ChristopherSchlegel

Oh, man! This looks like it could be fun. More soon.

How do you know that? Did you read that somewhere? How do you know that?! I have never heard that; & every picture I have ever seen of his hands shows the standard 10 digits total. His hands were large & this led to spans of 13th intervals...but 6 fingers?

Happy Birthday to Ayn Rand. I will forever be in debt to her for glorious art & philosophy. Christopher Schlegel

CICEROSC, did you ever decide on any CDs? If so, do you like them? Last weekend I loaded some of the similar pieces from my CDs of Rach performing & my "A Window In Time" CDs realized by Wayne Stahnke from Rach's piano rolls into my music editing software. Specifically I tried Chopin-Liszt "The Maiden's Wish", a Bach sarabande & a Schubert Impromtu. The results were amazing. Some of the pieces has slightly different arrangements, but the tempos, phrasings & dynamics of the similar sections, themes, lines were so perfectly similar I could line them up right beside one another & it sounded like a stereo recording. Obviously, it takes an enormous amount of skill to be able to perform like that. I don't know if Stephen Speicher is still here or not (I read some of the thread concerning the unfortunate incident), but for anyone interested...as to "what it is must feel like for a composer to hear his work played by others". In my limited experience (solo pieces on piano & guitar; pop & jazz tunes played by small ensembles) it is somewhat analogous to marriage: when it works it's the greatest, when it doesn't it's the worst. One particular example that illustrates the different (sometimes) conflicting aspects of this situation: I was fortunate enough to have an outstanding pianist play some of my compositions in a recital. She did an excellent job for the most part & I was grateful. But I also know she "appreciates some modern composers" (i.e. atonal BS) & in some small ways this tinged not only my appreciation but also her performance of my thoroughly tonal work. Christopher Schlegel

Again: Did you get the Fisk transcriptions? I sent you links via the OO.net forum email option. You have evidence that some part of Objectivism is wrong? Was this part of a discussion in another thread? Could you point me to it? I don't usually read, follow, or post in many areas except aesthetics. Whenever I have looked around I see that other, more qualified individuals are properly answering questions related to other areas of Objectivism & philosophy in general. I am knowledgable about it, but I don't have an unlimited amount of time & this is a division of labor society! As well as (thankfully) a division of labor forum.

Great! Don't ever stop studying Objectivism. The reply posts are excellent & right on target, the only reason I am jumping here is because of the music angle. First, keep in mind that diatonic, tonal music is a very highly integrated system to begin with. In many ways, once you learn the fundamentals & the syntax of it a reasonably intelligent person can easily improvise. In fact after all the basics have been learned, established mentally, once you have automated this info with the mechanical aspects of manipulating an instrument, at a certain point it is actually difficult to play something that does not "work" (i.e. sound decent). I also want to clarify something a bit here. You said, you "had no requisite base of what was going on, I just knew it worked." That is not quite accurate. You did have a base of knowledge (a basic understanding of tonality) as well as a basic level of acquired skill with the instrument. It may not be enough to completely understand everything, but it is not as if you know nothing. Also, keep in mind that when you hear something you "like the sound of it" that is a different issue than understanding musically what is happening. You said "I do not understand why all the notes I am playing work, I just know they work." I think I understand what you are getting at here. But, strictly speaking, you do not "just know" something if you do not understand that something. You can at any time, play any note, over any progression and make a judgment about whether or not you "like the sound of it". But understanding why it works (i.e. identifying the characteristics of the sound you like) is another issue. And it's not necessarily a simple one. Suppose you identify what chord tone it is in relation to the chord over which you are playing it. That is merely one more aspect of the entire context. Mentally, then you say, "Ah-ha! I like the sound of an 11th over a half-diminished chord ". You have identified what note you like in a small context. But, what about wider contexts? Musically, for example, the voice leading implications? What notes, over what chords, come before & after? Is there a better way to approach & leave that note? Would another way of voice leading make that note more or less effective? How does that note fit into the overall thematic statements you are making in the piece on a larger scale? Another significant analogy is language. I remember reading once that the average person has a vocabulary of approximately 30-50K words. (Don't know how accurate that is. Whatever the amount the analogy will still hold). That is an amazing amount of conceptual info! Yet, when we talk or write, we just seem to be able to use any one of those words whenever we need it so easily it is as if it requires no thought at all. But, actually it is so automated it becomes "second nature". Christopher Schlegel

