From the perspective of a person who has taught at a major American conservatory for many years, I should say that this guy is doing something admirable by challenging the assumption that most conservatory faculty make that the only music worth playing is "the classics". The classics are great -- ridiculously great, in fact -- but this dude is taking a risk and doing something reasonably well that hasn't really been done much before.
Also, keep in mind, he's an undergraduate, and so if his technique isn't 100% there, it doesn't mean that in five years' time he won't be amazing. For gods sake, when I was an undergraduate, I had nowhere near the technique I got later in graduate school.
I used to buy hundreds of classical CDs a year...now I only buy a few dozen. Am I a pirate that deserves to be blacklisted? Absolutely not. First off, I have so many recordings that I'm just now starting to listen to all of them. Second, I'm a graduate student at a large university that has a huge library and enough recordings that I couldn't listen to them all even if I spent the rest of my life doing so. Third, there aren't all that many great classical recordings being released on the big labels. I mean, how excited can I get about the 3000th recording of Bolero, even if it is by the Berlin Philharmonic?
Many of the best musicians these days are being recorded by small, independent labels. I just heard a recording of the six Bach violin sonatas relased on some noname label that was completely amazing. There are so many brilliant artists that just can't compete in a marketplace dominated by huge names. How can a beginning artist get their CD in a store, when stores are constantly going out of business, and stocks are being slashed?
One more thing: it's nice to have five different recordings of, say, the Mozart operas, but once you know the work, it's a hell of a lot more fun to go out to actually hear a live performance and to support musicians and the (mostly) non-profit arts organizations that support them.
Ansel was always looking to improve his artwork through technology. I think he would have loved digital, but only would have used it for certain things. In my opinion, he would still have used 4x5, 5x7, 8x10 or larger format for almost all of his artwork. There is simply no way you can achieve the kind of subtelty or resolution he got with anything other than these large formats. Saying anything to the contrary is silly. It still pisses me off, that Macintosh ad that read "Shoot like Ansel, organize like Martha". The resolution of a 4x5 sheet of TMAX 100 is probably somewhere up there in the 80 megapixel range -- not only that, the contrast range kicks digital's butt. Not only that, the limitations of the photographic darkroom inspired some of Ansel's best work. And at any rate, Ansel would NEVER have given up the movements that you get on a large format camera. He'd be using digital backs, not Canon 1Ds's.
Wow, looks like they're finally able to do digitally what they did in the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in 1919. But what they are NOT able these days, so it seems, to do is create a compelling STORY LINE.
Well, in theory, Schoenberg claimed that you shouldn't hear one of the twelve pitch classes before hearing the other eleven -- but that's not exactly what he did. Take a look a almost any composition by Schoenberg and you'll see that more often than not, notes come back before you hear the other 11. For instance, in the opening bars of the Piano Concerto the first six elements of the row are used to accompany the first six elements of the row -- then, the remaining six elements are used to accompany a melody comprising the second six elements.
Interestingly, Dufay did not use the proportions of the Florentine dome in Nuper Rosarum Flores. He used the proportions of the idealized temple of Solomon instead. There are a number of interesting papers in the musicological literature that attest to this. While people thought that the Brunelleschi proportions were used in that isorhythmic motet for a long time, it's been conclusively proven that the proportions in the motet don't match up.
But Schoenberg never completely removed the factor of human choice in his serial technique. Pitches are (sometimes) determined in his serial compositions according to the row maniupulations, but rhythms, timbres, and registers are not. For that, look to Messiaen's Mode de valeurs et d'intensities.
I am a bit confused and frustrated by what I percieve to be GM's strategy here. They should make these cars available NOW, with all the conventional trappings. With all this fancy "AUTOnomy" crap, they're essentially saying to the public something like this: "You can't have this environmentally responsible vehicle until we have all this new stuff too." In other words, they're saying that they can't and won't give us a hydrogen-powered vehicle for years, if not decades into the future.
What we need is efficient vehicles in one year, not twenty years. A car with all these new technologies will cause a tremendous number of problems. Let's mount a hydrogen-engine in a traditional car and work out the bugs with the new power system first. Then we can worry about satellite navagation and that other stuff.
Interesting to see that the new design for "Megatron" does not transform the bot into a life-sized pistol, like the old design. I guess after Columbine, Erfuert, etc., the designers of the Transformers decided to tone down the blatantly militaristic tone of their toys (a bit). The last thing we need is another gun toy; though of course all the bots have little guns anyway...
For those with an interest in large-format photography, Polaroid's 4x5 film backs are wonderful. They allow you to preview your image before sticking real film into your camera. There aren't many people into large-format photography but Polaroid sure made it easy for you to check your exposure, composition, etc., before exposing a $2 sheet of film.
Problem is, they are trying to sell junk nowadays, like cameras that will play radio stations. Pathetic!!!
