Dumping Ground for Diverse Dictus Thoughts of Me
I can practice playing the piano in the wee hours of the night disturbing no neighbours.
Its was a tough choice, to pick between these digital pianos:
The budget Casio DK-110,
nice looking PX-700,
features rich PX 200,
or perhaps a high end Yamaha Clavinova.
I end up getting the promoted Casio Privia PX-110 at the Commex fair.
I love my Privia.
Taken from “The Listening Book- Discovering Your Own Music” by W.A.Mathieu.
Obviously, wind chinmes; they can lead you to unexpected pleasure.
Two music boxes, or three, at once.
Rain.
River; waterfall.
Crickets; FROGS.
Wind around corners.
Your own breathing.
People hammering at a construction site: the cross rhythms.
Radio tuned between two music stations so you can hear both equally.
“Station X”: the pure static between stations on radio or TV.
Water in a pipe: toilet filling; the sound of a shower.
Playgrounds: children at a distance.
Wind in leaves.
The street: listening from one spot.
Foreign-language conversations.
Echo.
Log fire.
Flagpole: the wind in the flag, the rope on the pole.
Your hair being rubbed against your scalp.
Shuffling cards.
That’s twenty, but I don’t want to stop!
Crackling cellophane.
Aluminum soft drink cans when you squeez them just a little bit.
Don’t forget birds.
“The Way of Music” has more depth, but this is a nice handbook about music appreciation. Written in short blog like essays, it is easy to read (without needing to from the start to the end), simple to understand, very descriptive and visual (and audible), in a way we would be more aware of sounds appreciative of sounds around us.
From
The Way of Music : Aural Training for the Internet Generation
By: Robin Maconie
ISBN: 0810858797
Published 2007
Scarecrow Press
437 pages
A fantastic book I would recommend to anyone. Simple to read, easy to understand, yet profile, much logical thinking, literature rich, psychology rich.
Here are the barks
1
What you hear is the truth.
The rest is up to you.
2
A dog barks:
Woof! Woof!
3
An unseen dog that barks
is still a dog.
4
If you can hear it,
then you can hear.
5
In a bark,
a dog exists.
6
A dog exists,
you exist.
7
In the bark of a dog,
the world exists.
8
A bark, a dog, a person listening,
a world in relation.
9
A dog barks
in order to hear
10
The sound of its voice
is the sound of its world.
11
The sound of its voice
the sound of your world.
12
A dog, a chicken:
what’s the difference?
13
A dog may howl at the moon
but a chicken commands the sun to rise
14
A dog barking
is a sign of life.
15
At the time of barking
a dog hears only itself
16
To anyone listening, the sound of dog barking
is like pebbles rattling in a wooden box.
17
To a dog, its bark
is the sound if its universe.
18
Woof! Woof!
Once for surprise, twice for emphasis.
Continue reading ‘101 Ways of Hearing a Dog Bark’
Beethoven and Schubert called themselves miserable of all men.
Reading biographies of classical music composers, they often seem poor, miserable, pitifully, rejected and suffered from illnesses- Bach blindness, Beethoven deafness, Schumann madness, Schubert Syphilis, Chopin tuberculosis… However, there’s always the bright side to music, and with laughter the best medicine.
Igudesman And Joo performs a musical comedy called “A Little Nightmare Music” (a title used by ” P.D.Q. Bach” for his altered Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik)
See A Little Nightmare Music Trailer here
You might want to watch more of their funny excerpts on their webpage or here for more laughs.
Also if you read my brother’s blog, you would have read about Anderson and Roe, 2 brilliant pianists who play tango-like chronographed four-hands piano music (perhaps inspired by Schubert).
For a start, the duo playing “BLUE DANUBE FANTASY” is both exciting and funny.
Something slightly different would be their version of “LIBERTANGO” (Piazzolla).. Catch more of their outtakes and videos over here and read more here.
Sit back, relax and enjoy.
Btw, I just got accepted to NUSSO (NUS Symphonic Orchestra).
Just like at times when I pop in the tiny, green, Diphenoxylate pills to stop my strong stomach’s acid from churning, I need some elixir for my mind/soul blobbing music practices.
Sometimes the music pills comes from watching some classical videos (doesn’t that reminds me of the Pururin Gorota’s space candy in Nodame Cantabile, Gapoo!), sometimes with listening ears comes therapy, when there’s someone to hear musical stories I tell (and my current teacher has a good set).
There was also treatment for my musical illness when this elderly piano tuner arrived, long after the piano at home should be serviced.
Hearing I was still in the army, he conversed with his companion in hokkien, comparing the similarities between firing the rifle and tunning the piano.
As he took apart the piano into its skeleton form, I looked closely into the parts, and immediately the piano seemed drawn closer to me.
I usually marvel at the body of a grand piano. There’s in a upright piano has the similar workings, the ribs of the piano’s voice box, and its soul from the frame in a harp-like structure hidden with its usual standing position.
As the piano tuner runs across the keys to test the piano, his expressions express his shock of a almost baroque tuning, each keys about a tone down.
On commenting his good ears as he needed only a tuning fork, he recalls how he tells young tuners, “Young man, you are very good, you can hear with eyes”, as the new generation piano tuners seem to rely on their electrical tuning tools.
As out of tune intervals starts to clear, he wipes and polishes black wood while I test the keys.
Bright, though not too much like Kawai’s, not too heavy keys, not too hollow came the sounds of the Czech produced Bohemia tones.
“Remember 6 months time”, as we waved goodbye.
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