English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

I envy people who can span a tenth with no effort. I'm OK with ninths, even minor tenths, but I can only manage a few major tenths and even that is an agony.

tchrist

1:19 AM

I've lost an inch since I graduated. Fortunately, that's only in height not in hands, which were never immense anyway.

Octaves are fine. Ninths I can do on the edges. Tenths need to be rolled.

Robusto

Reg said he could span a twelfth. I find that almost impossible to credit.

tchrist

Probably when he's playing an accordion.

Robusto

That's what I thought, and said so, but he swears he could do it on the piano.

Art Tatum -- Tiger Rag

►

tchrist

Feb 18, 2021 at 3:30, by RegDwigнt

@tchrist anyway. The hands don't even look big. Like, I have ninths in my own writing absolutely everywhere, and there's videos of me playing them, but blink and you'll miss it, it doesn't look like anything. It looks like sixths or something.

Feb 18, 2021 at 3:31, by RegDwigнt

Waltz №5 (piano solo)

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Feb 18, 2021 at 3:34, by RegDwigнt

I wouldn't want to be playing tenths in C major, either. But Ab major or G minor? Anytime.

Robusto

Hmm, OK.

He certainly has plenty of reach left when he's playing octaves.

I've been woodshedding Hanon and/or Czerny as my New Year's resolution, normally before I start working on music. It's been helping me build up strength. But there is so much of that stuff that it's daunting. Hard to limit oneself to this or that exercise or etude. I suppose the best plan is to take it a bit at a time, just shut everything else out.

@tchrist I'm also studying with a piano coach now. She's very good, and already has me working on the bad habits she sees.

tchrist

1:33 AM

I thought piano coaches were those fancy buses they use for shipping them cross country.

Keeping the notes depressed for their entire duration. Loosen up your wrists. Don't just mash the keys.

Robusto

@tchrist Heh, with me running to keep up.

tchrist

I remember all those old commandments from college, he made them so many times.

Robusto

@tchrist Not only loosen your wrists, but remember that the wrists are where the expression and phrasing come from.

tchrist

That's why that's connected to not mashing the keys.

Soft doesn't mean slow. Loud doesn't mean fast.

This is a song. It has a melody. Most of the notes you're playing are not that melody. Don't make the listener try to figure this out.

Stop letting your attention wander.

Robusto

@tchrist Yeah, good luck with that.

tchrist

1:39 AM

Practice back to front, not front to back.

Robusto

My attention flits about like a gnat when I'm trying to play from memory. "Keep your wrists loose! Your shoulders are tight! Wait, did I already play the repeat? Oh God I have to fart!"

tchrist

Otherwise you won't know the end of piece equally well.

Robusto

Music in front of me dials that down, but not entirely.

tchrist

Yes, printed music plus a metronome helps that a little.

Robusto

@tchrist Yeah. How I do it is play through until I get to problem parts and then woodshed and work backwards from there.

tchrist

1:41 AM

Sometimes I even manage to remember to start with the problem parts.

Wakeman's lead-in to Morning Is Broken, the part he pinched from Catherine Howard, I can play at tempo in the dark with my eyes closed. The rest? Nope. Which is the back-to-front problem.

Robusto

I hear ya.

And remember, you have to play slow to play fast. And never play a piece in a tempo that feels dicey. Even if you have it in your fingers, you're going to have the memory of how hard it is so when push comes to shove you're going to screw it up.

tchrist

Learn to hear both micro- and macro-beats. Is it in 3? Then try hearing it in 6. Try playing it in 1.

CowperKettle

Word of the morning: port beam (A torpedo struck Cressy on the starboard side at around 07:25 and a second hit the port beam)

Robusto

@tchrist Have you ever worked on eurhythmics? That does wonders.

tchrist

No.

Only Amerhithmics.

Robusto

1:57 AM

Haha.

tchrist

Scales should have a pulse on the beat.

When you're practicing them.

That way you can keep the same tempo but switch the divisions.

Robusto

I knew a woman who taught that. You could turn on a piece of music and then turn off the sound but keep the piece playing with her clapping. After 30 seconds you turn up the volume again and she was dead on the beat.

CowperKettle

2:11 AM

The situation: England has lost this war. With the right of the drowning person, she grasps at every straw which, in her imagination, might serve as a sheet anchor. (Hitler to Mussolini, 21 June 1941)

Robusto

2:23 AM

Ukrainian national prayer (1885–present) with English translation

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tchrist

There's such a thing as a national prayer?

