artsmusemari

[artsmusemari]

New in the Etsy shop: fillable unicorn eggs! These cute eggs can make that basket, egg hunt, or tree more special for Easter. See Etsy for more details. https://www.etsy.com/listing/691261753/cute-sleeping-unicorn-fillable-easter?ref=shop_home_active_1 #Easteregg #Easterunicorn #unicorn #egghunt #Easterbasket https://www.instagram.com/p/BvGRkSgAdNq/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1mmvjg1p7lp19

[artsmusemari]

Happy birthday, Wolf!

[artsmusemari]

Bruckner and the Tragic Reverse Sonata form

Ok, lemmee explain.

I was listening to the radio playing Bruckner's fourth and seventh symphonies, and I looked them up for more information. The phrase 'tragic reverse sonata form' came up, and I thought this was a pretty interesting (funny) term worth finding more about. The search led me to a 2005 paper by Julian Horton titled 'Bruckner's Symphonies and Sonata Deformation Theory'. I didn't take classes in music theory, but I read through it with the help of my brother, who has a composition degree. (We both came to the conclusion that the conclusion of the paper was already pretty obvious to anyone who really appreciated all types of 'classical' music and therefore writing the paper was a somewhat futile effort.) But I digress, as I continued reading it just to practice my rusty vocabulary.

So, the result of this? I still don't know what tragic reverse sonata form is. But i like the term. :-) I also like Bruckner.

[artsmusemari]

Vintage uniform piece at local mercantile.

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Vintage clarinet at local mercantile. I don't know this model.

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Aretha Franklin - Respect [1967] (Original Version)

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Vintage find in a local Mercantile. No, definitely not my style.

[artsmusemari]

a compilation of some of my favourite composer quotes:

“Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.”  - Igor Stravinsky

“I am sure my music has a taste of codfish in it.” - Edvard Grieg 

“Never look at the trombones. It only encourages them.” - Richard Strauss

“He’d be better off shovelling snow than scribbling on manuscript paper.” - Richard Strauss on Schoenberg

“I liked your opera. I think I will set it to music.” - Ludvig van Beethoven

“I have written a chorale both sober and suitable. In it I have put everything I know about boredom. I dedicate this to those who do not like me.” - Erik Satie

“ Mr. Wagner has beautiful moments but bad quarters of an hour.” - Gioacchino Rossini

“What a good thing this isn’t music.” - Gioacchino Rossini on Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique 

“Oh how wonderful, really wonderful opera would be if there were no singers!” - Gioacchino Rossini

“In opera there is always too much singing.” - Claude Debussy

“Bring me coffee before I turn into a goat!” - Johann Sebastian Bach

“Listening to the 5th Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.” - Aaron Copland 

“The audience expected something big, something colossal, but they were served instead with some agitated water in a saucer.” - Louis Schnieder on Debussy’s La Mer

“He gives me the impression of being a spoilt child.” - Clara Schumann on Liszt 

“What a giftless bastard!” - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky on Brahms

“Handel is only fourth rate. He is not even interesting.” - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

“Bach on the wrong notes” -  Sergei Prokofiev on Stravinsky 

And, saving the best for last…

“Lick my ass up and down” -Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 

Feel free to add more! (Also please don’t think that I agree with all of these, I am a huge fan of Symphonie Fantastique and La Mer!!)

[artsmusemari]

boss fight

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Digging up more treasures from the closet. These came from friends of my parents and were stashed away for a few years.

[artsmusemari]

I was given a 1980’s Baldwin electronic organ with sheet music for free because it was going to be disposed of in a household move. It needed a new home, and it works. This book came with it. What was interesting is that Ethel had arranged Chopin for the electronic organ.

[artsmusemari]

Schumann - Gesänge der Frühe (1853)

This short suite, “Songs of Dawn”, was the last cohesive work he wrote, probably the last thing he wrote in general, for only a few days later he would attempt suicide and then admit himself to a mental asylum. Probably coming from a point where his mental health was at an all time low, this set is rarely played because musically it is unusual and difficult to the point that many assumed he’d completely lost his mind. Even Clara felt lost looking at the score, commenting in her diary that the “dawn-songs [are] very original as always but hard to understand, their tone is so very strange..” It is hard to categorize this set because the music often goes unresolved and meanders through unexpected harmonies. The first song feels like a reflection of the stillness of daybreak, and feels like a Lutheran chorale though it is full of dissonances, subtle ones, but the chords don’t resolve cleanly, and the atmosphere is melancholic but there is no clear ‘melody’. This uneasiness is still substantial because of the counterpoint going on, which you can hear between notes. The type of music that would also be great to listen to while you read along the score. The second is hard to wrap your head around, a constant ostinato helps center you, but the rhythm is off, and the main melody is hidden in the middle of the ostinato and the bass. The complexity only grows when a choral passage is thrown in, and interrupted by a bouncy stretto section. The third song has a fun galloping like rhythm, and the main melody is played in dense chords, ironically being the most clear song of the set. It has a titanic and triumphant mood to it. The fourth has a gorgeous melody paired with a spiraling pattern that again brings us into the “melancholic” mood. It develops into a more heavily written part that is more dramatic before repeating the opening. The fifth song opens with a brief choral before turning into an uplifting figuration that then doubles with the chords, becoming a harmonious build up to the final bars, that are almost angelic and transcendental, though the odd cadence at the end kind of robs us of a sense of resolution and closure. 

