Tricks: Chopin's Prelude in C-sharp Minor

This is one of those pieces that float around, not doing much of anything. It sounds like improvising, which has taken the greatest strides in jazz, producing what I call "deedle-deedle" jazz. Chopin's Prelude in C-sharp Minor, Opus 28, Number 10, is not so much deedle-deedle as it is a bunch of conjurer tricks. Imagine a magician appealing to the sky, causing a magic effect to drop down and achieve some paradoxical result. This is what this piece reminds me of. So I call this prelude "Tricks". It happens four times, and then suddenly it's gone, like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. It is not too hard to play; the fingerings in the downward "tricks" are what have to be learned. Altogether, a little frill of magic.

Incidentally, the key of C-sharp minor seems to be a favorite with classical composers, so much so that I call this the "classical key". Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and Chopin's Waltz in C-sharp Minor are other pieces written in this key. It is said to be Chopin's favorite key, and it is interesting to note that the longest C-sharp minor passage in Opus 28 is not in this prelude but in Number 15 in D-flat (C-sharp's alter ego), the Storm, which I will review in a few days.

Sunrise: Chopin's Prelude in E Major

Chopin's Opus 28, Number 9, rumbles in the bass like an enormous church organ. It sets off a theme, then reaches a peak before settling down to a big climax at the end. Indeed it reminds me of a hymn, but its deep tones and its climaxing reminds me of something else - the Sun rising in the east. To me the notes suggest the lightening that gradually takes place in the sky before Sunrise before the Sun makes its grand appearance. It is fairly easy to play; the main difficulty would be to deal with repeated notes in the chords. This is a good one to play if you want something dramatic to play on the piano somewhere to catch someone's attention. It would be a good part of any church service, especially the prelude in the service.

Frantic: Chopin's Prelude in F-sharp Minor

Opus 28 Number 8 reminds me of some of the angry-mood pieces of Beethoven such as the Appassionata Sonata and the third movement of the Moonlight Sonata. This one has a driving melody in the treble with a descending triplet bass. It also has an obbligato in the treble written with small notes. When I hear the piece I wonder how one can move one's hand so fast on the keys, but I tried it once and found that the notes were selected to fit into the hand, so it is not that hard to catch its rhythm. Nevertheless, this is a difficult piece to play and I have not attempted to play it much. Instead, I put it into Cakewalk. When I do that I find that I have to double the melody notes, else they can't be heard over the din of the frantic obbligato. I feel that this piece sounds frantic, hence my name for it. Its discordant chromatic scales contribute to the agitation in the piece. It reaches a peak near the end and descends into a soft ending, finally concluding, like several of the other preludes, with three or four slow chords. To me this is the most Beethoven-like of Chopin's Opus 28 preludes.

Short and Sweet: Chopin's Prelude in A Major

This is the shortest of the preludes in Chopin's Opus 28. Number 7 is a brief waltz, that takes a theme and repeats it four times, following fairly standard harmonies, and ends in an A major chord. It comes, and then it is gone; too bad, because it is a really sweet number. Hence I call this one "Short and Sweet". At times I thought of continuing it but it is hard to do; it is like finding compounds of noble gases such as argon because the piece is complete as it is. This is the first Opus 28 prelude I have ever heard; I was only about 7 or 8 when I heard it the first time on a 45-rpm record that my parents had bought; it came with the Prelude in D Minor (Epic, number 24, which I will cover on 2003 May 27) on the same side, and that one seemed so complicated that I thought that it was forever out of my reach. I will discuss that later, but indeed I also learned how to play the A Major prelude. It is easy to play, but it needs to be played with feeling. One huge chord in the treble at the end of the third theme looks unplayable; the way to play the chord is to hit the A-sharp and the C-Sharp simultaneously with the thumb astraddle the two black keys. This means that the piece can't be transposed into another key without risking the playability of this chord. But no matter; the piece was made to be played in A Major and it stands as a completed work as it is.