Robusto

According to Alex Estyugov (a/k/a RegDwight) there is.

Did he ever tell you why he bailed on all things EL&U?

Maybe he just wanted to focus on music? I hope this is the reason.

tchrist

No, he did not tell me.

My guess is that our current national prayer is Biden.

Robusto

Our national nightmare is not over.

tchrist

Ford was wrong.

Robusto

2:31 AM

Can you govern on a lie? House Republicans give it a try.

tchrist

There is a cancer upon the party, one that has metastasized.

Robusto

> Ryan Zinke stepped up to the microphone and into the Twilight Zone.

“Despite the ‘deep state’s’ repeated attempts to stop me, I stand before you as a duly elected member of the United States Congress and tell you that a deep state exists and is perhaps the strongest covert weapon the left has against the American people,” he told the House. The Montana Republican, who has returned to Congress after a scandal-plagued stint in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, informed his colleagues that “the deep state runs secret messaging campaigns” and is trying “to wipe out the American cowboy.”

You can't make this stuff up. Nobody would believe you.

> Yee-haw! Zinke was speaking in support of a new Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, or, as Democrats call it, the “Tinfoil Hat Committee.” In substance, it’s the QAnon committee, with a remit to probe the “deep state” and other wacky conspiracy theories. With the panel’s creation, QAnon completes its journey from message board for the paranoid to official policy of the House Republican majority.

tchrist

Scandal plagued, and vice versa.

Robusto

> One change Republicans did reveal is the gutting of the Office of Congressional Ethics (it won’t be able to hire new staff when current employees leave), which will help shield lawmakers’ wrongdoing from public scrutiny. Also made known: a commitment to vote on abolishing the IRS and eliminating income taxes.

Yes, by all means get rid of the watchdogs on Congressional Ethics.

tchrist

"Eliminating income taxes". Good luck with that.

Robusto

2:41 AM

Probably they mean "just for the wealthy."

tchrist

They probably want to make it so their companies don't have to pay taxes on their corporate income either. That, too, is a type of income tax.

Robusto

They won't rest until we are a third-world country.

2

tchrist

Having a government gets in their way.

CowperKettle

2:58 AM

Lithium treatment extends human lifespan: findings from the UK Biobank

Nirvana - Lithium

►

M.A.R.

3:20 AM

@CowperKettle but uh, lithium is pretty toxic too, and the benefits in the bipolar etc. groups outweigh the risks, as in any other medical setting?

I'm not sure I want lithium. You can't make me!

tchrist

Not even just a trace? :)

No matter the results of the animal studies, any proposal to give people without the requisite psychiatric disorders therapeutic doses of lithium would need to meet an extremely high level of benefit. It is too risky otherwise.

jlliagre

swallowing batteries

tchrist

Giving substances to people who are already sick in order to help them is one thing. Giving substances to people who are doing just fine without anything thank you very much is something else entirely.

This is why vaccines are held to such high standards.

It's nonetheless an intriguing paper. One shall see.

0

Q: Talk vs open up

Look at these two newspaper article titles(I know you must be thinking that the first one no journalist would write this way): 1: "Klopp talks about what went wrong with his team". 2: "Klopp opens up on what went wrong with his team". What is the nuance difference between using ''open up'' instea...

That's now a candidate for reöpening, but I am honor bound to have others do so if it's to be done.

I can't quite make out what a strange case he's found. It's not normal, to my ears.

user4539917

3:49 AM

Hönör ye bound.

By ye excellent answer.

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. I know. I tried it, and my blood sugar increased, and it took twice the amount of insulin to keep it in check

CowperKettle

4:16 AM

> I wonder what my parents did to fight boredom before the internet?
I asked my 18 brothers and sisters and they don’t know either.

user4539917

It's regularly used for bipolar disorders.

CowperKettle

Word of the morn: circumbinary planet

CowperKettle

5:05 AM

Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War

The Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War (Dutch: Driehonderdvijfendertigjarige Oorlog, Cornish: Bell a dri hans pymthek warn ugens) was an alleged state of war between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly (located off the southwest coast of Great Britain), and its existence is disputed. It is said to have been extended by the lack of a peace treaty for 335 years without a single shot being fired, which would make it one of the world's longest wars, and a bloodless war. Despite the uncertain validity of the declaration of war, and thus uncertainty about whether or not a state of war ever...

