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Post 0

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - 1:23pmSanction this postReply
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#5 for me

Post 1

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - 2:11pmSanction this postReply
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Oh dear...

Should you have said 'greatest', I would have proclaimed the Koral Symphony, as I have a rising right to.  The storm which fires my sense of life is the Seventh (a passion which provoked one of my first tremors of censure and clash with Objectivism...).

But it is Fur Elise that speaks a smile personally to my own ear.  I wish to give an honorable mention.

Jeanie Ring 


Post 2

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - 2:25pmSanction this postReply
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Without a doubt, the 9th (Choral) Symphony. I have a number of different recordings, including a double LP conducted by Solti (ok, its technically my father's!). The third and fourth movements are surely amongst the most moving compositions in history.

MH


Post 3

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - 2:48pmSanction this postReply
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I can't believe we are discussing music that conveys such a malevolent sense of life! :-)

For me, it would have to be Sonata Pathetique in C Minor - I love the transition from the slow, brooding intro to the allegro.  It's an extremely passionate piece. 


Post 4

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - 4:11pmSanction this postReply
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I prefer Bonnie Hunt over the dog. And I didn't know Beethoven composed music. So much for my belief that animals can only think perceptually.:-) 

Post 5

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - 7:21pmSanction this postReply
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For some reason I have listened to the Moonlight Sonata like 6 times in the past day.  So I chose that one.

~E.


Post 6

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - 9:16pmSanction this postReply
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I remember learning to play La Sonata Quasi Una Fantasia back when I was in junior high school... We all know it best as the Moonlight Sonata.  I remember starting to read the music, and having to stretch my fingers for the chords, and getting bits and pieces of it.  I thought very little of it.

But then, as I started stringing the awkward chunks together, the music began to show itself, and it started to speak to me... It was a voice of such longing, such need, and this surge of urgency built in me.  My thymus came to life, the endorphins started to flow, my scalp and skin tingled, and my eyes filled ever so imperceptibly with the beginnings of tears. 

I knew the truth instantly: This is grown-up music, and I'm just a kid... but it's incredible!  I have already known this sadness... this loneliness... this longing.  Within the patterns on this page of notes, a kindred spirit had something of ultimate importance to say to me... its dying words. 

I knew that I had to find a way to wrestle my way through the entire song somehow, so that the voice in the music could convey its trapped and urgent secret truth to me.  It took a very long time, and many disappointments, but finally I had it.  And when I finally played it at recital, people were saying that it disturbed them that someone so young could relay the feelings so authentically. 

It was not an effort to impress.  Ultimately, it was the only way for me to express... and I think that finally, through a language without words, I found my voice, and was finally better understood.   

(Edited by Orion Reasoner on 10/20, 9:19pm)


Post 7

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - 9:39pmSanction this postReply
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Orion wrote:
"This is grown-up music, and I'm just a kid... but it's incredible! I have already known this sadness... this loneliness... this longing."

Interesting choice of words...I can remember as a kid listening to certain things that gave me the same feeling...Moonlight Sonata (my vote), Pink Floyd...you know a piece of music is powerful when it makes you feel like that so young. But what makes it "grown up music?" Lyrics aside, what is it about the music, in your opinion? Is it the use of minor chords? Reminds me of some of Anton Lavey's writings on music, he talked about children who could appreciate minor chords as being more intelligent. He also talked about his experience playing organ in salons, and how if he played something in a minor key, it slowed people down, almost as if to force them to think, and reflect...and of course, bar patrons don't want that! So they would ask him to play something upbeat and happy, meaning rhythmic and major chord. But Moonlight Sonata...that is a deep piece.
But here's a kicker: my grandmom doesn't like my rendition, she says I make it too sad...she doesn't hear it as a sad song! Yet "The Rain Song" by Led Zeppelin, to her sounds sad, yet to me sounds like a lazy day on a beach in Hawaii, relaxed and dreamy...

Anyway, would love to hear your thoughts on that.


Post 8

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - 10:13pmSanction this postReply
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Joe,

I have heard that the sort of music that increases alcohol sales in a nightclub, is fast, frenetic music... AC/DC or Guns & Roses and such.  Because presumably, people are trying to down-regulate the hyperagitation that the music is causing, through booze.

Therefore, if you want to play something minor and lunar -- which is sedating possibly to the point of sadness, you should take advantage of the agitation effect, and play it somewhere that is serving agitating drinks, such as a coffee house.

If you notice, in coffee houses, the music is best when it's sedating and easy.  In bars, it's best when it's high-energy.

Now, as to what makes something "grown-up music", what I've just said applies to that, too. 

Whereas most children have easier lives than adults, they crave novelty, excitement, frenzy.  Their music tends to be "jump around, tiddly-wink music"... music in a major key.  All because their nervous systems are typically understimulated.  This perspective is supported when you give a hyperactive child caffeine, and they fall asleep or calm down.  They are  in order to auto-stimulate their understimulated nervous systems, and achieve a tranquil balance.

