4 ms·

when I read (excellent) music articles like this I just wish they came with a sidebar with the music excerpts that are being discussed.

keithpeter 10y ago
I know what you mean: a direct example of what was being discussed would help. The Dunedin consort have some very short excerpts from the Bach passions on their site, including the Herr, unser Herrscher chorus mentioned in the first paragraph. There is a longer video trailer available. I am familiar with large force performances of the Bach passions and found the small ensemble approach sufficiently interesting to purchase an actual recording.
ecuzzillo 10y ago
They're all easy to look up on Spotify, and the article was much better for listening to them at appropriate points.
- freddie_mercury 10y ago
  Spotify isn't available in the country I live in.
smortaz 10y ago
Totally! Meanwhile, here's the magnificent Herr, unser Herrscher https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIcinMxNYBc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIcinMxNYBc
fiatjaf 10y ago
Well, I think you're supposed to know the music beforehand. What would you do if the article was a comment on some piece of literature?
- Nullabillity 10y ago
  Then, presumably, it would quote the applicable segments. Or it would, at the very least, contain a link to the whole article.
  - fiatjaf 10y ago
    A link to the whole book?
  - fiatjaf 10y ago
    Quote the entire book, you mean? A comment about a book may not be a comment about specific segments, but to the entire thing.
- tetraodonpuffer 10y ago
  being familiar with the piece is not the same as when he's discussing about tonalities having a sidebar with a piano reduction of the vocal score notated with key and chord degree information, and to go the extra mile you would be able to switch from piano to original performance seamlessly while looking at said score. I would be very willing to pay for a website that provided this kind of experience, or, even better, for an app that did that: kind of similar to what 'the orchestra' for ios is like but more in depth with music theory discussion as well. On a related note, it is quite enjoyable to listen to the interviews on "all of Bach" [1] as in some of them, especially organ, the performer will discuss the piece while playing short excerpts. [1] http://allofbach.com/en/ http://allofbach.com/en/
anjc 10y ago
I wrote a comment recommending this site, but just so you see...check this out if you're interested in analyses alongside performances and scores: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/tas3/wtc.html http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/tas3/wtc.html
omnibrain 10y ago
When I read Gödel, Escher, Bach I wished the book came with a CD...
- rspeer 10y ago
  Here's a Spotify playlist I've had around for that purpose: https://open.spotify.com/user/rspeer/playlist/3q3TsI67o6rUfSdjJTyNvT https://open.spotify.com/user/rspeer/playlist/3q3TsI67o6rUfS... There's room for interpretation in the list -- for example, I get to pick any "two-part invention" Bach wrote. And it's kind of up to you to line up the nicknames of the pieces (which Hofstadter uses) with the more formal names (used in track titles). It could use some commentary to go with it, to better explain what the tracks have to do with the chapters. But I've never gotten around to putting together the Web page that would require, and also to fill in post-GEB details like: - Bach probably didn't write the Little Harmonic Labyrinth - The Little Harmonic Labyrinth doesn't end the way Hofstadter says it does - The Crab Canon is not a Möbius strip, but a charlatan on YouTube decided he could "improve" GEB by spreading the meme that it is, and now everyone links to that dumb video and claims it's GEB
  - Keyserlingk 10y ago
    The Crab Canon is not literally a Möbius strip, of course. But the Möbius strip is a fabulous analogy that goes a long way toward helping people understand what is going on. I've used this in my teaching on that topic: http://www2.nau.edu/tas3/MOcancrizans.pdf http://www2.nau.edu/tas3/MOcancrizans.pdf
    - rspeer 10y ago
      You made that page? Interesting. I'd like you to explain. I believe that the Crab Canon is in no way analogous to a Möbius strip, and the topology is in fact quite different. When you go around a Möbius strip once, you end up in the same place you were, flipped upside down. The Crab Canon is not a Möbius strip, it's a palindrome. It is not flipped upside down, it's flipped left to right, in the direction of time. This is already illustrated in GEB, with the clefs at both ends of the page, as well as by Bach himself. The video bamboozles its viewers with poor graphics. They can't see that the music on both "sides" of the Möbius strip is completely unrelated. A Möbius strip does have an analogue in music: it would be a canon by inversion. Bach wrote some of those. It would take a particularly short canon by inversion to actually be represented by a Möbius strip; the gap between the entries of the parts would have to be half the length of the song. In your notes, what role does the half twist play? Why would it not be the same without the twist?

