‘): (that’s a bass clef, not a frowny face)

So, in a conversation with other members of the bass section of the Richmond Philharmonic about what to call ourselves, I suggested “The Bottom Dwellers.” One of my colleagues then hit me with this quote, and I had to share it with the world:

‘I recognize in the deepest tones of harmony, in the ground-bass, the lowest grades of the will’s objectification, inorganic nature, the mass of the planet. For us the ground bass is in harmony what inorganic nature, the crudest mass on which everything rests and from which everything originates and develops, is in the world….”   – Schopenhauer

There are so many levels on which that is just unspeakably bitchin, that I just can’t begin to conceptualize a response.  it’s just so 19-th Century…

I. Love. It.

‘):

Why All Musicians Should Be Forced To Appreciate Basic Music History

So, I finally showed my wife how to download stuff on iTunes and she was digging in on a little Cold Play—it refreshed my agitation about a law suit they fought last year (and that they foolishly settled)…now the vein in my head is going a mile a minute. Essentially, I forget what idiot pop star was suing them over the melody for Viva La Vida (OK, I didn’t forget, I just don’t want to get the idiot’s name on any more we pages), but the construction of the melody was at issue.

Now, after listening to the two songs, the construction of the melody is similar. However, you could dial your listening all the way back to the baroque era, focus in on the basic ornamentation of a series of descending whole tones and hear THE_EXACT_SAME_MELODIC_CONSTRUCTION! What’s my point, you ask? Simple. By requiring every professional musician, regardless of their chosen genre, to have a basic understanding of music history, we’d be able to avert any of them acting like an ass by thinking they’d invented western tonal harmony!