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Old 08-14-2016, 12:39 PM
 
Location: Hamburg, Deutschland
1,248 posts, read 818,311 times
Reputation: 1915

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Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant View Post
Some would say "bombastic" rather than epic ... though I agree with your appraisal of these composers.

My former interest in pipe organ resulted in me witnessing several virtuoso organists play orchestral transcriptions of Wagner on the organ. To properly render Ride of the Valkyries on that instrument one must play the main theme on the pedal while keeping both hands busy with the accompaniment. It is always more than most people imagine is possible to do with one's feet and so is a real crowd pleaser (assuming the organist's feet are visible to the audience). The only thing I have seen cause more amazement is Bach's J-i-g* Fugue done the same way, or Cameron Carpenter playing his own organ transcription of the Revolutionary Etude.

* Why on earth is j i g considered a Naughty Word by the software here???
Why former, if I may ask?

And yes, the pipe organ is an amazing instrument. I have a couple CDs of pipe organ transriptions of Wagner and Bruckner - a whole new level of epicness And hearing the pipe organ live is always a joy. It is precisely that instrument, the greater mass of music written for which is of religious nature - Bach's organ preludes and chorales, informed by Lutheranism, being the most well-known. But for me this fact neither adds nor takes away from the enjoyment.
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Old 08-14-2016, 12:56 PM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,769 posts, read 13,299,066 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Norne View Post
Why former, if I may ask?
Not exactly former but greatly attenuated. Pipe organ is an acquired taste that is very difficult to share with others. At one point in my life I owned a large digital pipe organ replica, but what I ended up with was a ridiculously expensive hobby which proved especially hard to share with others. Seems like everyone in my life actively dislikes pipe organ. Furthermore I wasn't that great at playing it. I hosted a couple of concerts in my home put on by others, which was fun, but that pretty much got it out of my system. When I decided to move cross-country to pursue a relationship with my current S.O., I just sold the thing to a retired organist down south, and let it go, rather than argue with my new honey about where all those speaker cabinets were going to get wedged into our new shared home, and when I was going to be able to play the thing without driving her insane.

Another aspect of this, is that as a child, I had been hectored into piano lessons and formal music instruction by my well-meaning family, but it was never an actual passion of mine. It was part of my identity that I grew up with and it took me awhile to catch up to the fact that I didn't personally care enough about it to invest the time my modest talents would require to be passingly competent with it. At the end of the day I was an excellent colorist and good sight reader and okay player which informs my likes and dislikes of the genre but doesn't justify me going all-in like that.
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Old 08-14-2016, 01:41 PM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,081 posts, read 20,507,234 times
Reputation: 5927
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant View Post
Some would say "bombastic" rather than epic ... though I agree with your appraisal of these composers.

My former interest in pipe organ resulted in me witnessing several virtuoso organists play orchestral transcriptions of Wagner on the organ. To properly render Ride of the Valkyries on that instrument one must play the main theme on the pedal while keeping both hands busy with the accompaniment. It is always more than most people imagine is possible to do with one's feet and so is a real crowd pleaser (assuming the organist's feet are visible to the audience). The only thing I have seen cause more amazement is Bach's J-i-g* Fugue done the same way, or Cameron Carpenter playing his own organ transcription of the Revolutionary Etude.

* Why on earth is j i g considered a Naughty Word by the software here???
Lol. Jigg is an epithet for the act of coition. Try gigue. That should escape the censors.

Bombast is a deprecating term I largely discount. It has been applied to Ives, who is one of the least bombastic composers I know. Bruckner might be considered bombastic, and all the better for it.

It is true there is a sort of heaviness about Wagner's orchestration, but remember he pretty much had his orchestra playing outside so it wouldn't drown out the singers.

The pipe organ is closely linked with church and indeed only the french with their Organ symphonies really got away from it, but in another way their organ repertoire is based on parts of the mass whereas the symphony is based on dances and operatic interludes. I don't mind. I remember a work colleague twitting me for going to a church for an organ recital when I wasn't a Christian.

Yes, yes it's Indulgency time and it was a nice tone and I liked the way the Franche intro said rather apologetically 'Protestant church'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO2_Hiv01Y4

Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 08-14-2016 at 02:01 PM..
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Old 08-14-2016, 01:42 PM
 
Location: Hamburg, Deutschland
1,248 posts, read 818,311 times
Reputation: 1915
Mordant, so you can actually play the thing? My respect of you has just risen to a whole new level
It is a dream of mine to learn to play at least a simple tune on an instrument like that. Who knows, maybe some day it will come true...
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Old 08-14-2016, 04:42 PM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,769 posts, read 13,299,066 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Norne View Post
Mordant, so you can actually play the thing? My respect of you has just risen to a whole new level
It is a dream of mine to learn to play at least a simple tune on an instrument like that. Who knows, maybe some day it will come true...
Paradoxically, a larger instrument with more manuals (keyboards) is actually easier to play in many respects because you can organize different registrations (tonalities) by keyboard rather than having to manipulate voices on the fly. My instrument had four manuals. Practically played itself, as they say. People make the mistake of being intimidated by a well-appointed console when in fact the appointments are actually helpful once you understand them.

I read recently about an amateur Brit who made it his goal to play every cathedral organ in the Misty Isles. Took him over 20 years to do the requisite traveling and wangling his way into play each one.

Between British, French, German and theater organ tonal schemes, it's a lot of fun learning how to play the different types. To be honest, I'm fondest of theater organ (aka unit orchestra, basically an analog synthesizer originally designed to accompany silent movies), though I certainly appreciate them all.
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Old 08-15-2016, 07:32 AM
 
Location: Log "cabin" west of Bangor
7,058 posts, read 9,024,200 times
Reputation: 15622
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER View Post
Lol. Jigg is an epithet for the act of coition. Try gigue. That should escape the censors.
Actually, it is banned as a shortened form of a 'racial slur'.

The software doesn't seem to care if a word has a different and perfectly acceptable meaning/use in ordinary conversation; it can't grok context. There are a number of other perfectly acceptable words that are blotted out for the same reason.

On Topic: I played first chair clarinet for a good number of years, mostly classical, and I can appreciate the music for what it is, without any consideration of whether it was composed as 'religious' music- mostly I never even knew if that was what was intended. Finding out later that it was a religious composition did not alter my perception of it.

Even some music that I *know* is religious does not affect my appreciation of it. For instance- 'Amazing Grace'- I think it's a beautiful tune, the fact that the words are religious is not relevant. Religious xmas carols too- for some of them I have replaced the words with those of my own, and at my last job nearly everyone got a kick out of my singing my 'perverted xmas carols'...except for one fundie YEC type.
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Old 08-15-2016, 09:27 AM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,769 posts, read 13,299,066 times
Reputation: 9775
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zymer View Post
The software doesn't seem to care if a word has a different and perfectly acceptable meaning/use in ordinary conversation; it can't grok context. There are a number of other perfectly acceptable words that are blotted out for the same reason.
The implementation is completely context-free, it simply looks for forbidden words within posts, and has no awareness of sentence structure or context. It doesn't even seem to have an awareness of word boundaries or whitespace, as I've seen it nix "words" that happen to occur within larger words.

Between that and the pretty much useless rep system, whoever maintains the code base for this system seems to be rather un-shame-able*. At least it is fast and stable for its core functions. I don't recall the last time this site was down and it's not often that it stutters, performance-wise. There's that at least.

* And no that's not a dig against C-D, they just use the same platform that a lot of other online forums do. It's a gentle remonstration against the actual developers.
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Old 08-15-2016, 12:12 PM
 
Location: Hamburg, Deutschland
1,248 posts, read 818,311 times
Reputation: 1915
Hey, the rep system is not useless! I sort of like getting reps Problem is, there are not so many constant participants in this subforum, compared to Politics or Current Events. So it takes a while before the reps go around. But this forum is so peaceful by comparison.
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Old 08-15-2016, 12:28 PM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,769 posts, read 13,299,066 times
Reputation: 9775
Quote:
Originally Posted by Norne View Post
Hey, the rep system is not useless! I sort of like getting reps Problem is, there are not so many constant participants in this subforum, compared to Politics or Current Events. So it takes a while before the reps go around. But this forum is so peaceful by comparison.
I can see person X not being able to rep person Y more than once a day or something like that, but the business of having to indiscriminately spread reps around sort of defeats the purpose. Some people are far more articulate and cogent and deserve lots of reps, some are incoherent and brainless and deserve none, and I find myself not even bothering to rep many worthy posts simply because the odds are consistently high I won't be able to. This implementation is not as bad as the naughty word filter but it's still pretty bad.
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Old 08-15-2016, 01:24 PM
 
Location: Hamburg, Deutschland
1,248 posts, read 818,311 times
Reputation: 1915
I think the purpose is not to create "fan clubs" where say, posters X and Y would be constantly repping poster Z just because they are on the same side of a debate.. But back to the topic.

Say, Mordant, when you were an evangelical, did you ever feel uncomfortable while listening to Catholic music, or other religious music where the theology did not agree with your own? "Ave Maria", things like that.
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