I'm working my way through the new recording, meanwhile, by eighth blackbird. Notable so far is Music in Similar Motion by Philip Glass. Prior recordings of the work sound dreamy and trippy compared to this version. It's more precisely rhythmic resulting in an insistent drive to the conclusion> In some ways, it's reminiscent of Fredric Rzewski's Coming Together (also recorded by the group on Cedille). All in all, a vivid version.
Vivien Schweitzer in an eighth blackbird concert review, wrote how Music in Similar Motion's:
...repetitions achieve a now-familiar, hypnotically chugging momentum
Tim Munro, of the group, blogs about playing for Philip Glass here.
The Opera Tattler on a new SFS premeire by Samuel Carl Adams, son of Berkeley's John Adams:
The 20 minute work is scored for many instruments, including electronica, but is surprisingly quiet. It had a rather dry quality to it, and gave me the odd sensation of having the inside of my thoracic cavity gently smoothed by a fine-grained sandpaper.
Computer science intersecting with aesthetics on YouTube:
This particular audibilization is just one of many ways to generate sound from running sorting algorithms. Here on every comparison of two numbers (elements) I play (mixing) sin waves with frequencies modulated by values of these numbers. There are quite a few parameters that may drastically change resulting sound - I just chose parameteres that imo felt best.
Bubble sort was an early favorite of mine the video makes the results so inevitable. Quicksort, not appearing here, was the recommended algorithm back in the day. I'm unfamiliar with Gnome sort.
And from Bubble Sort: An Archaeological Algorithmic Analysis (pdf):
What do students remember from their first programming courses after one, five, and ten years? Most students will take only a few memories of what they have
studied. As teachers of these students we should ensure
that what they remember will serve them well. More
specifically, if students take only a few memories about
sorting from a first course what do we want these memories to be? Should the phrase Bubble Sort be the first
that springs to mind at the end of a course or several
years later? There are compelling reasons for excluding
discussion of bubble sort
1
, but many texts continue to
include discussion of the algorithm after years of warnings from scientists and educators...Starting with Knuth’s premise that “bubble sort seems
to have nothing to recommend it”[17], we trace the origins and continued popularity of the algorithm from its
earliest days as an unnamed sort to its current status
as perhaps the most popular O(n
2
) sort (see below) despite wide-spread ridicule
Sarah plays a program of rarely-heard and unpublished works by the great Californian trailblazer Henry Cowell and his students John Cage in celebration of his 100th birthday and Lou Harrison, including Cowell's Hilarious Curtain Opener, Chaconne, Rhythmicana, and High Color; Cage's In a Landscape, One, and Two Pieces from 1946; and Lou Harrison's Summerfield Set, Tandy's Tango, and Dance for Lisa Karon, among other works.
I'm not one to apologize for lack of blogging but I've been busy with work, family, commuting, and elder care...
Just to end the blogging drought, I'll mention Spanish Key, from Miles Davis' Bitches Brew. Tastefully funky, jazzy, and spacey. Transcription here.
Ok, back to the above activities, and then this weekend, taking the daughter to the Halloween store and more listening to Einstein on the Beach in preparation for the non-recorded version in Berkeley in October. Thrice.
...exhilarating revival...compelling lead performers...nonsensical yet alluring text...calming and sweetly mystical...exuberant and crazed... suited to current musical politics and social culture...the brilliant violinist Jennifer Koh...original, visionary and generous work...moments of ominous intensity...two trial scenes are highlights...dazzling choreography... if it were trimmed...
I'm streaming the recording by Andy Lee via Irritable Hedghog and their cast of characters ("select recordings of minimalist and postminimalist repertoire"):
David D. McIntire: electroacoustics, soundscapes, irritability
R. Andrew Lee: pianism, internets, vertical time
Scott Unrein: aetherial beauty, graphic wizardry, twins consultant
Rachel McIntire: video, images, global perspective
Duckworth: What kind of work did you do to improve?
Young: Well, anytime I heard music I would analyze it as I listened. Of course, I couldn't analyze everything I heard, nobody can, but I would analyze as much as I could. I always listen analytically now. There's never a time I'm listening without trying to formulate as much as I can about what I'm hearing--to analyze exactly what intervals I'm hearing.
Musically, The Time Curve Preludes focus on one principal melody, which is based on the Dies Irae, and include hints of Satie, Bluegrass banjo picking, and, on occasion, the piano playing style of Jerry Lee Lewis, all held in musical space by a durational architecture based on proportional time.
I've started reading David Schiff's Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue, from 1997. Despite the form of my blog, I can find it hard to slog through a book about a single work. But so far, it's interesting.
He opens by describing how United Airlines pad $300,000 per year to use the music in their advertising, on the plane, and at O'Hare airport. I don't remember this but he mentions how Delta Airlines used a tune from Rakhmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, maybe due to it's similarities to Gershwin's Russian/American sounds.
He describes how Rhapsody in Blue gets criticized for being just a sequence of tunes. Still:
The fact that the Rhapsody has outlived many works whose compositional credentials have never been questioned raises an interesting aesthetic issue: if a music work continues to be played for three generations after its premiere just how flawed can its form be?