Lost Love: Chopin's Prelude in B Minor

I don't know why Chopin wrote so many depressing preludes. They all seem to sound alike. They all could be funeral songs, it seems. Or wait. Maybe some are different. Chopin's Prelude in B minor, Opus 28, Number 6, sounds funereal. It sounds like someone grieving over a loved one that has been lost. So I call it "Lost Love". It could be a significant other that has left them for someone else. It could be a husband or wife that has recently passed away. It could even be for a person that has changed significantly, so they aren't the same person any more. That is what this prelude seems to me. It sounds different from the E minor prelude in that the E minor prelude is more haunting and pensive. It is different from C minor in that the C minor prelude is more formal and majestic. The B minor prelude may be written for the wrong instrument. Most of the melody is in the bass, so that this is really a cello solo. If you play it, the tricky part is to keep the right hand soft so that you don't hear its drone above the melody in the bass. Every once in a while the melody passes into the treble, so it is an interchange between the two parts. The piece does have a notational inconsistency. A note in a chord with a C sharp and an A sharp is written F double sharp, but later it is written G natural. This is causes by a notational paradox in the first instance; the note wants to be both F double sharp and G natural at the same time. Indeed this prelude is indeed a sad melody. Fortunately, tomorrow I will review a happier prelude.

Fits and Starts: Chopin's Prelude in D Major

This Prelude, Opus 28, Number 5, seemed like an ordinary enough tune, and I found it difficult to pin a name on it. Recently, though, I tried playing it. Playing this prelude requires coordination between the two hands and a few jumps of an octave or so. It is a continuous piece with an endless-seeming string of sixteenth notes, six to a measure. To me, when I played it and when I listen to it, the piece does not ever seem to get really going. It goes by fits and starts. It starts first of all with a melody oscillating between B and B-flat (Chopin is using blue notes! The blues had yet to be invented.) Then it resolves into D major, or does it? It starts wandering off again into B minor and continues meandering through a series of harmonies until it finally shoots up to a high D and then settles down to a couple of closing chords. It has a happy feel to it, and sounds pleasant, although its sudden turns keeps you alert. So I find that the prelude has a distinctive character after all.

Will the economy defeat Bush in 2004?

I saw in this morning's Richmond Times-Dispatch (2003 May 8) that Ross MacKenzie said, "Bush II probably cannot prevail in November, 2004, if the economy is further deteriorating or still stagnating - or not clearly recovering." Mr. MacKenzie is reasoning that if the economy turns or stays bad in 2004, then Bush II will be defeated in November, just like his father George H. W. Bush was defeated in 1992 because the economy was in a downturn.

I don't think that will happen. Bush II has two advantages over Bush I. Bush I did not make any innovative changes to Administration policy. Bush II has made at least two - the War on Terror and the Department of Homeland Security. Further, Democrats gained in the 1988 midterm elections, while Republicans gained in the 2002 elections. So while the economy sank the elder Bush, I believe that Bush II will still win in 2004 even with an anemic economy.

For Bush II to be defeated in 2004, other things would have to happen as well; for example, a substantial third party, a charismatic Democratic challenger, social unrest, or major snags in the rebuilding of Iraq. I believe that if two or more of these things happen, Bush will be defeated; otherwise, he will be re-elected. So in 2004, it may not be just the economy.

Moonlight: Chopin's Prelude in E Minor

Chopin's Prelude Opus 28 Number 4 has a haunting mood and slow changes in harmony that make it seem like the light from a fire or the light from shimmering sources, such as moonlight on a lake. Hence I call this one "Moonlight". The melody of this piece isn't much; it goes back and forth between two notes and then it descends. Then like a flute player trying to catch his breath, it pauses, then starts its plaintive melody again. This time it goes through a different string of harmonies. It then soars to a climax and descends into the three-chord ending. At each stage of the harmony, one or two notes change at a time, changing the chord: E minor, F-sharp diminished, F7, F minor 7, and so forth. Of course different notes could have been changed. In fact, this piece can be computerized. I once wrote a program to write a Chopin Prelude in E Minor Opus 28 Number 4 Variant by selecting random notes in the downward descents, which you can play by clicking the name. I only computerized the first half of the prelude; this MIDI file concludes with the original second half. The computer variant sounds pretty much OK but was more discordant and so had a more macabre feel. The computer could have chosen one of millions of Preludes, and in fact Chopin chose one of them and called it his Prelude in E Minor. It is fairly easy to play, but what is tricky is to get the emotion into it because it drags out a sense of melancholy in you and you feel it as you play the tune. It is a good piece to play on a soft summer night.

