneful operating system.) Basically, I need to blow off steam. This post is not meant to be read. Don't read it. If you've gotten this far, I'm guessing you're ignoring me, so here goes. You've been warned.
I saw a commercial this evening for Windows Vista, where they pretend they're demoing the next version of Windows ("Mojave"), but it's actually Vista. And the people in the commercial like it. My conclusion was that Microsoft is desperate—they've gone into damage control mode: "Honest, Vista isn't totally terrible! People like it when they see it displayed on perfectly controlled machines with unbelievable hardware and only the software we want them to see!" I thought it was hilarious and just proved even more that Vista is a complete flop.
Then I got online to see what other people were saying about it. Big mistake. Actually, my big mistake was doing a Google search for "windows vista commercial mojave" and clicking on the first result without noticing that it was on a very pro-Windows tech website. I don't think I'll ever complain about the occasional immature and illogical user on a nerdy (read Linux- or highly technical software development-related) mailing list or forum again. Because these Windows geeks make those guys look like perfectly rational people. They insist that Vista is terrific, that all the problems with it are other people's fault, and that anyone who reports having had major problems with it is (a) lying or (b) stupid. They propagate all of the meaningless, outdated, and flat-out incorrect stereotypes about Linux that are so popular. Occasionally, a person would make a comment that tried to be reasonable, fair, and not extreme. I would be momentarily refreshed, until said user was immediately flamed and called a hater by all of the other users. I'm so glad I stopped being a Windows fanatic years ago. I wish I didn't even have to have it installed on my computer. But for the lack of support for most games, Linux is simply better in every way. Unfortunately, now that I'm not in school, gaming is the majority of what I do on my home PC, so Linux is basically lying dormant.
Okay, I've vented. Windows fanatics are stupid, and Vista fanatics are triply stupid. I warned you. If you read this and are offended, don't blame me. Furious comments are not welcome and will be promptly deleted.
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| I think I might have talked about it once in the past, but I'd like to once again visit the topic of "period performance", or historically informed performance (HIP), of classical music. Now, there are two schools of these performance techniques, or at least two aspects. One, perhaps placing more emphasis on the "historically informed" idea, emphasizes following historically accurate performance practices. The other emphasizes using actual or reproduction instruments from the period in which the music was composed, as opposed to modern instruments.
The first of these is clearly pretty reasonable. Obviously, we ought to remember the context in which a piece of music was written and try to reproduce the style of performance that was then typical. For instance, in the Classical period, piano performance was rather structured (certainly not to say stiff, however), emphasizing the beauty of strictly executed complex patterns. The player defaulted to an almost staccato crispness except in those instances when the music specifically called for legato. The sustain pedal was rarely used. The Romantic and Impressionistic periods, on the other hand, emphasized emotion and tended toward much broader, sustained playing. Legato became the default, and the player used marcato and staccato techniques only when specifically called for by the music. To play a Mozart sonata with the broad, legato strokes of a Chopin étude, using the emotional rubato of that later period, would be a grave mistake, because Mozart intended his pieces to be played crisply and precisely, and therein is their beauty. On the other hand, to use the crisp, non legato style of the Mozart sonata in the Chopin étude would be equally terrible, because the beauty is in the smooth and flowing motion of the legato lines.
Of course, the "period instrument" proponent would certainly argue that all of the above must be followed. But this second group goes further than those above. The former group would have no objection to playing Bach on a modern piano, so long as the performer used proper Baroque performance techniques (don't touch those pedals!). But "period instrument" enthusiasts would object to using any piano at all to play Bach, since he never so much as saw one more than about twice in his life (and even then, a very primitive model, acually a fortepiano). Rather, they say, Bach should be played on a harpsichord or clavichord, the instruments he would have played on himself. Many other instruments have been replaced or fallen into disuse in modern times, ranging from viols (an early family of stringed instruments similar to, but distinct from, our violin, viola, cello, and double bass) to the hurdy-gurdy! This group prefers using original or reconstructed instruments to perform works written for the instruments to modern instruments that resemble the original instruments. Period instrument performance proponents go even further than that, however. The pianos of even the Classical period and even well into the Romantic period had very different tone quality than our modern pianos. The piano, like many other instruments, evolved over time into an instrument with much higher-quality sound production abilities than it had when it first began being used. The "period instrument" purists insist that we should use these early instruments or reproductions of them, in spite of their markedly inferior musical qualities when compared with modern instruments.
This is where I have to part company with what I see as blind (or, perhaps more accurately, deaf) purism. Recordings that use such instruments are certainly intellectually and historically significant. From a purely musical point of view, however, they have no place in our modern library. Certainly, Beethoven did compose on an early piano. He was tremendously aggravated by its inability to produce the dynamic range he desired. To hear his music performed on such an instrument now, when instruments capable of producing the sound he wished they could are readily available, would be torture to him! One could say similar things of any composer. Even Bach, visionary that he was, was delighted with the primitive fortepiano with which he came into contact, thrilled with the new dynamic possibilities that were opened up by it; his music sounds no less gorgeous on a modern piano than on a Baroque harpsichord, and Bach himself was forever rearranging his compositions for other instruments, so why should we not enjoy that of which he surely would have heartily approved?
Rachmaninoff's and Scriabin's music sound gorgeous on the modern piano. Why should Beethoven's not share that honor? Why should we relegate it to the thin and tinny sounds of fortepianos and primitive pianos? I think the period instrument proponents are doing the great composers of the past a grave disservice in so doing.
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| Sometimes, God's provision is wonderfully clear.
Last night, while Amanda and I were out shopping, there was a tremendous thunderstorm complete with, just as we arrived at Walmart, about five or ten minutes of dime-sized hail. We pulled under the gas station roof to avoid any potential damage to the car (along with just about everyone else who was within a quarter-mile of Walmart at the time). The hail never got any larger, though, so the damage concern turned out not to be an issue.
Or so we thought. We did our shopping, and when we arrived back on campus over an hour later, our next-door neighbor was looking over his cars. Half-jokingly, my wife said, "How many dents did you get?" "Quite a few," was his rather glum response. Sure enough, when we looked closely, both cars had multiple significant dents on their upper surfaces. "How big did the hail get here?" I asked. Mark's response was to walk over and pick up a stone, larger than a golf ball, that was lying on the ground near his patio (keep in mind that this is over an hour after the hail ended). Immediately, my wife and I felt thankful that we had not been on campus, because a dented car would not have made us particularly happy.
Then, on the way back from getting laundry, we decided to check on the church van that our church keeps on campus. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot where it is kept, we knew the hail had been even worse than we realized. The first three cars we saw in the lot all had broken windshields. Sure enough, so did the van, along with about two-thirds of the rest of the cars in the lot. After surveying the damage, we returned home.
Our sympathy is with our friends and neighbors whose cars have been damaged. But we cannot help quietly thanking God for arranging our day somewhat differently from our plans, such that we were at Walmart during the hailstorm, and thereby sparing our car potentially significant and expensive damage.
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| From the vast and sometimes imprecise world of the internet, a misunderstanding of the difference between French and English turns Beethoven's beautiful "Pathetique" sonata for piano into "Beethoven's Pathetic Piano Sonata."
In other news, 31 days until the wedding!
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