Instant Encore

03. July 2010 · 7 comments · Categories: Links

I’m on Instant Encore. I must have signed up at some point, but I don’t even remember doing it now. I get alerts to some things there, and it appears I must have said I was interested in those blogs or something. I don’t remember signing up for those alerts either. I also have five “fans”. One of them is … drumroll … me. Um. Okay. I’m one of my five fans. That’s flattering. Or not.

Anyway, I have yet to figure out what Instant Encore is even all about. I’m slow to things like this. Heck, I’m slow to everything. Except chocolate.

I think this link takes you to my page. You could be my fan too. You could help build up my ego. As if that needs any building.

If you don’t want to do that, you can just send chocolate. That would help build my thighs instead.

What Makes It Classical?

03. July 2010 · 5 comments · Categories: Videos

“Our dream is to break the stereotype of classical music.”

But was that “classical music”? What makes something classical? The instruments?

Ah, Those Negative Pieces!

03. July 2010 · Comments Off on Ah, Those Negative Pieces! · Categories: News

Riganello found that the music affected the heart rates of both groups in the same way. Pieces rated as “positive” by healthy volunteers, such as the minuet from Boccherini’s string quintet in E, slowed heart rate, while “negative” pieces like Tchaikovsky’s sixth symphony increased heart rate.

I read it here.

Read Online

03. July 2010 · 4 comments · Categories: Read Online

the title reads “classical music masters”, not “overrated composers who wrote a single boring canon”.

This was in response to someone posting what we all now know as Pachelbel’s canon.

I was explaining to some students that this work was fairly unknown when I was growing up. I asked if they knew what made it so popular and they had no idea.

Anyone remember the Robert Redford film, “Ordinary People”? Well, that’s where it got it’s start. At least for the majority of us. This clip — the trailer of the film — might help demonstrate what I mean: