Romantic legends

After the partial loss in hearing, Beethoven was thrown into the abyss of depression. Seldom were the times when he didn't think of committing suicide. But he continued writing the most charming music that man has ever known. Not just that the melodies were heavenly and aesthetic masterpieces, they had no trace of melancholy and at the same time defied the classical conventions of the techniques of contemporary music.

One of such many beauties he wrote is the 9th symphony for the choral. It is completely beyond a common man's comprehension how he could come up with something so elegant, vibrant and superb when he was completely deaf, known to be his last complete symphony, it was received by the Viennese crowd who were highly under the influence of Italian masters such as Rossini in the most jubilant and moving response.

In the middle of the performance, one of the witnesses says that the public started clapping with a standing ovation which was not visible (neither audible) to Beethoven since he was conducting facing the orchestra. After a while, with the turbulent and tense emotions of the pieces to follow, some of the audience couldn't resist and started crying with exhilarated emotions. Looking at the crowd's response even the orchestra found it difficult to continue and the Kappelmeister of the theatre forcefully turned Beethoven towards the crowd only to see them crying, throwing their hats in the air, applauding, laughing with joy and every other possible emotion.

A cafe near a university

I was sitting at a cafe, and a guy is impressing a girl by telling her the Russell's paradox. Then he moved onto Godel's incompleteness theorem. The girl was completely awestruck. Then a french man came for some help with wireless net and we talked about the paradox and then life.

Also, when you wake up and go to work or whatever that you are meant to do. Do you feel that you are not meant to be there and all this is going on is wrong? For the last few days, I am feeling exactly the opposite about graduate school.

:)

ps: I realized that I have issues with pens. Can't work with bad pens, simply can't.

Thus in livejournal language, the mood can be described as cheerful and the music, without doubt the beatles.

Avant garde

First of all, I like the word(s) Avant garde and secondly I (sometimes/mostly pretend to) like avant garde art. But most importantly, I have had enough of rum (read coffee) inside my head (again!, read belly) to write this.

A few days ago, I re-listened to this Beatles's song: Her majesty, it's a 20 odd second song

I want to tell her that I love her a lot
But I gotta get a bellyful of wine
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl
Someday I'm going to make her mine.

Ciao
Purushottam

New song

I first met this girl when she had big specks
And I am sure that she didn't see me
I had my problems, I minded my business
I never new it wasn't meant to be

I met this girl across the wall
In midst of colours and the beach
We talked a while we walked a lot
And yet it wasn't meant to be

I met this girl at the coffee house
Who sold not the coffee but the beans
Well she had her beans and I had my dreams
And yet it wasn't meant to be

I met this girl on the one tree hill
When she talked and smiled around the tree
I think I thought that she was then mine
And yet it wasn't meant to be

I met this girl in the big city
And I thought that the trip was for me
We went to a park and sat under a tree
And yet it wasn't meant to be

And now I meet her every year or so
And I wonder what's the future to be
I bet she don't know, and I be still
And hence it isn't meant to be

-
Why not


I know this sound stupid, but that is what we have tried to do when we were writing it. Plus, it's a song not a poem so, with musric (of which wee already have the skeleton structure) it ain't that bad. What we need with this is some nice chorus and a title.

Beatles, again!

It is an old saying (A. R. Dixit and P. D. Dixit, 2003) that any Beatles song can be your favourite Beatles song if you listen to it continuously for 5-6 times. This statement as true it is for almost all of the Beatles songs, some of them continue to be exceptions over generations. E.g. this one:

What would you think if I sang out of tune,
Would you stand up and walk out on me?
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song
And I'll try not to sing out of key.

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

What do I do when my love is away
(Does it worry you to be alone?)
How do I feel by the end of the day,
(Are you sad because you're on your own?)

No, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

Do you need anybody
I need somebody to love
Could it be anybody
I want somebody to love.

Would you believe in a love at first sight
Yes, I'm certain that it happens all the time
What do you see when you turn out the light
I can't tell you but I know it's mine,

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

Do you need anybody
I just need someone to love
Could it be anybody
I want somebody to love.

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
With a little help from my friends.
-----------------------------------

This post is dedicated to Pranav, My dad and recently Varun

Piano and PDEs

The story goes back to a conversation between me and analytique de maximus, Lothar. "Which instrument do you like the most Purushottam?", He asked. "Piano", I answered quickly. Though I played only guitar, piano was my favorite always. " And why is that?", he insisted. Why one likes anything is a different issue altogether and I am not going to dwell into that here. Important to this context was the answer I gave. "I like the pure sound, the notes, without mircrotones, not like violin, piano has a definite sound". I was able to satisfy his ultra-inquisitive mind with this. I was relieved for that.