keithpeter 10y ago

I know what you mean: a direct example of what was being discussed would help. The Dunedin consort have some very short excerpts from the Bach passions on their site, including the Herr, unser Herrscher chorus mentioned in the first paragraph. There is a longer video trailer available. I am familiar with large force performances of the Bach passions and found the small ensemble approach sufficiently interesting to purchase an actual recording.

ecuzzillo 10y ago

They're all easy to look up on Spotify, and the article was much better for listening to them at appropriate points.

freddie_mercury 10y ago
Spotify isn't available in the country I live in.

smortaz 10y ago

Totally! Meanwhile, here's the magnificent Herr, unser Herrscher https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIcinMxNYBc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIcinMxNYBc

fiatjaf 10y ago

Well, I think you're supposed to know the music beforehand. What would you do if the article was a comment on some piece of literature?

Nullabillity 10y ago
Then, presumably, it would quote the applicable segments. Or it would, at the very least, contain a link to the whole article.
- fiatjaf 10y ago
  A link to the whole book?
- fiatjaf 10y ago
  Quote the entire book, you mean? A comment about a book may not be a comment about specific segments, but to the entire thing.
tetraodonpuffer 10y ago
being familiar with the piece is not the same as when he's discussing about tonalities having a sidebar with a piano reduction of the vocal score notated with key and chord degree information, and to go the extra mile you would be able to switch from piano to original performance seamlessly while looking at said score. I would be very willing to pay for a website that provided this kind of experience, or, even better, for an app that did that: kind of similar to what 'the orchestra' for ios is like but more in depth with music theory discussion as well. On a related note, it is quite enjoyable to listen to the interviews on "all of Bach" [1] as in some of them, especially organ, the performer will discuss the piece while playing short excerpts. [1] http://allofbach.com/en/ http://allofbach.com/en/

anjc 10y ago

I wrote a comment recommending this site, but just so you see...check this out if you're interested in analyses alongside performances and scores: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/tas3/wtc.html http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/tas3/wtc.html

omnibrain 10y ago

When I read Gödel, Escher, Bach I wished the book came with a CD...

rspeer 10y ago
Here's a Spotify playlist I've had around for that purpose: https://open.spotify.com/user/rspeer/playlist/3q3TsI67o6rUfSdjJTyNvT https://open.spotify.com/user/rspeer/playlist/3q3TsI67o6rUfS... There's room for interpretation in the list -- for example, I get to pick any "two-part invention" Bach wrote. And it's kind of up to you to line up the nicknames of the pieces (which Hofstadter uses) with the more formal names (used in track titles). It could use some commentary to go with it, to better explain what the tracks have to do with the chapters. But I've never gotten around to putting together the Web page that would require, and also to fill in post-GEB details like: - Bach probably didn't write the Little Harmonic Labyrinth - The Little Harmonic Labyrinth doesn't end the way Hofstadter says it does - The Crab Canon is not a Möbius strip, but a charlatan on YouTube decided he could "improve" GEB by spreading the meme that it is, and now everyone links to that dumb video and claims it's GEB
- Keyserlingk 10y ago
  The Crab Canon is not literally a Möbius strip, of course. But the Möbius strip is a fabulous analogy that goes a long way toward helping people understand what is going on. I've used this in my teaching on that topic: http://www2.nau.edu/tas3/MOcancrizans.pdf http://www2.nau.edu/tas3/MOcancrizans.pdf
  - rspeer 10y ago
    You made that page? Interesting. I'd like you to explain. I believe that the Crab Canon is in no way analogous to a Möbius strip, and the topology is in fact quite different. When you go around a Möbius strip once, you end up in the same place you were, flipped upside down. The Crab Canon is not a Möbius strip, it's a palindrome. It is not flipped upside down, it's flipped left to right, in the direction of time. This is already illustrated in GEB, with the clefs at both ends of the page, as well as by Bach himself. The video bamboozles its viewers with poor graphics. They can't see that the music on both "sides" of the Möbius strip is completely unrelated. A Möbius strip does have an analogue in music: it would be a canon by inversion. Bach wrote some of those. It would take a particularly short canon by inversion to actually be represented by a Möbius strip; the gap between the entries of the parts would have to be half the length of the song. In your notes, what role does the half twist play? Why would it not be the same without the twist?