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When I develop complicated things, I need absolute silence. When I do graphical work, I need good music.

I just stumbled on this youtube clip: Stravinsky's Firebird:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk0I4XRc92k&feature=endscreen&NR=1

You must listen* to that change at 5:17. So fantastic. What a resolution! I could hear this all the time.

5:16 ... 5:17 ... 5:18 ...

5:17

5:17





* Only if you have hi-fi, otherwise you'll miss that deep warm tone, that's essential. It won't work on laptop tweeters.

Interestingly, in this performance ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVuc19PbeQU&feature=related

... the change I mentioned sounds a little less fantastic, for my taste. In this clip it's at 8:46. In the former version, that deep drum comes slightly laid back, i.e. with an intentional delay, the whole orchestra sound at that point unfolds more slowly, more beautiful, whereas this version sounds more stiff, less relaxed.

This ballet may also inspire fans of Kiss and Alice Cooper :-) -- Stravinsky did it already 100 years ago.


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Nice, indeed.

Does it have to be classical music? :->
I prefer more pushy stuff (probably an age thing) when I work
at the computer and tend to get into a flow, while fading out
the music in the background. Once in a while there is a breakthrough
like the tone you mentioned above and that really fires me up.
One example is here at 3:41 and even more at 6:24 the when the melody
returns:
http://grooveshark.com/#/s/Jamaica/3C6U9i?src=5

Can't run that grooveshark site. Too slow. Too much advertising.

Is that song also on youtube?

...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoArFyov0II

I can't hear anything special at 3:41 on the youtube version, but at 3:47 that repeated picked string sounds arrhythmically delayed. Did you mean this?

Greetings, Hardy

I fully agree that the first video sounds much warmer and smoother
than the second. Do you think part of the reason is the recording quality?

Amazingly, there is actually no drum at the place you mention (although
it certainly sounds like it). It's actually the Contrabasses playing (a 5th) pizzicato.

Here's the 2 bars leading to it:


which segues to ... THE MOMENT !


(The Contrabass, of course, play an octave lower than written.)

Interesting, I thought.

shiv

Hi Shiv,

I didn't mean to say that the audio quality is warmer (although it might be true), but that in Gergiev's version the said part sounds more laid back, more relaxed, intentionally slightly delayed. The tempo slows down for a moment, I think. It's perfect. It feels like gliding into a warm bed. Interesting that the whole bass region is filled only by picked contrabasses. In Gergiev's version, the bass tone comes about 200 ms after the other instruments, although it's synchroneously noted in the score. Thanks for the pics! For my taste, the bass area must have this delay, it's the only correct interpretation. It's like moving a mountain, like putting a tired mountain to bed. A pity that this fantastic moment takes only a fraction of a second :-)


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Hardy Heinlin wrote

Interesting that the whole bass region is filled only by picked contrabasses.

And a sustained Eflat in the 'cellos.

shiv

Hardy Heinlin wrote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoArFyov0II

I can't hear anything special at 3:41 on the youtube version, but at 3:47 that repeated picked string sounds arrhythmically delayed. Did you mean this?

No, I mean the moment when the melody sets in again at 6:24.
Not just a tone like in your example, but it basically catches my
attention there and pets my nucleus accumbens. Now thats a
musical highlight to me *g*
Btw. I am surprised about your circadian rythm... is it free running,
you don't seem to sleep at night? Is that the sacrifice one has to
give to program a flightdeck?

Since I was born my circadian rythm has been running on a 25-hour-cycle. Nature and culture runs 4% faster than I do. Every 25 days I'm resynchronized with the sun. -- It was a hard time for me in the old schooldays etc., I was always tired because of my missing 25th hour.

Fun to read:

Early research into circadian rhythms suggested that most people preferred a day closer to 25 hours when isolated from external stimuli like daylight and timekeeping. However, this research was faulty because it failed to shield the participants from artificial light. Although subjects were shielded from time cues (like clocks) and daylight, the researchers were not aware of the phase-delaying effects of indoor electric lights.[27] The subjects were allowed to turn on light when they were awake and to turn it off when they wanted to sleep. Electric light in the evening delayed their circadian phase. These results became well-known.[28]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm

Get outside more!

Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers wrote

Get outside more!

I doesn't help.

I even sleep deeply with the window curtains open in daylight.


- -

P.S.: The reversed conclusion would be: People with a 23-hour-cycle, I mean those who start to sing at 5 am and go to bed at 20 pm, would get too much sunlight. Not logical. The sunlight has nothing to do with it.

Indeed, because you just described me, and there is plenty of sunlight here.

Shiv wrote

It's actually the Contrabasses playing (a 5th) pizzicato.

A 5th? Please explain.

Sorry, I didn't put that clearly. I meant the musical (scale) interval of a 5th.

They're playing E flat and B flat together ... interval of a 5th.