Some years later, that is today, I was sitting in in my PDE class. And the prof. was teaching something about wave equation. It's not that I hate it or something. Being the geek I am, I was enjoying the mathematical aesthetics in the problem. Now, I am going to write something which you might not understand or like, but it's a graduate course and never mind :)

In the wave equation, the initial conditions on time are the initial velocity and the initial displacement on the string. The string is assumed to be bolted at the two ends so that given a displacement, it vibrates periodically. The solution generally is a fourier series, each term representing a definite mode of vibration of the string. If we solve a problem where the initial velocity is zero while the initial displacement is finite and linear, we find that the fourier coefficients die down as 1/n^2. While in the initial velocity (no displacement) case, the fourier coefficients die down as 1/n^4. Even this part was enough interesting for me. But then, the professor started talking about piano.

In a piano, sounds are produced by pressing the keys which in turn results in a small hammer striking the string. Hence an initial velocity is given to the string problem. While playing a guitar, you pluck the string and give it an initial displacement. But since in an initial velocity problem the coefficient which are nothing but the amplitude, decrease rapidly, the higher overtones of the frequency are not heard, while the higher overtones are powerful in guitar and what we hear is a mixture of frequencies. That is why a piano sounds pure and single frequency and the guitar doesn't.

Math is beautiful in her own right. But then you can see her in nature, and in things you love and then it feels like adding more stars in her crown.

For Pritam and the rest

There are people who claim they prefer not to know anything technical about the music they hear, that to intellecualize the listening experience destroyes their enjoyment of music. Yet most sports fan would hardly suggest that the best way to enjoy football is to avoid learning the rules of the game. A heightened awareness of musical processes and styles brings listener closer to the sounds and allows them to hear and comprehend more.

Excerpts from The Enjoyment of Music

Beatles

When you are zero to five, all you feel about beatles is fear. Small children generally don't like orthropodas. Later, when your senses of audio capturing develope and you start assigning meanings to words you listen. Songs like yellow submarine, I am the walrus, octopus' garden, the old brown shoe are your favourites just because the names are funny and your sense of humour is limited to that.

Later in late teens and early twenties. It's the time when they hit you the most. It is when you want to tell her and your head is filled with things to say. Or she's leaving home,your next door neighbour or sister. Or you've got to get her into your life, or hold her hand or love her eight days a week. It's all there, out in the open. And you feel fine that you are finally a young man and not something like Elanor Rigby.

And then you are 25, and just as the beatles matured, you too pretend to do that, losing the innocence of the youthful mind, you dwell into complicated subjects for simply no reason. This is the time for post Sgt. Pepper's era.

And then you are 64, wondering if you'd get a birthday greeting, or a valentine, what you get is young Mccartney thinking about the same.

Repeat and again, a tribute

Do you know the warm progress under the stars?
Do you know we exist?
Have you forgotten the keys to the kingdom?
Have you been born yet
& are you alive?

and then,

O great creator of being
grant us one more hour to
perform our art
& perfect our lives

And something I discovered a few days ago

The moths & atheists are doubly divine
& dying

and something for the soul

We live, we die
& death not ends it

and at last the truth

We have assembled inside this ancient
& insane theatre
To propagate our lust for life
& flee the swarming wisdom
of the streets

and something which I forgot at the first

music inflames temperament

and thus you fall in love with the man, and his pen, paper and voice and whatever he does combining all that.

Chopin and Beethoven

They say Chopin was an ecentric man. He couldn't manage with a whole orchestra. He would stay alone somewhere in the countryside. As a result, he has very few symphonies. All his work is majorly solo pieces on the piano. And thus he is one of the best piano composer ever.

Beethoven on the other side, was the first man to use music for money, since he was very poor, he couldn't hire a well trained orchestra and thus wasn't very famous in his times. Later on he loss hearing. Still managed to produce one of the most amazing pieces in the history of music.

Listen to Symphony #5, Moonlight sonata and Fur Elise to know Beethoven, and anything by Chopin. Though Chopin is the best, Beethoven comes as close as sharing the position with just those 3 pieces.

Junoon

One day, accidently I happened to buy a Junoon cassette. Azadi. They had released it at Pakistan's (and thus India's) 50th year of independance. Though I did not know music back then and wasn't even a big music fan (My favourites included Boy zone and Bryan adams and lots of hindi songs). The songs were really nice. Two years later, they released Parwaz. I bought it too, later I got hold of Junoon and Inquelab.

Years passed by. Junoon accompanied me studying for my JEE, a lot. The only thing I could recognize then was the range of Ali Azmat. Generally, a good hinusthani classical vocalist is able to go from the kharja Pancham to taar Madhyam (On a western scale, the fifth below the root to the 4th of the next octave which is nearly 2 octavaes) I am sure this guy could manage atleast 2 and a half.

Years passed by, I was introduced to The doors, zep, beatles and the others. And Junoon happened to be a forgotten love. Only in my junior year I got hold of some 8 songs of the band. And they sounded completely different and awesome. I don't like fusion music much because most of them would just add beats or mediocre chords to a more mediocre hindusthani classical figure (eg Reincarnation by Bangash brothers, a piece of crap IMO). But Junoon appeared to be the perfection in terms of fusion (The blues band which performed at MI 2005 was very good as well)

Most of Indian fusion would start with one artist performing and others backing him, then in rotation, everybody will get a chance for a solo. This summation of discrete musical parts will then be named fusion. And remarkably, Junoon sticks to the western group/orchestral structure with every performer playes for the group and not to show his own skills. What comprises of Junoon music is heavy bassline, indian and western percussions, fast raga based riffs and leads on bluesy distortions, acoustic rhythm, high ranged vocals and on the top of that soofi poetry. I must say, Junoon is one of the best efforts to create world music.

