Ear training

Here’s the challenge:

If you wanted to expose someone to classical music for the first time, and plant in them the same love and enjoyment you have for it – what music would you choose for their listening pleasure?

Let’s make it more difficult and limit it to…say five selections all told, whether they are complete symphonies, single canons, what have you. Pick from your favorite period, or go across the board.

What to recommend depends on your victim. If it’s your own small child, what you choose is less important than the example you set. Listen to a variety of good music and let osmosis do its work.

For older listeners, my instinct would be to favor shorter pieces over longer, suites over symphonies, accessibility over complexity, and to emphasize variety and liveliness. Robert covered the period from Vivaldi to Beethoven with his suggestions. You can regard the following as a supplement to his list.

Chopin: the ballades. Or the polonaises, or the preludes, or the etudes — Chopin’s output mostly fits neatly into CD-sized sets, and they’re all good introductions to 19th-century piano music.

Mendelssohn: the overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Sure, it’s over-familiar, but it’s still wonderful, and it might be new to your listener.

Dvorak: the Slavonic Dances. Lively, melodious and not too long. Here’s Op. 46, #7 in C minor.

[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/Slavonic Dance 7 Op 46.mp3[/mp3]
Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Jonel Perlea, conductor

Prokofiev: Toccata, Op. 11. Bartok and Prokofiev make Metallica seem like wimps. (If your listener emphatically does not care for heavy music, substitute Debussy’s La cathedrale engloutie.)

[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/Prok_op11_Toccata.mp3[/mp3]
Gyorgy Sandor, piano

Stravinsky, Octet for Wind Instruments. This may be a stretch for beginning listeners, but I find this bit of neoclassicism more immediately likeable than the big ballets.

There is plenty of other music that comes to mind, of course, but these will do for now.

A final suggestion: be wary of budget releases and older recordings. I’m tempted to recommend Lipatti’s performances of the Chopin watzes, which are playing as I write this, but those were recorded nearly sixty years ago and sound like it. For neophytes, you want not only recordings of good performances but also recordings that sound good to untrained ears.

*****

One of my commenters notes that she sometimes can’t see the mp3 players. Has anyone else had trouble with them?

Update: here are links to the music: Dvorak, Prokofiev.

Cabbages and rhinoceroses

Robert notes that today is the birthday of Neil Innes, who, in addition to being the Seventh Python, was also part of the Bonzo Dog Band. Here are a couple of tunes Innes wrote or co-wrote for the band. The first was produced by “Apollo C. Vermouth,” better-known as Paul McCartney. The second features narration by the late, great Vivian Stanshall.

I’m the Urban Spaceman
[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/Im the Urban Spaceman.mp3[/mp3]

Rhinocratic Oaths
[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/Rhinocratic Oaths.mp3[/mp3]

Quills or hammers?

Here are two recordings of the Prelude and Fugue in C minor from Book One of The Well-Tempered Clavier: on harpsichord, played by Malcolm Hamilton; and, on piano, played by Takahiro Sonoda. Which do you prefer?

Harpsichord:
[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/MH-Prelude 2 in C Minor.mp3[/mp3]
[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/MH-Fugue 2 in C Minor.mp3[/mp3]

Piano:
[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/TS-Prelude 2 in C Minor.mp3[/mp3]
[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/TS-Fugue 2 in C Minor.mp3[/mp3]

Towering sponge

Here’s the most bizarre video I’ve seen recently. (Patience is required; it takes forever to load.)

There are more sponges and other three-dimensional fractals here, here and here.

Addendum: For sheer trippiness, nothing beats the Mandelbrot set. Here’s the classic fractal video, “Nothing but Zooms,” presented in four parts. Unfortunately, the image quality is low, even for YouTube.

Part one
Part two
Part three
Part four

Here are some more videos of varying degrees of gimmickiness featuring the ultimate paisley.

This one
That one
This other one

What’s the Mandelbrot set? Let Jonathan Coulton explain. (N.B.: naughty words.)

Enjoy everything

It looks like there never will be an anime of Yotsuba&! It may be just as well. Movie adaptations of favorite books are invariably inferior to the originals, no matter how skilled the adaptors, and that probably goes for anime versions of manga as well (I wonder if I would like Cardcaptor Sakura as much if I were familiar with the manga). To assuage your disappointment, there does exist a soundtrack for Yotsuba&!, here and here. (Technically, they’re “image albums” inspired by the manga.) The music is by Masaki Kurihara and the Kuricorder Pops Orchestra, the same crew reponsible for the Azumanga Daioh soundtrack. ((There is quite a bit more music for Azumanga Daioh out there that has never been released in the USA, including a second OST album that is nearly as good as the first.)) Here’s a suite from the first Yotsuba&! album, titled “??????????????” which the Google translator renders as “I stand little risk of saliva.”

[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/risk of saliva.mp3[/mp3]

*****

While I’m on the subject of music, here are a couple of a capella pieces that caught my ear. The first is from the Kaiba soundtrack. The second you should all recognize.