White Coke

White Coke (Russian: Бесцветная кока-кола, tr. Bestsvetnaya koka-kola, lit. "colorless Coca-Cola") was a clear variant of Coca-Cola produced in the 1940s at the request of Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov. Like other clear colas, it had the same flavor as the original, virtually unchanged by the absence of caramel coloring. == History == Zhukov was introduced to Coca-Cola during, or shortly after, World War II by his counterpart in Western Europe, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was also a fan of the drink. As Coca-Cola was regarded in the Soviet Union as a symbol of American imperial...

> The colorless version of Coca-Cola was bottled using straight, clear glass bottles with a white cap and a red star in the middle.

> Hermione wasn’t sure if all that magic and wizards and stuff was just a bad trip. (Midjourney AI)

Xanne

8:05 AM

Wordle 576 3/6

⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Daily Octordle #357
🕛5️⃣
🕚4️⃣
8️⃣7️⃣
9️⃣🔟
Score: 66

jlliagre

Wordle 576 4/6

⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Daily Quordle 357
4️⃣5️⃣
6️⃣7️⃣
quordle.com

Daily Octordle #357
7️⃣4️⃣
6️⃣9️⃣
8️⃣🕚
🕛🔟
Score: 67

Xanne

Just one mistake (wrong guess).

CowperKettle

9:56 AM

> O suitably-surmounted-with-a-hat
Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed are you come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
My object in enquiring is to know.

antigonejournal.com/2021/10/fragment-of-a-greek-tragedy

CowperKettle

10:42 AM

CowperKettle

1:09 PM

Word of the evening: kynodesme (Greek: κυνοδέσμη, English translation: "dog tie")

Robusto

2:05 PM

#Worldle #360 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐⭐🪙
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Same country as yesterday.

🌎 Jan 16, 2023 🌍
🔥 3 | Avg. Guesses: 5.18
⬜🟧🟩 = 3

globle-game.com
#globle

Wow, that was lucky.

Wordle 576 4/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟩🟨⬛
⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Vikas

3:02 PM

#Worldle #360 4/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜↖️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨↙️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨⬅️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Robusto

Daily Quordle 357
5️⃣7️⃣
8️⃣6️⃣
quordle.com

CowperKettle

Robusto

3:18 PM

So how could you ever measure the radius of the universe, since it is far from a perfect sphere and there is no sharply defined boundary? Indeed, the whole idea of a boundary is suspect.

Also, if you were designing "the finest engines" wouldn't you round to 3.1416?

CowperKettle

A small plane is trying to land in NY in a dense fog, and suddenly all communication and location equipment fails. The pilot opens the window and screams to the nearest skyscraper: "Where are we?" -- "On a plane!" comes the answer from the building. The pilots grows calm and does a perfect landing. "But how?" - asks a passenger. "The answer was 100% correct and 100% useless, so I understood that we were flying past the Microsoft Support office, and I know exactly where it's located"

Robusto

@CowperKettle That's a variation of a very old joke. When I first heard it, I think I fell off my dinosaur laughing.

CowperKettle

Ah! Sorry!

I just read it in a Russian style with an 1C office (a Russian software firm), so I remodeled it to Microsoft and NY

Robusto

Honestly, I think the first version of that joke had a guy in a balloon asking a farmer where he was.

> A man flying in a hot air balloon suddenly realizes he’s lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts to get directions, "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"

The man below says: "Yes. You're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."

"You must work in Information Technology," says the balloonist.

"I do" replies the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but It's of no use to anyone."

That's one that I saw on the main site a decade or so ago. The whole question is deleted now, and I don't think you have enough rep to see it there.

CowperKettle

@Robusto LOL

Yes, it's brilliant, I recall reading it :)

In Volgograd, a former Wagner Group fighter was given a funeral, but no officials attended, and no ceremony was held. Thank God.

He had been sentenced to 15 years in jail for entering a room of a woman in a dorm to steal her phone. She woke up, so he stabbed her to death.

Robusto

3:35 PM

CowperKettle

For a phone, a cheap laptop, and $110 in cash. She was gushing blood, so he had to ditch his outer garments

And was most likely immediately caught by the police, the idiot.

If my relative did this, I would never buy him a wreath.

Robusto

@CowperKettle And he only got 15 years for that? They give sentences almost as long to foreign basketball players who have a trace of THC in their luggage.

CowperKettle

Yes, it's a mystery.

I'm amazed that our local news website has not been shut down for posting such news.

They are walking the thinnest of ices.

Running kittly-benders, to borrow the Scots phrase.

Robusto

"They are walking on the thinnest ice" or "They are walking the thinnest of lines."