My 2 yr. old son loves "Blue's Clues". He walks around the house with a little notebook & a crayon pointing at stuff & saying "Find another clue, put in our notebook.....'cause they're whose clues? Blue's Clues!!" Just like the guy in the show, its absolutely hysterical. Although, I have never seen the "Kwanzza" episode to which you refer. Every episode I've seen (or we have on DVD) is very focused on counting, spelling & finding clues. I thought it was kinda neat because they always sings lines like, "You sure are smart!" & "Sit down in our thinking chair & think!" & "When we use our minds...we can do anything..." As far as other shows, he also loves the "Wiggles", Baby Einstein DVDs & the classic Dr. Seuss books/vids (almost all of them are on DVD now!). Oh, yeah! He likes some of the Teletubbies, especially when they are counting or identifying objects. I love watching all those shows with him & talking about the stuff in the shows. It's wonderful to be there interacting with him while he's learning, building his mind & vocabulary.

You're welcome. I am glad you found it valuable. That is very good thinking. Excellent. Did you get the Fisk transcriptions? I sent them a while ago... Take your time to read all the Objectivist material & think carefully about it. A solid philosophical foundation is crucial in supporing your benevolent sense of life & ethusiasm/passion for beautiful music. I have seen some members of this board taking the hard line in defending Rand & Objectivism. Remember, they are probably doing this because they care deeply about it & (possibly) they care enough to respond directly to you (even if only to correct you). Also, remember that the mainstream culture of the entire world is AGAINST Rand & Objectivism. Rand has been misunderstood, misinterpreted, misrepresented, outright lied about, etc. in so many ways that it is sometimes difficult NOT to take the hard line in defending the pursuit of philosophical truth passionately. Keep studying! Great. You are welcome. & you can always PM me.

The field of film soundtrack/composition does seem one of the last places to find genuinely heroic music. John Williams is, of course, also quite capable in this regard when he chooses to be (not always though...). And some of Danny Elfman's work is also good. Occasionally Jerry Goldsmith is OK...not usually though. Ennio Morricone was very good also ("Good, Bad, Ugly" & other spaghetti westerns). Some the oldies are great also. Max Steiner did some amazing work: among the hundreds he did are "Casablanca", "Arsenic and Old Lace" & of course "The Fountainhead".

Oh, yeah! Queen had some wonderful material. Freddie Mercury was by far the best male vocalist the genre of rock has ever seen. I also like some of their lighter moments: "Millionaires Waltz", "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon" & the amazing "Seaside Rendezvous". A friend told me they were going to tour again...with Paul Rogers (from "Bad Company") as the singer...I have no idea what they are thinking. First, how do you replace Freddie? Next, couldn't they have gotten someone that could at least actually sing?

I love Douglas Adams' books. He can be quite funny. He was at his best when satirizing religious & irrational philosophical concepts. There is a scene in the first book of HHGG in which a couple of philosophers say things like: "We demand a total absence of solid facts!" & "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt & uncertainty!" Oh, man, that's good stuff. Also, Terry Pratchett is sometimes good at social & philosophical satire in a quasi-fantasy setting. It's been years since I've read Catch-22 but I remember thinking it was funny at the time. However, it is sometimes disappointing these authors are very good at pointing out flawed premises through ridicule/satire, while, rarely, if ever, suggesting anything (i.e. a rationally justified concept) to correct the premise.

