Chris Brody

when I said I want more music theory posting on Bluesky I didn't mean like this

I walked past the Weisman every day for three years, always a treat

I intend to defend a very modest version of the propositional theory, and hence a very modest version of the truth theory of literary value. Furthermore, I am not going to defend either of these theories in any kind of thoroughness. I merely want to defend them against *one* possible objection. I have, in another place, already defended them against a different objection. My intention is to continue in this way, objection by objection, until both theories are secure. At my present rate, if my interest does not flag, I estimate the take will take one-hundred-and-fifty years.

I love this intro to a philosophy paper, though I can't actually remember which paper it's from.

Oh wow, congrats!

fwiw at least a couple of people have said something to me recently along the lines of "ICE isn't in Louisville" and I think one thing accomplished by the LA/DC national guard invasions has been to make these stepped-up ICE kidnappings fly largely under a lot of people's radar

VILE

That's a great name!

Without having any idea what you actually ended up naming your kids, I bet you had some very fun discussions about possibilities 😂

This is incredible. I have a hard enough time imagining an all-college faculty meeting even without this kind of slapstick.

The kid in question goes by a pair of initials that I've never otherwise encountered in the pair-of-initials-as-a-name context, so every time he gets mentioned I think "you have a friend named Occupational Therapist? Operating Thetan? oh right"

Like I would be somewhat annoyed if someone completely wrecked Santa for him at age 5, so I do feel that I have to summon up the restraint to not say "oh buddy that's just a malicious lie some parents tell their kids to get them to behave halfway decently for like 3 weeks out of the year"

We are (with only slight ambivalence) doing Santa, but we are of course not doing the Surveillance Elf, so it's a little hard to know how to respond to our kid telling us that he's pretty sure one of his kindergarten buddies has a real elf living in his house

I’ll check it out. How do you think it compares to Hamelin/Andsnes?

One doesn't like to second-guess a great composer, but I admit I find Rite/Firebird/Petrushka to be uniquely thrilling in his output and wish he hadn't abandoned this direction

Totally agree

Yes, quintessentially an orchestra piece! But as an inveterate piano-head I also find this version quite compelling when played with such power and precision.

ok sorry it's VERY funny that peloton is at the top here. the way to save the music industry is to mandate that every device you can listen to streaming music on has a $2,700 exercise bike attached to it

YouTube video by JG Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring (2 Pianos) (Hamelin/Andsnes)

I've always thought of the 2-piano arrangement Rite of Spring as basically a short score, even though it is clearly intended for performance, and I don't think I've ever listened to it before. I just got around to listening to Hamelin and Andsnes's 2018 recording though and WOW

At a young age I learned from "Bach Portrait" what a mostly unpleasant person he was

The pinnacle of technology, as I always say

It's always amazing to me that such a practical composer, who was preparing music for specific performers & performances every single week, still so relentlessly wrote exactly the music he wanted to write regardless of whether it would be executed remotely up to his standards or not

At one point I intended to write my dissertation on Bach's cantatas—I did not end up doing that, and it seems less likely every year that I'll ever go back and do substantial work on that music ... but I haven't forgotten everything I ever knew

(incidentally since I don't really know this particular cantata and BWV numbers aren't in chronological order, I admit to being pleased that as soon as I put on a recording I immediately thought "well this is obviously from the 1724-25 cycle" 😂)

This music seems so hard to sing that I really wonder what the performance standards were like in Bach's day and how those soloists managed it. I know there were some exceptionally agile voices in those days, in e.g. the big opera houses, but what was it like for a random church service in Leipzig?

All opera plot summaries are like "Kunfre, driven to madness by the treachery of Zarnfig, flees her wedding to Bogaro and resolves to throw herself into the sea, before being stopped by an unnamed and irrelevant countertenor" and all ballet plot summaries are like "somewhere, a princess exists"

Greatest ballad standard of all time? It’s in the running at least. And I love that this is your “let’s lighten the mood around here a bit!” selection.

I hope he has even an inkling of what a favor they did him by not printing his name in this article ...

Eh it’s pretty much like 30 minutes worth of suggested art projects or YouTube videos of people reading kids’ books so that they can call today an instructional day and not add it back in June. Completely fake school but it won’t take much of our day.

For two entire inches of snow?? They cancelled with extreme prejudice. We are all home in our pajamas & doing online kindergarten 🙄