A Postscript
Yesterdays post lacked a postscript. Actually it’s a lot more than that, as it is the link which originally prompted the writing of that whole goddamn thing. It’s a transcription (PDF alert) of the Mario Brothers theme so that all you budding orchestrators and orchestrators-in-development can write versions for the instruments which it hasn’t been played on yet. All two of them.
They’re Super, you know.
There are some melodies that most people will instantly recognize. On the one hand there are the classical: da-da-da-dum; the Ode to Joy; O Fortuna; etc. On the other are songs from popular music: Smoke on the Water, Hey Jude, Oops… I Did it Again.
And then there is a third group containing everything else.
For the Gen X/Y crowd this 3rd group is far from an afterthought — it contains some of our most striking examples. There are pieces in this category that have so strongly influenced us that there are over 800 different renditions for piano, and over 1000 for guitar just on youtube. These are pieces which we have listened to continuously for hours at a time, over the course of days, weeks, months, years.
And here is the most ubiquitous of the bunch:
Even a cursory glance through youtube gives you an idea of the influence of this particular piece. There are versions for orchestra (with over 280,000 views):
Beatboxing flute (over 10,000,000 views):
A version for bare hands:
Tesla coil:
As well as versions for RC car and bottles, ocarina, ruler, accordion, balalaika, theremin, pipe organ, 11-string bass, electric guitar, classical guitar, tuba, clarinet, wind trio, a capella, bassoon, trombone, viola, violin, piano, and many many more…
The influence and reach of that little theme is quite remarkable.
Lossless Classical Music, We Have Arrived!
Finally! DRM free, lossless classical music downloads are here! Today Passionato, an online classical music download store was launched in the UK. They are offering music from Universal Music and EMI Classics, as well as Naxos, Chandos, etc. In other words their catalog is frickin’ huge. You can download either in high quality 320kbps MP3 (like the DG store) or lossless FLAC. The latter is identical to a CD.
This means that you can instantly download and then burn an exact duplicate of what you would purchase in a store. You previous quality naysayers should now be satisfied.
Currently they have only launched in the UK, so you have to pay in pounds. Also, they seem to be a tad more popular then anticipated: the site frequently is spitting out “too many users” type messages at the moment. This means you might have to wait until late-at-night GMT before being able to explore and download stuff properly.
Despite these initial hiccups, this is great news for the classical music world.
UPDATE: it looks likes you get a whole bunch of free music just for signing up, although most of these tracks are individual movements it includes a complete performance of Saint-Saens symphony No. 3.
The Joy of Comments
Alex Ross has an article in the New Yorker this week on the history of the classical music concert, and in particular its recent/decent descent/ascent into stoic sitting in silence. My favorite comment from the reddit thread on the article:
Reading this, I just realized the main difference between a classical concert and other types of concerts…. pianissimo, and the ability of the audience to hear it.
Nice.
In unrelated news, today I unevenly jammed a pair of contact lenses into my poor, silently screaming eyes for the first time. It took half an hour of poking to get the lenses in, and then another ten minutes to get them out again. The “whites” of my eyes currently do not deserve that title. This better bloody get easier soon…
Mistery Noises
If fate had worked itself all wrongly, and had made me into one who makes music (I thought) then I would definitely, definitely write a piece for foghorn. Foghorns are sexy. And intimidating. They are the roars of our largest artificial animals. Here is a fun foghorn fact: it is impossible to find a video on youtube of one which does not involve one of (a) wind static, (b) ADD cameramen, (c) some dude who attached one to the roof of his ScionxB. Well, there might be a few others:
I can see from your eyes that you have a great desire to learn more about foghorns. Let me share with you a few secrets unraveled in the Great Internet Foghorn Adventure of the last half hour. It turns out that the “classic” foghorns — diaphones — are an endangered species. They are all getting replaced by electronic diaphragm style ones. This is sad as the diaphone has a rich and exuberant (well, maybe not exuberant) history. Check it out:
Air comes in from the left, and that piston in the middle is cut away on its left side: that’s why it looks weird, it’s actually symmetric and shaped like a top-hat. It starts with the piston in the top position. Air pushes the rim of the top-hat down, until this exposes the channels which let the air escape up through the hollow center of the piston and out of the top of the cone. In the process the piston is forced back up again, causing it to vibrate up and down.
This is kind of like a half flute/half reed type mechanism for producing a noise. There is a column of vibrating air (like a flute) but instead of this being due to purely the dimensions of the device, it is due to being actively oscillated by a mechanical, err, thingy (like a reed). This mechanism originally came from a (rarely used) stop on an organ, invented by the same guy who created the Wurlitzer. I think it’s really cool that there is a little piston in there. It’s like a half instrument/half machine.
Still not convinced that foghorns are sexy? Perhaps this will change your mind:
I’ve GOT to get me one of these bad boys.
They are available from the store at gamewelldiaphone.com, if you are interested. This is also the site where I found that awesome animation up there. For further foghorn-based entertainment (and I know you know that’s the best type) check out the wikipedia entry on diaphones.