CowperKettle

@Robusto They just took that basketball player as a hostage, very handy

Robusto

3:39 PM

Yes, I know.

CowperKettle

Another one. "The body of a 25-year old is being hauled to the Urals"

He robbed a store, then went to a drunken party, and when some girl slept, tried to get golden earrlings right out of her ears.

She woke up, he took the rings by force, was arrested the same day and given 2.5 years in jail.

He would have better served his term.

Robusto

How did he die?

CowperKettle

He was given a medal for bravery posthumously.

Robusto

Oh, in Ukraine.

CowperKettle

Died in Ukraine, as a Wagner Group mercenary

Tried to cut his jail term, and was out of luck.

Robusto

3:44 PM

Wagner Group is the new Einsatzgruppen.

Einsatzgruppen

Einsatzgruppen (German: [ˈaɪnzatsˌɡʁʊpm̩], lit. 'deployment groups'; also 'task forces') were Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The Einsatzgruppen had an integral role in the implementation of the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish question" (Die Endlösung der Judenfrage) in territories conquered by Nazi Germany, and were involved in the murder of much of the intelligentsia and cultural elite of Poland, including members of the Catholic priesthood...

CowperKettle

The guy's surname was Azarenko, a south Ukrainian surname deriving from the Jewish name Azar, "God's help"

jlliagre

@Robusto Not a bug!

🌎 Jan 16, 2023 🌍
🔥 1 | Avg. Guesses: 6.61
⬜🟧🟧🟧🟩 = 5

globle-game.com
#globle

Robusto

@jlliagre 👍

CowperKettle

Study shows cyclic breathing technique more effective in reducing stress than mindfulness meditation

I think I've been doing cycling breathing for decades

Robusto

*cyclic

Vikas

3:58 PM

> State Duma deputy, Lieutenant General Andrei Gurulev: As soon as German tanks appear on Russian territory, Russia will have no choice but to announce a general mobilization.

Read on Twitter. Couldn't find other source.

Aren't tanks from Germany coming in 2024 anyway? Not in 2023.

Robusto

If they're coming in 2024 they'll be too late.

CowperKettle

@Vikas He is a clown, specifically kept to voice outlandish statements

Vikas

I'm a little surprised they already believe it's not going to end in 2023.

CowperKettle

This Gurulev does not take any decisions, only attends TV shows.

> Greek 'amethystos' derives from 'a-' (not) + 'methystos' (intoxicated), a reference to the belief that the stone protected its owner from drunkenness and hangovers

> A ring found in Israel, 3rd century AD

Vikas

@CowperKettle It appears like a face/emoji to me. Small eyes with purple crown and big mouth.

CowperKettle

4:02 PM

from μέθυ (metu) = wine, cognate with Russian mjod and English mead

Vikas

And a nose like Lord Voldemort too.

CowperKettle

So amethyst shares roots with the Russian word for honey.

@Vikas Yes :)

> Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Oh, it's an oxide of silicon

> Amethyst is a purple variety of quartz (SiO2)

Gemstone irradiation

Gemstone irradiation is a process in which a gemstone is artificially irradiated in order to enhance its optical properties. High levels of ionizing radiation can change the atomic structure of the gemstone's crystal lattice, which in turn alters the optical properties within it. As a result, the gemstone's color may be significantly altered or the visibility of its inclusions may be lessened. The process, widely practised in jewelry industry, is done in either a nuclear reactor for neutron bombardment, a particle accelerator for electron bombardment, or a gamma ray facility using the radioactive...

Radiation makes gemstones change color O_O

Robusto

> A guy is standing on the corner of the street smoking one cigarette after another. A lady walking by notices him and says
"Hey, don't you know that those things can kill you? I mean, didn't you see the giant warning on the box?!"
"That's OK" says the guy, puffing casually "I'm a computer programmer"
"So? What's that got to do with anything?"
"We don't care about warnings. We only care about errors."

Cerberus

@CowperKettle Wow, so nice.

CowperKettle

4:18 PM

Yes, simple and beautiful

@Robusto LOL

When I self-studied C#, I took care to read the warnings.. But my code was very short.

Faheem Mitha

4:51 PM

@Robusto I think a programmer should care about warnings.

parz

MY word of the day! is…

Robusto

5:06 PM

@FaheemMitha Programmers have so many other things to care about. And usually warnings are about such things as "such-and-such is deprecated in v. 8.0" when you're going to have to rewrite for 8.0 at some point in the future anyway and the such-and-such is used all throughout the v. 7.4 code base in the version you have been coding for, etc.