The site has moved from that old address to this new one: New Music Theory Forum Web Address My guitar examples are still here: Music Theory Page Note: these are links to sites outside the Objectivism Forum. They are not commerical sites. Simply sites set up to discuss/work on music theory. Thanks. Christopher Schlegel

Excellent reply; right to the point. Introducing people to Rand's glorious art & philosophy is a one great way to properly "educate everyone". Spreading the ideas publicly & privately is also. This forum is an excellent manner of info dissemination. In the end though, it is an issue of individual minds grasping the necessary concepts. You say you are reading Atlas Shrugged so I don't want to ruin it for you, but I don't think this is giving anything away (i.e. spoilers, etc.). There is a line in it that has long stuck in my mind. It always comes back when I read/hear someone talking about this issue: "You will not enter it until you learn you do not need to convince or conquer the world." -John Galt in Atlas Shrugged That made me smile. You have a great sense of life there in "it's really simple & grand at the same time..." Please continue to read Rand so you can back up your benevolent sense of life with an explicit philosophical foundation. I wish you well with all your values. Christopher Schlegel

Found it: Rational Parent Homepage You were correct about the name & mail ad. Thanks for the great info!

My wife & I intend to homeschool our son also. He is only 2 so the formal education hasn't really begun yet (although, of course, we always make sure to give him many opportunities to learn while he plays right now). Just a thought on the literature angle that hasn't been mentioned yet. When I was a kid I loved the Greek myths. My grandfather got me a book on all the major players & episodes that was beautifully illustrated (also a similar volume of Aesop's fables). Looking back I think this book had a very important, priceless impact on me & being able to understand/appreciate the concept of heroic. BTW, when I read Atlas Shrugged in my early 20s I understood the analogy & was able to guess the reference early on! I wish you the best in your efforts with your son. Wow. That's a great suggestion! I also remember my father & grandfather always talking about history. & encouraging me to know/read about it also. As a consequence, even though I don't have any great passion for it, I do understand a great deal about the general history of man & civilization. Christopher Schlegel

That's funny! It is discouraging when I hear people bashing MS & then I find out their very livelihood depends upon using an MS product. Well said. I work as an IT tech for a small private college & am well aware of the pros/cons of various OSs & IT hard/software. The benefits of using MS products far outweigh any "glitches" or technical issues. It's just not even close. I can understand people in certain industries wanting to do things that are not as efficiently done w/MS products. But, the vast majority of people simply want to get stuff done; they really don't care about boxes, wires, protocols, platforms. MS is absolute genius (Gates, Ballmer, whoever) in providing a productive means for these people. This is just an aside, but because you mention it... My best friend (BTW, an Objectivist) played paintball as a hobby years ago & it eventually led to a job in the industry. He now makes piles of money as a regional distributor of paintball gear, runs his own tournaments, plays on professional teams globally. It is a fast growing entertainment/sport. So, just for the record, it is possible to make a decent living at it.

Thank you & you're welcome!

Thanks. You make good, relevant points about the other arts as well. That is quite a spectacle. I have heard some unbelievable crap from otherwise (potentially) intelligent people in regards to their justification of attending such events. Or supposedly enjoying such "music".

I am truly sorry you had to experience that. At least now you have empirical evidence.

Thanks. I am glad you got some value from it. Rap qua rap is not music. It's closest relation to any exiting art form would have to be poetry. This is my estimate based on the facts rap & poetry share the common attributes of specifically selected words from a given language spoken in structural framework of rhythm & candence. Granted much rap would have to be (in my estimation) bad poetry, but poetry nevertheless. An aspect that frequently confuses the issue of "Is rap music?" is that fact that most modern rap "songs" have some musical data in them. But this merely serves as a background, or baseline rhythmic standard by which rappers gauge their timing, phrasing, etc. It is not the main focus of attention. And even if one argued that this background musical data is to a degree integrated with the rapping it still doesn't change anything. Rapping does not contain melodic information. Therefore it cannot contain harmonic information. It only contains linguistic & rhythmic information. Therefore rapping per se is not music. On a side note, friends of mine with more interest in rap (hip-hop, rave, etc.) have informed me there are in fact identifiable standards by which one can judge the respective skills of various rappers. And there is an increasingly blurred line on what any given genre/style of music is or what aspect it contains. Some "rap" songs have sections with actual singing in them; some musical songs (i.e. primarily focused on a sung melody) have rapping in them. The people involved in the creation of these styles are frequently clever, imaginative manipulators of digital samples of others songs, pieces of songs and/or repeated sound samples but they are primarily interested in linguistic, rhythmic & sectional structure. They use the simplest of melodic devices (if at all). Harmonic content (i.e. a goal-directed harmonic progression) is of little to no serious value at all to them. Perhaps a better name for this type of thing is Poetry Set To An Audio Soundscape. I am not necessarily denigrating this stylistic approach, I am merely saying that certain aspects of it are not music. Of course, in my experience, much of the content of their art is irrational, primitive & sometimes explicitly evil. This, of course, gets no sanction. Friends & acquaintances have also informed me there are rappers & hip-hop artists out there that do project rational (or semi-rational) content. That very well may be. & I wish them well, but don't really care. I also find much of this stuff unbearable to listen to long enough to evaluate. I will listen to just about anything once just to be fair. OK, too long-winded here (as usual!), but... There is so much potential for beauty in the art of music. Sometimes it is disappointing how banal, pointless, vulgar, etc. much of current pop culture's music is. Even when I hear an artist that does actual music I frequently find myself bored to death. If you can find any artist with a good sense of life & decent musical aspects to their work (i.e. melody, harmony, rational form) it should be cherished & valued. Christopher Schlegel