Blues

I aint fair I aint rich but it dont make me a black man
Ripped my heart you walked over it baby
still
it aint blues what I sang

I called, I cried, my doll I tried
I thought you would come back babe
but you didnt

now you expectin me ruined
so that you can smile your grin
i stand without you darling
and still no blues

you showed me your ways
your moves and your shapes
let me give you mine
and it surely aint blues babe

It aint blues babe, how hard you try
now to make me cry
not a single tear
it aint a heartbreak that I fear

I aint fair I aint rich but it dont make me a black man
Ripped my heart, you walked over it baby,
still
it aint blues what I sang

baby, maybe I'm done you
but sometimes at night,
when the stars ain't bright
It's your face that's the sky...

but now you are gone
and I wake up at dawn
it aint you whos by my side darling
so I sing the song


I aint fair I aint rich but it dont make me a black man
Ripped my heart, you walked over it baby,
still
it aint blues what I sang

Oh babe, if you begged and pleaded,
I couldn't refuse,
If I saw your face,
I wouldn't walk away,
the way you did baby,

I aint fair I aint rich but it dont make me a black man
Ripped my heart, you walked over it baby,
still
it aint blues what I sang
---------------------------

Blues is an original african american music form with bitter lyrics. The chord progression is 12 bar with all chords played in the dominant sevent mode. the scale augments a 4th note on the original pentatonic minor scale which is called the blues note. And this is all I know about blues.

A quote indeed

Hips don't lie
-Shakira

Lyric time again

Plant and Page stayed on a cottage in south wales, which was then known as Bron-Yr-Aur (the golden breasts) Small hills of green grass reflecting golden sunrise, blue water and bluer sky. Then they took a ride along the ponds, the meadows equipped with a set of vocal chords and a guitar respectively, and came up with one of the best zeppelin songs of all times.

Zeppelin is considered to be the father of rock music, loud distortions and cacophonous drumming. What they composed here was the sweetest harmony a single guitar can produce. Along with all other zeppelin songs, if you haven't listened to these, it's an incomplete experience.

Bron-Yr-Aur.
Tangerine.
That's the way it is.


And yesterday I saw you standing by the river,
And weren't those tears that filled your eyes,
And all the fish that lay in dirty water dying,
Had they got you hypnotized?
And yesterday I saw you kissing tiny flowers,
But all that lives is born to die.
And so I say to you that nothing really matters,
And all you do is stand and cry.
--- That's the way it is - Zeppelin III

A word of caution : A tribute

Just before I started spitting wisdom from between my two jaws and the cone shaped formation of the lips, I must know about a certain wise man. So instead of exploring surfaces of my creativity, I for once shall succumb to the valleys and oceans of maxims he once wrote. A word of caution...

The barns are stormed
The windows kept
& only one of all the rest
To dance & save us
With the divine mockery
Of words
Music inflames temperament

The program for this evening is not new,
You've seen this entertainment through and through.
You've seen your birth, your life and death,
You might recall all of the rest.
Did you have a good world when you died?
Enough to base a movie on?


AWAKE
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity
First thing you see.

A vast radiant beach in a cool jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by its quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the woolly cotton brains on infancy.
The music and voices are all around us.
Choose, they croon, the Ancient Ones
The time has come again.
Choose now, they croon,
Beneath the moon
Beside an ancient lake.
Enter again the sweet forest,
Enter the hot dream,
Come with us,
Everything is broken up and dances.

--- Jim Morrison
(One of those few who managed to grow long hair and be wise at the same time)

Lament of a bad song writer

I remeber the tune
the expression remains intact
but the words are lost in oblivion
and yet make me cry

Perfect

Just when I was afraid of the unimaginable, one night changed it all :) All we had to do was to be simple and original. Simplicity and originality, I guess a lantern for the road ahead.

Though we ain't what we started with, but kind of matured now, it's been over a year and we have understood and accepted the internal conflicts of taste (I hope) The time spent isn't awkward anymore. It feels nice to suggest simple things, and watch them work out. Also feels nice to build up and improvise upon your own suggestions presenting them as a confluence of ideas.

It is way better to actually translate the mood into the music we play. The heavenly dreams of a drunken madman hidden in three strings and four fingers, The dizziness, the vomitting, the disgust all coming together just because one of them went on a higher octave :)

Atleast

Thinking of a lower limit to the success in life, I came up with the following, probably in that order

Being at least as good as

a. Beatles
b. Jim Morrison
c. Ramanujan

Being the beatles is kind of tough for a single person, but the other two are atelast physiologically achievable :D

And I find that people read this space, even appreciate it. Nice.