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I first herd Einstein on the Beach after a particularly manic period in undergrad. My advisor wasn't familiar with it, and I may have spooked her a bit try to e
by mgr86 6y ago
I first herd Einstein on the Beach after a particularly manic period in undergrad. My advisor wasn't familiar with it, and I may have spooked her a bit try to explain it. I think to this day its great background music for programming work, but to me more because it can illicit that sense of young focus and drive that I find increasingly fleeting. Perhaps not unlike how music can "wake up" dementia patients. It elicits a deep base response.
Anyhow, I didn't know that either about his life. Very fascinating.
As an aside I believe I discovered Einstein on the Beach after listening to Hydrogen Jukebox. I wonder how others come about listening to it for the first time. Especially those in their 30s like myself who were born a decade after its success.
- digilypse 6y agoI discovered Einstein on the Beach this year, also in my 30s, and was nearly brought to tears. I played classical piano for most of my youth and had a deep appreciation for it but stopped exploring new composers during years of depression. It’s a wonderful experience with a nice pair of headphones. Something about the way the repetition lasts just long enough to produce a sense of anticipation and delight.
- Slow_Hand 6y agoI'm a massive fan of Einstein On the Beach. It continues to be one of my favorite pieces of music, since first hearing it 12 years ago. There's a vitality and a sense of energy to it that keeps me coming back. It's also large enough in scope that I've been able to spend a long time chewing it over and digesting all of it's movements. I think a unique quality of it is the contrast between it's simplistic harmonic content and it's constantly modulating structure. The simplicity of the tonality (one key center, very slow chord changes, non-florid counterpoint) allows the listener to focus on the modulating phrase lengths and the texture of the stacked rhythms. This is an interesting inversion of something like, say, a classic bebop tune, which might be melodically and rhythmically complex or divergent, but keep it's structure predictable with 4 bar, 8 bar, or 32 bar chunks of time. I think the effect in it's fast movements is like being in the middle of a massive rush of water. It's uniform in texture, but it has an intensity and sense of turbulence that is overwhelming as it passes you.
- idiocrat 6y agoHere is a live performance. Interesting to see how it is being sung. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL9Rjn7EiRw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL9Rjn7EiRw
- tunesmith 6y agoI think his soundtrack to Scorsese's Kundun is also excellent programming background music, I've listened to that soundtrack from beginning to end countless times.
- justincormack 6y agoMusic in 12 Parts is one of my favourites for coding.
- Slow_Hand 6y agoHa. I was once on a street corner playing a copy of his 'Passages' record (with Ravi Shankar) when a stranger walked up to me and fondly recounted spending an entire summer digging holes with a crew to that record. It seems that there may be a quality to his music that makes it well-suited to working.
- JKCalhoun 6y agoDiscovered his "The Photographer" when it came out (I am older than 30). https://youtu.be/oPCkt9VvkY0 https://youtu.be/oPCkt9VvkY0
- twic 6y agoFor me, via a mashup with a fellow New York legend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQmjmR3DLig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQmjmR3DLig
- Shinchy 6y agoWhile I love the opera, I've always found Einstein on the Beach really difficult to program to because of the distracting dominance of the spoken word parts (at least on some recordings) 'Oh these are the days my friend, and these are the days'. For me the Koyaanisqatsi score is the perfect stimulation for getting in the zone.