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto In my experience bugs quite often show up in the form of warnings. Of course, some warnings are more useful than others.

And some languages don't do much at all in the way of warnings. Usually compilers do most of them. It's a bit of a mixed blessing. You have to keep the compiler happy, but it return sometimes it warns you about bugs.

Robusto

That's something you can do if you are coding for yourself, but if you're on a team with deadlines you just don't have time to worry about all that crap.

As the saying goes, "We'll fall off that bridge when we come to it."

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto Worry about what crap? Finding bugs?

Robusto

@FaheemMitha No. About warnings.

Errors we worry about absolutely.

Almost all bugs are logic errors, which no warning is going to catch.

Cf. "fencepost errors" and the like.

Faheem Mitha

5:21 PM

@Robusto Not at all true, in my experience. Warnings frequently catch errors.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha In what systems/languages?

Faheem Mitha

@Robusto In systems I've used where compilers exist. E.g. C++ and Common Lisp.

Python, for example, isn't great at warnings, though it does produce some. Actually, for languages where the compiler isn't present to give warnings, one can sometimes use linting tools. I believe that's static analysis, but it's better than nothing.

Robusto

OK. I do web programming, and most of the build warnings would be from Apache. You can set the flagging levels.

Apache Log Levels

Mitch

@parz holds breath

@Robusto Flagging levels? You're so lucky to have them.

Robusto

@FaheemMitha Anyway, it's a fucking joke! Lighten up!

Next you're going to tell me that a priest, a rabbi, and a minister would never walk ingo a bar together, ferchrissakes.

Mitch

5:29 PM

When I was a kid, programs only had two levels:

Pass - things are probably awful but the compiler will let it pass -this- time.

Error - explodes in a ball of smoke.

Robusto

@Mitch Yeah, good thing you never had to program a dog.

Mitch

Dog? We would have loved to have a dog to program.

All we had were nematodes.

And not the good kind

Before that was PHP

haha php is awful

I suppose there's worse.

But I can't say it's name out loud

You've heard of WORM in data base design? Write Once Read Many

Robusto

@Mitch You can get flagged for mentioning that or Java in chat.

Mitch

For some programming languages (most?) there's WORN

Write Once Read Never

@Robusto smokedetector should have flagged it automatically for obscenity

Robusto

Then there's the Java guarantee: WODE. Write Once, Debug Everywhere.

Mitch

5:37 PM

Java - WTM - Write Too Much

javascript seems to be like that too.

Robusto

@Mitch Nope.

Mitch

I remember when I was a kid a complicated program was -2- pages long.

nowadays you can't have a working program without a 100 files.

kids these days

Cerberus

Isn't there a counter-movement nowadays?

Trying to steer away from very complicated programmes and lots of dependencies?

Robusto

5:56 PM

Maybe? I've been retired for seven years now, and when I left there were lots of dependencies. Just building your environment to begin working could take a day or more.

Mitch

@Cerberus Possibly, but then there's always been a push/pull between those wanting more features/more power/complexity and simple/easy to learn and use.

Or there are ways to get around things like having dependency builders (so the programmer doesn't have to keep track of all that) or fully installable environments (like docker) so you just do it once and share with everybody

Robusto

6:11 PM

Hydrogen Will Not Save Us. Here's Why.

►

Why I will NEVER use the Metric System

►

It's not what you think.

Cerberus

6:36 PM

I only watched the first thirty second or so.

But we normally measure metres by taking long paces. It's fairly accurate. Probably more accurate than measuring feet by using your own feet.

Robusto

@Cerberus It's actually a lament for the US not having the metric system.

Cerberus

OK.

He should have used shall, then!

Robusto

It's a come-on, more intriguing that way. "Wait, why won't he use the metric system?" And the answer turns out to be "because he's not been programmed from childhood to think in those terms."

Vikas

6:58 PM

@Cerberus Shall then == Sheldon?

Cerberus

7:40 PM

@Robusto Also known as clickbait?

Robusto

Not everything that is enticing is clickbait.

CowperKettle

I got into a fight with 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9.
The odds were against me.

Robusto

@CowperKettle Is that even true?

Vikas

8:04 PM

@CowperKettle 😆

tchrist

8:27 PM

@jlliagre I do think your answer is right about the currently dominant term for that peculiar phenomenon being "authentic casting". Recasting the Simpsons cartoon was shocking. I guess this means that Bart isn't really a boy but a girl after all; who knew? :)

jlliagre

@tchrist Thanks, I'm glad it's not your downvote ;-) Recasting cartoons is shocking indeed, that might kill Kenny!

