Classical Convert

Break Out the MSDS Sheets

Early this ante-m., the covers (duvet actually, imported all the way from Debenhams in England which took up most of the space in my luggage but was highly, exceptionally, worth it) came off to the incessant looping of Toxic. The Britney song. This wasn’t an outside, uninvited intrusion due to radio-alarm randomness, but instead an internal performance which I blame on too many ukulele videos before bed:

I remember having a ukulele as a kid, and also remember my musical skills mostly encompassing breaking the strings. It turns out that there is a huge (not so) seedy underworld community of ukulele devotees with mad ukulele skills. For example, I managed to miss the rise to popularity of this performance (which occurred thousands of years ago in internet time):

Hell, there are even multiple ukulele “orchestras” in existence. Here’s the GB one covering Kate Bush — which actually makes me just want to turn it off and listen to the original, but the “Heathcliff!” is kind of funny:

It almost makes me want to pay for and try playing the ukulele.

Almost.

Tags: music, ukulele, youtube

Higher Quality Youtube Hack

Dearest, loveliest readers, did you know that if you’re watching a youtube video, you can add &fmt=18 onto the end of the URL, and you will get a higher quality version? This apparently works if the original uploader uploaded it in a fairly large resolution. In a highly scientific study of about five videos it seems that sometimes you also get higher quality sound. This is fantastic for better watching the enormous — but frequently crippled by quality — selection of classical music videos online.

Tags: hack, youtube

Another Return

Another return from another weekend away, I’m a busy boy. And a tired boy. Here’s another cop-out Youtubey post dedicated to anyone who has ever tried to (and failed to) play a melody on their phones beeping keypad:

Tags: phone, youtube

Silencio

We were chatting about the joy of transcriptions the other day; how they let you hear aspects of a piece which you previously missed through familiarity or sonic occlusion. Well here’s a transcription which doesn’t quite provide those advantages, but which is curious nonetheless. It’s a version of 4′33” for orchestra:

Things to watch out for: the conductor mopping his brow between movements, the audience holding off on coughing until the intervals, the blond chick on the edge of her seat.

One of my most surprising musical learning moments was when I realized that 4′33″ wasn’t a load of bullshit. It forces people to clarify and consider what their definition of music is, without strictly being a composition itself. It is sort of meta-music. I think it is quite fascinating how much of a conversation (internal or external) you can produce by simply questioning if the piece is music, and if not, why not?

But then I feel all pretentious and artsy-fartsy and have to go play Mario Kart.

Tags: 4'33", john cage, youtube

Big Hands

Sorry dudes. I’ve been doing out of towning things this weekend, which places one at reasonably reasonable distances from “keyboards” and “internets” and other vital blogging artifacts. We did not manage to play the building, this time around, but did succeed in getting delicious gelato (via L’Arte Del Gelato), Thai (via Won Dee Siam II, which we went to accidentally), Italian (via Luzzo’s) and lots of chocolate brioches and croissants (via Silver Moon Bakery). We also did clothes shopping and had a picnic in central park. I drove back at 6:00am this morning and still managed to make it into work before my flatmate.

How have you been since I’ve been gone, dear reader?

One in-absentia type tidbit is the minor buzz over a certain youtubified comedy routine “Rachmaninov Had Big Hands“. It’s fairly amusing but only gets a puny text link here instead of glorious embedding because it appears that they in fact ripped off the following routine:

So, you know, you’re not allowed to find their remake funny anymore. That’s in the rules of teh internets.

Right, off to bed for me. I’m glad I don’t have to commute from NYC every day. I-80 is boring.

Tags: classical music, original, rachmaninov has big hands, youtube