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  • PiPoe posted an update 5 years, 2 months ago

    If you’re a lute fan… J. S. Bach – Sonatas & Partitas For Lute

    • Good morning and good afternoon PiPoe,

      Thank you for this, it magically ‘came’ just in the nick of time . . .
      ( music saves my sanity )

      • Ok, folks. All you classical music people. I am amazed by your knowledge and appreciation of all this music you share here. And Joseph’s work with his instruments, etc.
        I am an educated person. I have a BFA in painting from a major university. I have some grad school credits in history. But will someone please explain to me why I can’t listen to classical music?? It depresses me so much that I stop functioning for the day if I try to listen…
        I feel so left out! Is my brain, with my genius level IQ built wrong?

          • Try the book by Douglas R. Hofstadter : “Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid” ; it does paint a bridge, so to speak 😊
            And no, you were not created wrong.

            • Have you tried Vivaldi (four seasons)? I’m particularly fond of this performance by Janine Jansen (uplifting – for me anyway)
              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzE-kVadtNw

                • My reply come out in the wrong place…

                  The 4 seasons just makes me want to scream. I can handle Holst’s Planets. But it makes me think of Pink Floyd’s Astronomy Domine. I am probably hopeless, but I will keep trying.

                • Ok I’m gonna take a stab at this…I’m not a genius or educated…I’m a layman, autodidact, and long time pupil of giza university. And I certainly do not know music or music theory, &c &c…but, perhaps, instead of trying to “feel” it or “listen” to it, try thinking about it. This is where the Leonard Bernstein Lectures come in handy. I can’t “listen” to baroque or classical without it demanding my attention. Think of it as a Philosopher’s Stone…it quite literally is transmuting information, and at the same time, affecting the coherence of the mind. Just my two cents.

                    • I started to watch Bernstein. I blank out. It’s like he is speaking another language. But he is!
                      I am envious of those of you who understand music.

                        • lol…that’s just my point, I don’t understand music. I don’t know one note from another. However, I can understand it analogically by reference to interdisciplinary systems…from one context to another. For instance, its interesting to me, (as JPF has pointed out over the yrs in vidchats), that odd numbers are male, and even numbers female. And that female (even) numbers cannot produce any difference, only higher/lower octaves. But, male (odd) numbers between the octaves do produce distinction, i.e., differentiation…ahhh but now we’re getting into that androgynous arena. A very interesting book on these topics (for anyone interested) is “The Hermetic Code in DNA” by Michael Hayes, that Dr. Farrell cites in Genes, Giants, Monsters and Men.

                      • I don’t think there’s a better way of learning to understand music than by participating in it. If you can sing, try joining a choir. If you can’t, try learning an instrument. It will be constantly difficult and sometimes frustrating, but the hard work will be rewarded. But, as with everything else, there’s no magical instant substitute for the hard work. Good luck!

                          • Actually the nuns taught us to read choral music as children. But I don’t have a voice now due to asthma and throat surgery. I have tried. Really. Any funny “noises” I have managed to produce from a wind instrument or something with strings leaves me laughing so hard that I am finished before I even start. I own a guitar. It hangs out in the back of my closet.
                            Some things we just may not be meant to do in this lifetime! But thank you for your reply.

                              • No problem! You asked, I answered, and the conversation might be of some interest to others. What could be better than that?

                          • Wonderful, Bach wrote some great music for the lute (or Lautenwerk, a keyboard lute) I’m particularly found of BWV 995 in A min.