Four-way Stop Syndrome

Today in my office, my supervisor came out and asked everyone to answer the phones (any phone) if they ring. I replied that that means that if a call comes in, all of us will answer. That will cause mass confusion, and the more people in the office, the greater that confusion will be. The problem was that phones weren't being answered. I call this Four-Way Stop Syndrome, because it reminds me of that horrendous traffic situation, the intersection with stop signs on all four ways. I don't know why they put these up. Four-way Stops can cause accidents. Car A arrives at the intersection and stops. Car B, from a different direction, comes to the intersection and stops. A waits for B to cross. B waits for A to cross. A, not seeing B cross, figures that B has yielded to him and therefore he can cross. B, at the same time, figures that A has yielded to him and therefore he can cross. A crosses. B crosses. Crash. To me the solution is the ordinary two-way stop sign. Select some way to be the one with the right of way, usually the way with more traffic. Then put stop signs on the other way. The people stopping at the stop sign then will yield until there is no cross traffic, and then will cross. There will be no confusion about whether we can go, because the sign directs that. In the case of the phones, a priority order needs to be put on the phones, so that everyone knows exactly who is supposed to answer which phone. So if you are thinking of making an intersection a four-way stop, don't. Yield the right of way to one side or the other.

Roly-Poly: Chopin's Prelude in G Major

Most pieces have a running line of notes or an arpeggio in the melody and chords in the bass. Not in this inverted prelude, Chopin's Prelude in G Major, Opus 28, Number 3. This one has a rolling series of sixteenth notes in the bass, and a melody formed as though it were an accompaniment, with an occasional chord. While the bass tires of the piece roll along, the chords ride happily in the jalopy of this rolling piece. The piece reminds me sort of a toy which you turn upside down, and it rights itself. I therefore call it "Roly-Poly". Playing this piece is an effort to learn the fingering in the bass so you can roll it off your fingertips without stumbling. It is a happy tune, a little like frolicking in the park in the first warm day of spring.

Is God a Definite Integral?

I received the book What Number is God? by Rev. Sara Voss, a UU minister and former mathematics professor in the mail from Amazon.com, and read through parts of it. I have not found which number is God, but I did find out why she thinks of God as a definite integral. It's an interesting analogy. First, a brief explanation (with no symbols) of the definite integral. Go to the site

http://fym.la.asu.edu/~fym/mat210_web/lessons/Ch5/5_4/5_4ol.htm

Ignore the symbols and equations on the page, and look at the diagrams. They show a curve, and the question is how to find the area under the curve. You could break the interval down into subintervals, and then construct rectangles to the curve from the intervals. To find the area, add the areas of all these rectangles. That is not the real area, but only an approximation. If you change the intervals or the method of constructing the rectangles, you are going to get a different approximation. The more intervals you take, the closer you get to the curve so what if you keep taking more and more intervals, going indefinitely more and more intervals? You approach the exact area under the curve. This exact area is called the definite integral of the curve. And there are many ways of breaking down the interval to approximate the definite integral.

Rev. Voss sees religion as the same type of phenomenon. There are many ways of approximate God, and we call these religions. Think of each way of breaking the line into intervals and constructing the rectangles as a religion. Each religion has its own way of approximating the area under the curve, which is God. Each religion approximates the Ultimate Truth in its own way, and there are many different ways of dividing the interval to get to the true area under the curve, the Ultimate Truth. In this view, contradictory religions such as Christianity and Islam are merely ways of dividing the interval in ways that don't mesh with each other. One can improve on these methods by subdividing further; for example, one could go from Christ as God to everyone as God - with a little bit of divinity in each of us. But you still would not be at the ultimate curve, the Ultimate Area. There would always be some parts that don't match. This way of thinking about contradictory religions had not occurred to me before. Eventually in approaching the Ultimate, the contradictions fall away and consistency results.

Anyway, this is the way Rev. Sarah Voss thinks of the definite integral as like God. There is one big difference, in my opinion. The Fourth Principle of my religion, Unitarian Universalism, says that we will never be able to get at The Ultimate. But in integral calculus there is a short cut, an end run, if you will, to get at the ultimate area via another concept: the antiderivative, and this is summed up in the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus: the derivative of a definite integral of a function is the original function. So is there a Fundamental Theorem of Religion? Such, I would suppose, would be The Answer, so I don't think it exists. I also find the set of all transfinite ordinal numbers a better model of God than the definite integral. But I still think the concept of God as definite integral as interesting and illuminating, and the book, in my view, is a good read.

