Musical torture

There's been an amusing discussion in the Sydney Morning Herald about the horrors of Pachelbel's Canon in D... from the perspective of the cellists. It is apparently the most boring piece in the world for them to play, and for good reason, according to this hilarious rant on YouTube.

But I do think the violists have it worse (as usual), especially given this perspective from one poor suffering soul: "We pluck, yes, pluck the same two bars 28 times. I am at serious risk of RSI from that infernal Canon. Moreover, we are expected to bow the last note! Yes, we either have to play the entire Canon with bow in hand all for one note, or we must leave a sizeable gap before said note in order to retrieve our bow. I don't think Pachelbel knew that violists are people too. Then again not many people seem to know that these days."

Now, I learned to play (to a middling standard, for a teenager) a few wind instruments when I was at school, and while I really love the Greensleeves melody, dear god, is there anything that has been more thrashed to death on a flute? And don't talk to me about saxophone music - there doesn't actually appear to be any. It's all horrible arrangements of pop songs (and pop songs are boring to play on an instrument that can't do chords), or the fucking Darth Vader theme. (Henry Mancini and Stevie Wonder were the only decent bits, at least until I got good enough to learn some jazz pieces)

I have an ex-girlfriend whose siblings all did piano lessons, being nice middle-class minister's daughters. They all got so sick of Für Elise that they had races to see who could play it the fastest. Not the best way to learn phrasing and dynamics, one feels. Then there was Smoke on the Water, which was ruined for me when I had to listen to literally dozens of kids at school pluck it out on their crappy guitars using the two-fingered chords.

Anyone else have horror stories of musical clichés you dread ever hearing, much less playing, again?

Not so torturous

While I'm on the topic of Beethoven and possible musical clichés (which turn out not to be clichés when executed marvellously), YouTube is just great, isn't it?

I found Brendel's rendition of the Moonlight Sonata, although why someone hasn't uploaded movement 2 yet is beyond me. Mov. 1 (that bit nearly 3 minutes in until it returns to the main theme, OMG) & Mov. 3.

Now, by way of contrast, a live performance from Wilhelm Kempff. He must have been in his late 70s or 80s when this was filmed, and while there are a few tiny slips of the fingers, it's still most excellent. Mov 1, Mov 2 and Mov 3.

I do prefer Brendel, and I must get hold of some of his Beethoven recordings, which have apparently been remastered by Phillips. And just for a bit more goodness, the 3rd movement of the Apassionata. I dunno, what can you say.


PS. There's also the 3rd movement of Waldstein on YouTube, but I don't like that piece so much in general.

A mixed kind of day

Haircut, yayaayay. My new hairdresser is such a dude - he put me onto a new musical genre called "Igloo", which I'm having troubles tracking down. He's an old dnb man from way back, so I would assume his recs to at least somewhat intersect with my tastes (although he doesn't like dubstep - too two-steppy for him, but I don't get that sense from it).

( Rant about fuckwit at tattoo shop )

In more productive news, I got four cream coloured and nicely-textured cushions that won't clash with my couches. I also got a cocktail shaker and some Grand Marnier, so it'll be margaritas tomorrow, baybeh. Also, I got the makings for sangria, which I haven't done in ages. There was a NZ syrah (NZ-grown shiraz is often labelled thus, due to the more French style they tend to put out) I spotted at the booze shop called "The Underarm". This made me LOL; it's been a while. ;-) On a more serious note, it sounds like a tasty wine, so I'll get it another time. However, the $10 tempranillo for the sangria was what I was there for. Something cooling for this weather!

I also went to see Milk this evening. It's a good movie, and Sean Penn was great. I'll give it a B+, because the pacing was kind of strange. I'm glad it's getting prominence, because I think it's important for people to know their queer history. Harvey Milk was obviously of his time and place, but he certainly influenced the gay rights movement and its level of political engagement in many countries, including my own.

I had a woman sit next to me in the movie theatre, who I had a brief chat with (she asked if the seat were free and what I was reading), and who looked very stereotypically straight - very slender, trendy clothing, very done hair. However, she was extremely engaged in the movie, to the point of quite earnestly crying in the final scenes. Perhaps she does that with all movies, but it certainly made me wonder what it was about the movie that spoke to her. Hm.

Then sushi at Tasuke and home to melt a bit more.