You are certainly welcome. Sure, good point. I am inclined to think of the actual recordings of Rach playing to be more of a standard. The few I have are faster in tempo than other performers/versions. Although there are questions & issues surrounding Stahnke's work, I think he deserves a great deal of credit for what he has done. I can only hopelessly wish we had recordings of Beethoven with which to refer. I have strong favorites among his interpreters (Brendel, Perahia) & strong objections as well! All this goes a long way to emphasize the importance of performance & interpretation in realizing the original composition.

Rachmaninoff (and also Stravinsky) was not always pleased with the results of the early recording process. It is also documented that he was occassionally "nervous" or "uncomfortable" with the recording process. He actually did some early work with Edison's company. There is an excellent layman/beginner's book from the series of "The Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers: Rachmaninoff" by Robert Walker. Rach book on Amazon It does a good job chronicling the work Rach did for Victor, RCA & others in recording his works (& other works). Nevertheless, he was very interested in the idea of "recording for posterity" which is why we are fortunate enough to have the recordings we have. And the book claims through quotes attributed to conductor Stokowski that the tempi of many recorded works were explicitly set & specified by Rach himself. In fact, in several cases the record company requested "uncut" versions of certain longer works (in order to make a balanced set of discs) but Rach insisted on "tightening" up some structures. There are specific liner notes in the "A Window In Time" CDs written by Wayne Stahnke, the man responsible for the transfer of the piano rolls to the digital recordings. In those extensive notes, among other things, he says, "...Rach was famous for playing a composition at the same tempo from one performance to the next, sometimes for many years." There are other musical texts/sources that can corroborate that not only was Rach consistent in his performance tempos, but also very good at returning to "tempo primo" from digressions, changes & firmatas. There were also some issues involving undesired variations in speed & acceleration in some Ampico piano rolls & players. Mr. Stahnke makes it very, explicitly clear what those issues were & how he worked to successfully overcome them. Those liner notes can be accessed by going to http://mmd.foxtail.com/ You can then search their archives by author. I would normally just give a direct link to the individual page, but in this case the people that run the site specifically request that only their home page be linked. So if you are interested you can drill down through a bunch of stuff Mr. Stahnke posted. Including a really neat post in which he informs readers that he is (circa 1998) "currently" working on a deal to get his Rach roll-transfers commercially available. Some performers do, in fact, increase their tempos in a live setting. Many do it without conscious intent; due to adrenaline, excitement, over-familiarity with the piece. In short, any number of superficial factors. Some do it intentionally, as a means of "livening up" old tunes that may have grown "stale". I can't see any of these being attributed to Rach's recorded works. He made all his recordings with the conscious intention of creating a "standard" to which others could refer. Remember that back in those days recording was still in it's infancy and the disappointment of the relatively poor results was far outweighed by the possibility of having an objective "standard" of an audio object created by the composer. Rach understood the situation & surely would not have wasted such a precious opportunity. I don't know the source but I remember a Rach quote something like: Rach was so excited upon hearing a play back of his own playing he happily announced, "I, Sergei Rachmaninoff, have just heard myself play." I know the feeling. Having heard him play I can only say, thank you Mr. Rachmaninonff. Christopher Schlegel