The Monster: Chopin's Prelude in A Minor

This piece, Opus 28, Number 2, is decidedly a different piece. It starts ominously with a bass that reminds me of the guards in "Wizard of Oz" coming to get Dorothy. It is a piece for Halloween. It doesn't even start in A Minor, but rather in E Minor. It seems to settle down for a while, then it mutates into B Minor, and then the harmonies get really out of whack, with naturals and sharps in the treble, and a discordant C double-sharp in the bass, even in the same two-note chord with a C natural. It makes one feel really disoriented. It sounds unsettled and growly; then it settles down into the sad harmonies of A minor clashing against a clanging F natural in the treble, and it finally ends with a plaintive solo and a couple of concluding chords. Because the piece is so discordant and dominated by a booming bass, I call it "The Monster". It is relatively easy to learn to play, but the monster steps are a bit of a stretch at times. If you try to play the piece, watch your left hand. It waddles and undulates in an awkward manner, sort of like the monsters coming out of the dungeon. If you really want this to sound scary for Halloween, plug it into a music program such as Cakewalk and set the monster steps for some low-pitched vibrato bass and the melody for something like Chorus Aahs.

Chasing Kittens: Chopin's Prelude in C Major

I haven't been posting too frequently to this blog so I came up with a good idea for doing so. As of late I have been playing the preludes of Chopin's Opus 28. These have always intrigued me. I learned how to play several of them when I was a child, and I found out later that there are 24 preludes in this opus, one in each of the 24 major and minor keys. They cover a wide range of motions, although the major ones tend to be tranquil or happy and the minor ones either sad or angry. So what I have decided to do is to review in a series of blogs each of the 24 preludes. Further, I will give these preludes names. Chopin did not name them, and that causes some people to object, since names like "Prelude in C Major" don't say anything about the piece. It allows one to be imaginative in saying what the prelude means to them, and I am going to do that, giving each of these gems a name.

I shall start, then with the Prelude in C Major, Opus 28, Number 1. The piece resembles Bach's Well Tempered Clavichord with its rising arpeggios. But it is faster, with a bouncy 6/8 rhythm, and to me it resembles a bunch of kittens that have somehow escaped from a box or cage and are running all over the place. Hence I call this one "Chasing Kittens". I have tried playing this one myself, and find the stretches somewhat hard to deal with, and it is one of these pieces that can get your arms tired if you play it too often. The piece starts out with some simple C major arpeggios, then goes up in pitch and reaches a peak, then settles down to an alteration between C and F chords to a C bass, a passage which reminds me of finally catching all the kittens and putting them back where they belong. It is a sparkling prelude and it is altogether too short, but it sounds complete when it ends.

How to End Cell-Phone Pollution

The latest form of pollution in our society is Cell-Phone Pollution. You hear them everywhere. You are at an important board meeting at work, with some heavy decisions at stake, and then you hear "bitter bitter bitter…" from some phonelet in someone's coat pocket. At a concert where they are playing Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony, the majestic strains of this symphony are broken up by the clanging of Beethoven's "Für Elise" in a tinny tone from a cell phone in the audience somewhere. You are trying to study in a library when a phone breaks the silence with "Danny Boy". And so forth. They are annoying. People request that cell phones be turned off and forbid them in certain public places, but it seems to do no good.

The problem, it seems to me, is that when a person purchases a cell phone, he usually is interested in calling and receiving calls, and not in all the bells and whistles that it has. I call this "Flashing 12:00 syndrome", from the similar phenomenon with VCRs. In other words, the average user does not read the manual and accepts whatever the phone from the box does when it receives a call, and this most often is the usual "bitter bitter bitter" phone ring, although I suspect some phones put in deedle songs such as "Für Elise" as their default. So when someone gets a call while attending a concert, what happens? "Für Elise", that's what. And people get annoyed.

Now there is a vibrate mode, in which the phone vibrates while next to the person. The person feels it and knows there is a call to answer, and it usually doesn't sound too far, so people are not annoyed. Now if everyone would put their phones in vibrate mode, that would end the cell-phone pollution problem. I always put my phone in vibrate mode. I never have it ring or play songs.

But remember that most people don't even think about it and just simply use the default signal, the one that the cell phone companies put in the phones to begin with. So why not make vibrate the default? If cellular phone companies would do that, then 80 or 90% of the people will have their phones in vibrate mode, and most of the cell-phone pollution problem will be eliminated. Now that's up to the phone companies to do that, but if they did, it would help us recover the peaceful atmosphere that we had before the cell-phone pollution became a problem.

Therefore, I urge cell-phone making companies to factory-set their cellular phones to a default of vibrate mode. And then maybe we can hear the movie.