Grown-ups -- on the other hand -- tend to lead stressful lives of burdensome responsibility, when compared with most children, so their nervous systems are typically overstimulated.  As a result, they tend to prefer music to depress their agitation down to a more relaxed level, and so they tend to prefer music in a minor key.  Unlike hyperactive children, if you feed the average adult caffeine, he/she doesn't fall asleep or calm down, but rather, is up all night.

Now, what I've just described is the norm.  It's possible to find anomalies:  you might have a stressed-out kid or an understimulated grown-up.  In that case, the same rule still applies... you follow the agitation level, not the age of the person.

In other words, a stressed-out kid would prefer minor key music, and the understimulated grown-up would prefer major key music.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.   

(Edited by Orion Reasoner on 10/20, 10:16pm)


Post 9

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - 10:38pmSanction this postReply
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Orion writes:

"I have heard that the sort of music that increases alcohol sales in a nightclub, is fast, frenetic music... AC/DC or Guns & Roses and such. Because presumably, people are trying to down-regulate the hyperagitation that the music is causing, through booze.

Therefore, if you want to play something minor and lunar -- which is sedating possibly to the point of sadness, you should take advantage of the agitation effect, and play it somewhere that is serving agitating drinks, such as a coffee house."

(Side note: This goes beyong modern day rock music, Lavey was talking about pre-rock and roll, when the rock music of the
day was sleazy speakeasy music or ragtime music (songs like "Stay Down Here where You Belong"...and I think back to the cowboy salons and the cliche piano songs...)

Very interesting theory, Orion, you may have something there.


Post 10

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - 11:14pmSanction this postReply
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How in Lizts's (whose birthday is the same as mine, October 22) name could you leave out Symphony #5 or Fur Elise?!

Bob Palin said:
I prefer Bonnie Hunt over the dog. And I didn't know Beethoven composed music. So much for my belief that animals can only think perceptually.:-)

I say:
Isn't it time we brought back the de-sanction button. ;) Wonderfully horrible joke, Bob.

To Orion:
That's exactly how I discovered my passion for music, except that it wasn't La Sonata Quasi Una Fantasia, but Chopin's Op 64 no1, otherwise known as the Minute Waltz (1:45 to be exact but who's counting) and Bach's Invention 13. It was only when I heard Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto that I decided to be a composer.

I like your theory about over and understimulation but I don't believe the issue alone boils down to a determination of key preferences. When you talk about moods of music, the type of key used does not determine mood, though it is a major (no pun intended) factor. You do have something here, and I hope you explore it.

Adam

Post 11

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - 10:54pmSanction this postReply
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Moonlight Sonata gets my pick, but of course, it depends on my mood. I think Moonlight is about as good as dark music gets.


Hey Joe, keep throwing around names like David Gilmour and The Rain Song and you'll have a friend in me. I find The Rain Song dark but not like Moonlight. Moonlight goes to a dark place that some people don't get. I dated a girl last year that said there was nothing particularly dark about it. "Yeah, right," I said. The guitar for the The Rain Song is in a unique tuning and as a result nothing else sounds quite like it. It almost has its own music system.


Post 12

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - 11:55pmSanction this postReply
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Msr. Reasoner, that was beautiful.
 
Jeanine Ring  
more life!


Post 13

Thursday, October 21, 2004 - 12:00amSanction this postReply
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Keep talking like that Lance, and you'll be drafted for bass duty...

Post 14

Thursday, October 21, 2004 - 12:12amSanction this postReply
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Jeanine,

Thanks...I aims ta please.

===========

Joe,

Even though the speakeasy music was not rock, I'd be willing to bet that alcohol sales increased while a frenetic tune was playing.


Post 15

Thursday, October 21, 2004 - 12:21amSanction this postReply
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Oh, indoubtably, Orion. Was just pointing to a larger scope. Happy drunks are drinking more!

Post 16

Thursday, October 21, 2004 - 12:27amSanction this postReply
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My other favorite Beethoven symphony was actually composed, never performed, and then forgotten until academics unearthed it late last year:

The "Pimp on a Rampage" Symphony in F# Major... Otherwise known as "Bitch Betta Have My Money".

It was to have featured Ludwig van Beethoven doing the first ever "human beat box" with his powdered wig worn sideways and lots of groin-touching, to signify that he was "down with his homeys". 

It would have been performed before His Royal Majesty, The King of Prussia, and about 500 lords and ladies in attendance at the King's Grand Performance Hall. 



Post 17

Thursday, October 21, 2004 - 12:54amSanction this postReply
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I don't know about any Beethoven rap...according to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Beethoven would adopt his work to the idiom of heavy metal...and that's my final answer. :)

Has anyone seen the film IMMORTAL BELOVED, and if so, was that a "true" story, or speculation? I liked it, either way...Especially the scene where he conducts the Ninth.

Post 18

Thursday, October 21, 2004 - 12:59amSanction this postReply
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It was to have featured Ludwig van Beethoven doing the first ever "human beat box" with his powdered wig worn sideways and lots of groin-touching, to signify that he was "down with his homeys". 



lol


Post 19

Thursday, October 21, 2004 - 8:08amSanction this postReply
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Didn't Ayn Rand write somewhere (I think it was "The Romantic Manifesto") that Beethoven's music was written from a malevolent universe premise?

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