I have always worked under the assumption that when Rand said "so-called modern music" she was referring to the modern classical music era starting in the late 1800's & on into the early 1900's up until the 1960's when she wrote the articles in The Romantic Manifesto. Although she does not specify composers, her references to random noises & "non-periodic vibrations", etc. are in line with the practices of atonal, serial, musique concrete and aleatoric ("chance") composers like Stockhausen, Cage, Schoenberg (later stuff, not earlier when he had a vestige of tonality), Berg & Schaeffer. Atonalists (historically "Expressionists") like Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg organize the materials in sections and whole compositions to be as harmonically and rhythmically disturbing as possible. Their own explicitly stated purpose was to avoid tonality. Tonality, however, is the fundamental premise upon which anything called music is built. Serial, musique concrete and aleatoric ("chance") composers like Stockhausen, Cage, and Schaeffer are also representative of this same situation. One of the primary problems with these types of "modern music" is that they erroneously assume one narrow concrete element of music and/or sound should be used as an abstract principle. In atonal music, for example, the single concrete goal is to create mentally unintegratable patterns of dissonance; integratable consonance is apparently not allowed. In serial music, the goal is to use every chromatic tone before you can repeat one of the tones regardless of context. They sometimes referred to this as a "democracy of notes". This is in complete contrast to a primary aspect of tonality: one note (the root of the home key) is in fact more important than all the others (in a whole piece, section, melody, theme, etc.), the fifth of the root (the dominant which helps clarify the home key) is the next important. There is a heirarchy of importance relating notes in music. The techniques of atonal composers deliberately avoid organizing information in a way that might simply sound good (not to mention consonant with the nature of the human mind & ear). There is always some bizarre rule or set of rules that gets in the way of going straight to the questions a composer should ask himself: "Do I like the way it sounds? Does it fulfill my intention?" The serial composer's first concern is not "Do I like how it sounds?," but rather, "Did I use all the notes yet?" The atonal composer's first concern is to avoid consonance, thus, immediately, before he even starts, certain harmonic possibilities are "off limits" to him. Consonance and dissonance are simply tools that the composer should always have at his disposal. When I have been in music theory classes that dealt with these modern composers the teachers spend a great deal of time talking about how "amazingly organized their self-contained system is". In a sense, it is; they did work very hard on their systems & compositions. Unfortunately, they are supposed to be played by musicians on musical instruments. It is as if they took the English alphabet & used the letters to form some incredibly complex code that doesn't refer to any known configuration of English words or sentences. Years ago I played & recorded some "modern compositions" on my piano & put them on a tape. I also interspersed them with some of my own "off-the-cuff compositions in the same vein" (i.e. I banged & tinkered around on the piano at random). I played them for some of my private students & teachers of music theory. No one could tell the difference between the formal "compositions" & my nonsense. Chance music and musique concrete are based on sounds and notes occurring randomly, thus, immediately the "composer" can have no deliberate intention of how his "composition" will turn out. As to Tchikovski's cannons, they are deliberately integrated rhythmically & thematically. There are many other examples; the note-specific taxi horns in the intro to Gershwin's "American In Paris" is a great one. There is, however, a whole school of aleatoric music that has as it's explicitly stated premise to include auditory events that are not integrated or thematic. They want "some sounds" in their "music", they just don't want a result that resembles anything a rational mind would invent or consume & enjoy (except possibly as a joke). I think Rand's assessment of these auditory events as "not music" is very accurate. I, personally, would go so far as to say they are ANTI-music. Christopher Schlegel

Click here: TowerRecords search for Rach works performed by Rach Good stuff!

You can use the freeware version of MusicMatch. (musicmatch.com) Set the input option to System Mixer & specify the output as mp3. Play the file using whatever program you are using & hit Record on Musicmatch. Alternately, if you have two PCs or an alternate playing source to output the song, you can set the input on Line In or Mic. Then run a line into the sound card on your PC from the playing source output. MusicMatch also lets you convert between certain formats (wave to mp3, or WMA, etc.). So the latest version may have the option to convert directly. I don't know about that though, I don't have the latest. Also, if you can't make it work I can do it. I can do anything you want like that with my home studio gear. Christopher Schlegel