This, for example, is music that goes directly into my heart:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbcuteYm-EA

Here I can't name any special highlight as this masterpiece is one continuous highlight from the first tone on.

I've learned when Williams wrote this piece he had an English landscape in mind. I for one see a Chinese landscape. This kind of pentatonic scale always reminds me of East Asia (or native American, but that's indirectly Asian, too, thanks to the Siberian bridge 20000 years ago).

Anyway, I think this young solo violonist, Janine Jansen, is a super talent. Technically and emotionally in the same high category as master Hilary Hahn, I'd say.

Unfortunately, the above clip with Janine Jansen is a live recording with audience: of course, there's always someone coughing in the most silent parts. I think these coughing people are afraid of coughing in the most silent parts, it's a kind of phobia. Because of their fear of coughing they get a dry throat causing a cough reflex. -- Funny also how the BBC presenter introduces the concert, he sounds like introducing a football game.

Here's the same piece played by Hahn during a studio session and without coughing*:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSywq_lIBlM

6:40 and on. (Some Bach before that.)

Absolutely fantastic. The clip shows only some fragments, though. I just ordered the CD, finally; I watched that interview already some years ago but didn't buy that CD for some reasons.

The Lark Ascending -- I think it's a must have for all aeronauts. Imagine you're just waking up after a long sleep at flight level 350 and the dawn begins over an Asian landscape (or whereever) ...


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* Almost. At 8:48 someone somewhere in the studio house starts coughing :-)

Shiv: got it. It is just that "a fifth" for me triggers a bar division time scale reference, not a tone interval (quint).

Hardy Heinlin wrote

Imagine you're just waking up after a long sleep at flight level 350 and the dawn begins over an Asian landscape (or whereever) ...

Been there, done that

The next WorldFlight we need to pay attention to what music is played on the flight deck when we're not recording music videos.

I always liked the way the Dutch radio coverage of le Tour de France, which is heavily traditional with a basic format that has not changed for a long time and likely won't soon, puts a specific piece of music on as permanent background (not in the way, but louder when nobody reports) during the last one or two kms of a day. It still unconsciously triggers my attention and draws me to the nearest live coverage just to watch the final.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5c4Pf--55s

Notice there is no 'climax' point -- it is in no way timed like a film score, it is just a recognizable tune for a specific phase of the race.

We could play something like this for each WorldFlight leg, below 3000 ft AGL.


Jeroen

Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers wrote

Shiv: got it. It is just that "a fifth" for me triggers a bar division time scale reference, not a tone interval (quint).

Ah, okay. Yes, differences in terminology can lead to misunderstandings.

In fact, I was just thinking that for Hardy (and you?) B flat is actually
B, and B natural is H !

Vive la différence ! (... to introduce yet another language.)

If you mention B in an English sentence, I take it as the fifth of E.

Wenn Du B erwähnst in einem deutschen Satz, I take it as the fifth of E flat.


I-|

I too feel that Lark Ascending is a tremendous piece of music.

However, for me, music for a long night flight into sunrise just has to be Sibelius' tone poem "Nightride and Sunrise". The recording under Eugen Jochum is one of the best on YouTube:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9s3M7QWEa8

Hardy Heinlin wrote

my circadian rythm has been running on a 25-hour-cycle

Here's why.
(possibly substitute "monitor" for "artificial light")
----> ----> ----> ---->
[...must read whole thread before posting. must read whole thread before posting. must read...]

By the way, talk about constructing a simulator in your bedroom. There are so many parallels in this video, I feel right at home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIEN9TwK5gI

And then of course there are the simulators of something that does not exist:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyCIpKAIFyo

Sheer beauty.



Jeroen

mcdonar wrote

I too feel that Lark Ascending is a tremendous piece of music.

However, for me, music for a long night flight into sunrise just has to be Sibelius' tone poem "Nightride and Sunrise". The recording under Eugen Jochum is one of the best on YouTube:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9s3M7QWEa8

Thanks for the tip. I like that, too. I mean the music. The video is obviously just a random sequence of dawn pictures. When I hear the music and close my eyes, I see the colors coming in a different timing, like this:

0:00: Dark blue, reverberation in a forest
0:58: Dark blue turns to mid blue
2:22: Some orange spots added over mid blue
2:35: Some birds wake up
2:48: A few smiling yellow beams added over mid blue
3:18: The sun body comes in view (trumpets play a sort of "mini" version of "Thus spake Zarathustra")
4:50: Sun body comes completely in view
5:10: Very hot beam added, slowly increasing
5:18: All mid blue gone


Cheers,

|-|ardy


Edit: I just wondered if the part from 3:18 to 4:50 could be real time. The width of the sun disc is about 0.5°. It takes ca. 2 minutes for the earth to rotate by 0.5°.

...and Flight of the 747 Bumblebee at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHZvMAJUN5g!