Classical Convert

Run-way

Classical music really sucks to exercise to. I know that, I knew that and I keep trying anyway.

Like today, stepping outside into the six-pm sunshine for an after-work/before-dinner run, basking in Sunday’s inserted hour. DST is glorious on the Tuesday, when you’ve had a couple days practice at the earlier mornings, and can focus on the later evenings instead. And today it was even better, because not only do we have an extra hour of light, but that light is coming from a big old bona-fide glowing ball of sun in the sky. Despite having had one of the biggest snowstorms in recent memory just two weeks ago we are now in serious +50F territory, and the only ground cover is a few bruised autumn leaves, not ice.

So anyway, enticed by the warmth I strapped on my new running shoes, scooped up the MP3 player and trotted enthusiastically out to the road. It’s (and it always goes like this) only when I actually start running that I realize the only music I have on the thing is classical.

There are several reasons why classical music is really poorly suited for running:

• Tempo changes – i.e. too bloody many of them. The further you go back the less this happens within a single movement, but at best you’re still going to have your awesome fast Baroque movement followed by a slow one.
• Dynamics – It’s really, really hard to hear what’s going on when the orchestra gets quiet. That’s because running introduces all kinds of extra noises into your ears (such as your own heavy breathing). You can compensate for this by jacking the volume all the way up, but that backfires when everybody suddenly starts playing and your left eardrum pops out of your right ear.
• Length – You can easily get through a half-hour run having listened to only 2 movements of a medium to long work. This sucks because 1)  you heard a weird fraction of the complete work and 2) you only heard two different (and maybe not that different) pieces your whole trip. Variation is way better. It picks up your feet at the start of each new song.

In summary, I NEED TO REMEMBER TO UPDATE MY MP3 PLAYER.

What do you think, do you exercise to classical? Have you found any pieces which work?

Semi-up

The astute clickers amongst you will have noticed that all of the “beginners guide” stuff has subtley moved to a new domain getintoclassical.com. Of course, you can’t tell that by looking at the links on this page, but you’ll now find they all magically lead in a new direction…

Snow Way

Remember that huge snowstorm which hit the northeast united states a week and a half ago? I was supposed to be flying right into the epicenter of it, on the last leg of a return trip from San Francisco. I didn’t make it. We ended up driving for 9 hours from Detroit instead. Then I spent several days being sick (which is inevitable after spending  many very late, and very early hours on standby in Detroit airport, stressed as hell), and the rest of last week frantically catching up with all the work the airplanes had made me miss.

And now here I am. Somewhat recovered after having a real, honest-to-god weekend.

And all the snow is finally melting.

Sweet as a nut, mate.

It doesn’t matter how experienced (and pretentious) I get with regards to classical music, this way-overplayed piece will be awesome forever:

When I first started grad school everyone was showing off (fairly discreetly, for a bunch of borderline autistics) just how much stuff they knew, and how clever they were, and how they were gonna become professors. Blah blah blah, took this class, solved these problems, mathematical genius, blah blah. Well, after a couple of weeks of getting assaulted by graduate school, almost everyone did a perfect half-spin, and it became cool to talk about how you would NEVER stay in academia, and how things were way more impossible for you. And of course now, at graduation time, everyone is going on to do post-docs.

Well that’s sort of how I feel about the Nutcracker Suite. It’s the kind of piece which is fine to like when you listen to classical only casually, then you have to not like it for a bit, and finally it’s alright to come back to it again. As long as you give some sort of long-winded explanation proving that you know it’s not considered a masterpiece or anything. Classical musical enthusiasts snooty? Never!

How many pieces did Stravinsky compose?

Someone has asked this question before. I can’t tell if the only answer at that link is ignorant, or just really facetious.