Movements:

1. Im ruhigen Tempo

2. Belebt, nicht zu rasch

3. Lebhaft

4. Bewegt

5. Im Anfange ruhiges, im Verlauf bewegtes Tempo 

John Martin - The Plains of Heaven (1853)

[artsmusemari]

A little humor from Tone Deaf Comics.

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Happy New Year! After seeing SW: The Last Jedi last week, I felt that this piece was appropriate.

[artsmusemari]

Once more for old time’s sake

🔥 With your help, we passed Title II net neutrality protections. Now we need to defend it.🔥

On December 14 the FCC will vote on Commissioner Pai’s plan to repeal Title II rules. This week he tried to justify that decision with a “myth busting” explainer where he makes a lot of sweeping claims he doesn’t think you’ll fact check. 

So let’s go through his big points:

❌ Mr. Pai claims ISPs won’t block access or throttle content

These are the real facts. Before Title II, the internet was so “free and open” that… 

Comcast blocked P2P file sharing services (EFF).

AT&T blocked Skype from iPhones (Fortune) and, later, wanted FaceTime users to pay for a more expensive plan (Freepress).

MetroPCS blocked all streaming video except YouTube (Wired).

In today’s media market where the same huge companies make and deliver content, Commissioner Pai wants us to trust that corporations won’t use their dominance to bury competitive content or services. 

❌ Mr. Pai claims Title II keeps ISPs from building new networks

Here’s another claim Commissioner Pai doesn’t want you to fact check, but:

AT&T’s own CEO told investors that the company would deploy more fiber optic networks in 2016 than 2015 when the FCC passed Title II protections (Investor call transcript). 

Charter’s CEO said “Title II, it didn’t really hurt us; it hasn’t hurt us” (Ars Technica).  

And Comcast actually increased investment in their network by 10% in Q1 of this year (Ars). 

❌ Mr. Pai claims repealing Title II won’t hurt competition

As we mentioned above, ISPs tried to interfere with the services their customers could access and courts had to step in to stop them.

The FCC tried to craft net neutrality rules in 2010 called the Open Internet Order but the ISPs sued and won. The courts told the FCC that the only way to guarantee a free and open internet was using their Title II authority. Without those protections, any of these things would be legal:

Your ISP launches a streaming video service and starts throttling other streaming services until they’re unusable.

Your phone company cuts a deal with a popular music streaming service so it doesn’t count towards your data cap but lowers your overall data limit. If a better service comes along (or your favorite artist releases new tracks somewhere else) you can’t use it without incurring huge data fees.

A billionaire buys your ISP and blocks access to news sites that challenge their ideology. 

Repealing Title II would be like letting a car company own the roads and banning a competitor from the highways.

❌ Mr. Pai claims there won’t be fast lanes and slow lanes

Let’s break this down: We won’t have fast lanes and slow lanes, we’ll have “priority access” and…non-priority access? Well gosh.

🚨 Please help us protect Title II one more time! 🚨

This week we co-signed a letter with more than 300 other companies—businesses Mr. Pai gleefully ignores—urging the FCC to retain the Title II internet protections. Now we need you.

Go to 👉 Battle For The Net 👈  to start a call with your representatives in Congress. Tell them to publicly support Title II protections. 

The FCC votes on December 14.

We’re only powerful when we work together.

Oh, also: that post about automatically unfollowing the #net neutrality tag—it’s not true. It’s really not. That’s not who we are. Whatever happened, we haven’t been able to reproduce it. We tried. A lot.

But if it were true—which it’s not, we feel compelled to say again—THAT’S EXACTLY WHY YOU SHOULD CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES and demand a free, open, and neutral internet.

We can do this one more time, guys! ❤️

[artsmusemari]

Happy National Coffee Day! 

[original image by the LA Philharmonic]