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From the perspective of a person who has taught at a major American conservatory for many years, I should say that this guy is doing something admirable by challenging the assumption that most conservatory faculty make that the only music worth playing is "the classics". The classics are great -- ridiculously great, in fact -- but this dude is taking a risk and doing something reasonably well that hasn't really been done much before.
Also, keep in mind, he's an undergraduate, and so if his technique isn't 100% there, it doesn't mean that in five years' time he won't be amazing. For gods sake, when I was an undergraduate, I had nowhere near the technique I got later in graduate school.
I used to buy hundreds of classical CDs a year...now I only buy a few dozen. Am I a pirate that deserves to be blacklisted? Absolutely not. First off, I have so many recordings that I'm just now starting to listen to all of them. Second, I'm a graduate student at a large university that has a huge library and enough recordings that I couldn't listen to them all even if I spent the rest of my life doing so. Third, there aren't all that many great classical recordings being released on the big labels. I mean, how excited can I get about the 3000th recording of Bolero, even if it is by the Berlin Philharmonic?
Many of the best musicians these days are being recorded by small, independent labels. I just heard a recording of the six Bach violin sonatas relased on some noname label that was completely amazing. There are so many brilliant artists that just can't compete in a marketplace dominated by huge names. How can a beginning artist get their CD in a store, when stores are constantly going out of business, and stocks are being slashed?
One more thing: it's nice to have five different recordings of, say, the Mozart operas, but once you know the work, it's a hell of a lot more fun to go out to actually hear a live performance and to support musicians and the (mostly) non-profit arts organizations that support them.
Ansel was always looking to improve his artwork through technology. I think he would have loved digital, but only would have used it for certain things. In my opinion, he would still have used 4x5, 5x7, 8x10 or larger format for almost all of his artwork. There is simply no way you can achieve the kind of subtelty or resolution he got with anything other than these large formats. Saying anything to the contrary is silly. It still pisses me off, that Macintosh ad that read "Shoot like Ansel, organize like Martha". The resolution of a 4x5 sheet of TMAX 100 is probably somewhere up there in the 80 megapixel range -- not only that, the contrast range kicks digital's butt. Not only that, the limitations of the photographic darkroom inspired some of Ansel's best work. And at any rate, Ansel would NEVER have given up the movements that you get on a large format camera. He'd be using digital backs, not Canon 1Ds's.
Wow, looks like they're finally able to do digitally what they did in the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in 1919. But what they are NOT able these days, so it seems, to do is create a compelling STORY LINE.
Yea, and then you'd see the term CRASH brought to a new level of meaning...
Well, in theory, Schoenberg claimed that you shouldn't hear one of the twelve pitch classes before hearing the other eleven -- but that's not exactly what he did. Take a look a almost any composition by Schoenberg and you'll see that more often than not, notes come back before you hear the other 11. For instance, in the opening bars of the Piano Concerto the first six elements of the row are used to accompany the first six elements of the row -- then, the remaining six elements are used to accompany a melody comprising the second six elements.
Interestingly, Dufay did not use the proportions of the Florentine dome in Nuper Rosarum Flores. He used the proportions of the idealized temple of Solomon instead. There are a number of interesting papers in the musicological literature that attest to this. While people thought that the Brunelleschi proportions were used in that isorhythmic motet for a long time, it's been conclusively proven that the proportions in the motet don't match up.
But Schoenberg never completely removed the factor of human choice in his serial technique. Pitches are (sometimes) determined in his serial compositions according to the row maniupulations, but rhythms, timbres, and registers are not. For that, look to Messiaen's Mode de valeurs et d'intensities.
I am a bit confused and frustrated by what I percieve to be GM's strategy here. They should make these cars available NOW, with all the conventional trappings. With all this fancy "AUTOnomy" crap, they're essentially saying to the public something like this: "You can't have this environmentally responsible vehicle until we have all this new stuff too." In other words, they're saying that they can't and won't give us a hydrogen-powered vehicle for years, if not decades into the future. What we need is efficient vehicles in one year, not twenty years. A car with all these new technologies will cause a tremendous number of problems. Let's mount a hydrogen-engine in a traditional car and work out the bugs with the new power system first. Then we can worry about satellite navagation and that other stuff.
Interesting to see that the new design for "Megatron" does not transform the bot into a life-sized pistol, like the old design. I guess after Columbine, Erfuert, etc., the designers of the Transformers decided to tone down the blatantly militaristic tone of their toys (a bit). The last thing we need is another gun toy; though of course all the bots have little guns anyway...
For those with an interest in large-format photography, Polaroid's 4x5 film backs are wonderful. They allow you to preview your image before sticking real film into your camera. There aren't many people into large-format photography but Polaroid sure made it easy for you to check your exposure, composition, etc., before exposing a $2 sheet of film.
Problem is, they are trying to sell junk nowadays, like cameras that will play radio stations. Pathetic!!!