[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/Kaiba a capella.mp3[/mp3]

[mp3]http://tancos.net/audio/Raspberry heaven.mp3[/mp3]

Update: Actually, Yotsuba&! has been animated, after a fashion:

Continue reading “Enjoy everything”

Patience rewarded

Those of you who are waiting impatiently for the next episodes of Macademi Wasshoi, cheer up. The translation is proceeding quite briskly in comparison to that of Master of Epic. The seventh episode of the latter has finally been fansubbed, nine months after the sixth.

Was it worth the wait? Not really. The first half showcases Tomoko Kaneda as an incompetent, thoughtless RPG character. Her performance almost redeems the lackluster writing — imagine Chiyo-chan’s hyperactive idiot twin sister in a dungeon crawl. The second half continues the Waragecha Five’s battles with the producer’s giant robots. It’s not that bad, but it’s not all that good, either. The previews for the eighth episode promise the conclusion to the robot story. That should be available around September, 2009. In the ninth episode, due out in late 2010 or early 2011, we perhaps can look forward to the return of the Waragecha Five to proper fantasy.

Wasting time

I came across yet another damned book meme over at Robbo’s, and I thought that adapting it for anime might be a pleasant way of spending a lunch hour.

• What anime are you watching now?

The only current series I’m following is Macademi Wasshoi, and if there are more episodes like the fifth, I’ll drop it, too.

• What is your favourite time to watch?

Evenings, after dinner.

• And your favourite place?

The only available place is the uncomfortable chair at the computer.

• Who is your favourite auteur?

The snap answer is either Yoshitoshi ABe (Haibane Renmei) or Mitsuo Iso (Denno Coil). However, each has really only one show to his credit. ((Lain was a group effort, and while NieA_7 is based on characters created by ABe, someone else wrote the scripts.)) Perhaps Junichi Sato or Akitaro Daichi, or maybe Masaaki Yuasa? I think I’ll go with Satoshi Kon for now.

• Your favourite OST?

Still Haibane Renmei‘s, though that of Oh! Edo Rocket, swing ripoff though it is, has been frequent listening for over a year now.

• What is the most difficult anime you’ve ever watched?

Serial Experiments Lain. I could also mention Angel’s Egg and Cat Soup, but I don’t think either adds up to much more than what you see. (I read somewhere that Oshii himself doesn’t remember what everything signifies in the former.) ((Incidentally, Angel’s Egg is the reason I started downloading torrents. I had read about it and was very curious, but there was no legal way to watch it.))

• What was the first anime you remember watching?

Shonen Sarutobi Sasuke, in the theatre in Brigham City, Utah, on a Saturday afternoon with my girlfriend Gloria a long, long time ago. Many years later came Princess Mononoke.
Update: Here’s a trailer for Magic Boy, as Shonen Sarutobi Sasuke was called in the USA, and here’s a website with screen captures.

• Do you have a comfort show that you re-watch?

Random episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura or Animal Yokocho.

• What is the most erotic anime you’ve watched?

Not Divergence Eve. Nothing much comes to mind; that’s not what I look for.

• Which classic should you have watched?

Monster, I suppose, or Legend of Galactic Heroes.

• Which series did you never want to end?

A good episodic series like Mushishi or Galaxy Angel A could be spun out indefinitely as long as the creators have ideas, but in general, a show isn’t good unless it ends well.

• What is your most overrated anime?

Neon Genesis Evangelion. I watched the first disc, and that’s two hours of my life wasted that I’ll never get back.

• Which character could you have an affair with?

This isn’t the sort of thing I fantasize about lest I end up like Sidney Kugelmass, but perhaps Lexshue from Crest of the Stars.

• Who is your favourite character?

Isako, from Denno Coil.

• Which character do you most dislike?

Kimura, from Azumanga Daioh.

• Which character do you identify with most?

Reki, from Haibane Renmei.

• Which anime changed your life?

None.

Update: Jumping on the bandwagon are Steven, Kiriska, Wonderduck and Mark. And Pixy. And Aziz. And Evil Otto and Nick. And Astro. And Ken the Brickmuppet.

Linkety-link

I’m going to be busy not watching anime for the next few weeks. There may be an occasional trivial post, but don’t expect anything more. I’ll probably be back around the middle of December. Until then, here are a few links of interest.

I would have thought that this was obviously true, but apparently it isn’t clear to some people. Further discussion here.

Fred Kiesche discovers Ghost in the Shell. His reaction reminds me of mine to Serial Experiments Lain the first time I watched it. (Lain, by the way, was first broadcast ten years ago this summer, so I think it’s old enough to officially call a classic.)

Back in February, I had other things on my mind than following the otakusphere. Consequently, I missed Martin’s survey of the worst anime has to offer.

Here’s a preview of this winter’s new series. A couple might be worth checking out. Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou is a continuation of what was probably the best show of the summer, and Kemeno no Sou-ja Erin is based on novels by Nahoko Uehashi, who wrote the books Seirei no Moribito was based on. Update: Here are a couple of additional surveys covering more shows, here and here.

Has the internet indeed gone too far?

Ken the Brickmuppet writes about his uncle.

I’d been considering whether to look at Tytania, but Pixy points out a serious defect.

*****

This week’s frightening search term: “life sized anime bishounen cutouts.” For target practice, I presume.