Robusto

8:42 PM

@jlliagre Looks like one person downvoted everything in that Q&A.

I guess the message there is "DON'T TALK ABOUT THINGS THAT MAKE ME UNCOMFORTABLE!!!!!"

Yours was the best answer, by the way.

tchrist

I can't wait till they start recasting all the poor people using poor people. Think of it as a poverty-reduction measure.

I wonder whether acting contracts will specify that you can't switch from Catholic to Protestant if you were cast as a Catholic.

Robusto

All actors should be replaced by fonts. We can call it type-casting.

tchrist

At least now we won't have all the dumb fake piano-playing in shows anymore. Too inauthentic.

Robusto

Occasionally an actor does actually learn to play, at least enough to get through the three or more seconds you actually see their hands on the keyboard.

tchrist

Shine (1996) - Flight of the Bumblebee

►

Not a hand double.

Robusto

8:59 PM

I really like Geoffrey Rush.

Полёт шмеля

Polyot Shmelya?

«Полёт шмеля́» — оркестровая интермедия, написанная Николаем Римским-Корсаковым для его оперы «Сказка о царе Салтане», сочинённой в 1899—1900 годах. Интермедией заканчивается третий акт, в котором Лебедь-птица обращает князя Гвидона в шмеля, чтобы он мог слетать к своему отцу (который не знает, что Гвидон жив). В первой части интермедии имеется вокальная партия Лебедь-птицы, однако вокальная часть нередко при исполнении опускается, а виртуозная часть интермедии исполняется как отдельная оркестровая миниатюра. == Текст == Этот текст исполняется Лебедь-птицей в начале интермедии: Хотя сло...

My friend went to a musical school, and at his final exam he played it on the accordion.

Then he went back home, put the accordion in a box, put the box as far away as possible, and never touched it again.

tchrist

> Geoffrey Rush: I had a piano tutor who was guiding me through the notions of a pianist state of mind, and he said, "When you're sitting at a grand piano, you have to think from the base of your butt right through your spine, up through your hip, down your arm, right down the length of the keyboard." And that sort of image was very appealing to me for playing David.

Robusto

@tchrist He must have already known how to play. I can't think that could be an ad hoc feat.

tchrist

9:05 PM

Heh.

He hadn't taken lesson after age 14. So he brushed up on it for the movie so that all the hand shots were real.

Robusto

I'm impressed. I personally couldn't play Flight of the Bumblebee at that tempo on that piano.

tchrist

Article here.

@Robusto I was thinking the same thing.

CowperKettle

> Critic Roger Ebert rated the film four out of four stars, stating "There has been much talk in 1996 about films whose filmmakers claim they were based on true stories but were kidding (Fargo), and films whose filmmakers claimed they were based on true stories but might have been lying (Sleepers). Here is a movie that is based on the truth beneath a true story."

Robusto

Also, I personally get out of kilter when playing anything on a crappy piano—uneven action, too stiff, too loose, etc.

CowperKettle

I only managed to memorize three simple "two-hand" melodies on the piano. Well, I used a synthesizer.

tchrist

9:08 PM

I don't have the sheet music, but I imagine that if you can already play, that it's something you hammer away at four hours a day for a couple weeks, or a couple months, and eventually you've got it worked up and can whip it off at a far higher level than you could just reading through it once or twice.

@CowperKettle Most melodies need just one hand. The other hand is harmony. :)

Robusto

> Personally, I prefer music to film because music is much purer. It can be divine, whereas film is so often just eight inches away from being snuff.

Nice.

tchrist

Lead sheet

A lead sheet or fake sheet is a form of musical notation that specifies the essential elements of a popular song: the melody, lyrics and harmony. The melody is written in modern Western music notation, the lyric is written as text below the staff and the harmony is specified with chord symbols above the staff. The lead sheet does not describe the chord voicings, voice leading, bass line or other aspects of the accompaniment. These are specified later by an arranger or improvised by the performers, and are considered aspects of the arrangement or performance of a song, rather than a part of the...

"fake" books' notation

CowperKettle

I remember that I memorized the Turkic March, it was nice. I even made myself to recreate the notation on musical sheets from memory, but that was not enough to make me "read" sheet music. I still could only read it very slowly, sign by sign.

tchrist