Dobson Syndrome

I am seeking a post-retirement job, so I have been finding ways of rating possible job prospects. I came up with several criteria, two of which are desire and skills. The first describes what I want to do; those jobs dealing with things I am most interested in. The second deals with the knowledge and skills I bring to the job. Which jobs can I do the best. I tried to devise an overall index including these two scales and found them to be so correlated that I am reduced to considering them as a single scale. In other words, I am most interested in what I am best at doing, and vice versa. That seemed logical to me, and it is verified by several job-seeking and self help books I have.

Then I got the word. It is not true. There are people and jobs such that what the person is best at doing is not what the person really wants to do. The example I got this morning is an 87-year-old astronomer named John Dobson. Earlier in his life, he invented the Dobsonian telescope to help bring astronomy to everyone with a simple design. As of late, however, he has been more interested in theories of the universe and in the boundary between science and religion. This means when he gives talks to amateur astronomer groups, he wants to talk about these metaphysical theories, but the astronomers want him to talk about telescope, especially his own design. It is not a happy situation.

And it shows that it is not necessarily true that what you want to do is what you are best at doing. Dobson wants to talk about metaphysics, but he is best at making telescopes. I call this Dobson Syndrome and feel it can hinder you in finding what you really want to do for a living. How can it happen? One guess is that a person changes as he gets older, so what interested him in his younger days does not interest him any more, but he remains skilled in the area. Another is that what you really want to do is not desired by others, so you go into something else that you are skilled at and people appreciate but you don't like to do it.

At this moment the only thing I can say for how to deal with Dobson Syndrome is either to get interested in what you do the best, or get others interested in what you really want to do. This could be hard, and it means that my two scales of desire and skills/knowledge need to be considered separately.

A parable

Once upon a time, a woman by the name of Irene Renee Ann Quinton lived miserably with her husband, who was abusive. He would threaten and belittle her and has attacked her on numerous occasions, even in front of her children. But she persisted in living with him despite the abuse. One day, however, a bunch of people, including police, came into the house, arrested her husband and took him away. Then these people proceeded to tell her just how she should live in her house and how she may manage her life. She replied, "I don't need you to tell me how to live my life. Thank you for getting rid of him, but get lost!"

The Plural of Mouse

Here is another Google game. Search for "plural of mouse is *" -mice. If the plural of mouse is not mice, then what is it? The most frequent answer I got from Google's search of Web sites was meeces. A lot of us are still hung up on the old Trixie, Dixie and Jinxie cartoons, as in "I hates those meeces to pieces!". The first answer I got was irregular. Well, yes, mouse does have an irregular plural. I also got mouses. Several sites insist that the plural of a computer mouse is mouses. This is because a computer mouse is not a tiny mammal, the one that cats go for. It may not be, but it certainly got its name from its resemblance to this creature: the eyes on the front, the general shape, and the corded tail. So in my opinion the plural of a computer mouse is mice. Another plural I found was rats. Not one site said that it was meece. A coworker of mine from 15 years ago, who subsequently died in an automobile accident, said in a newsletter that he distributed that the plural of a computer mouse was "mousi". My favorite plural, though, among the plurals that turned up in the search, was mousies. There's a whole bunch of mousies in this housie!

Followup

Some followup on previous blogs. It looks like people are reacting to Madonna's decoy file which snaps "What the f are you doing?" when you click on it to download it. People are hacking her site, among other things. The full story, at least for a while, is on CNN. I don't approve of such actions as hacking her website either. The best way to reply to Madonna's decoys is not to buy her album.

It looks like SARS is being contained. Vietnam, of all countries, has stopped it. Other countries show a decline, and while the number of cases grew 107 per day over the weekend to 5,020, the rate of growth appears to be slowing.

SARS epidemic

Among other things these past few years, we have been confronted with a disease called sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The action that some people have taken in the world reminds me of the Sliders episode in which the slidonauts wind up in a world overtaken by a disease, and everyone on the streets wears face masks and signs in the restaurant guarantee sterileness and cleanliness. This was a forbidding landscape, and it is lucky that the slidonauts got out OK.

Epidemics have occurred before (such as the AIDS epidemic), but people haven't reacted like this. It is as though people are willing to sacrifice their freedom to protect from a disease. Is this warranted? What are the facts?

So far, SARS has 4,836 cases with 293 deaths, so it kills about 4% of the people it strikes. The symptoms resemble influenza, and in many respects this disease is like influenza. The two start out the same: fever, aches in the joints, and so forth. Recovery usually comes with both diseases, but both are contagious. I graphed the number of cases on Excel and fit an exponential curve to it. I found that on 2004 March 15 if the current growth rate of about 1.1% per day continues, there will be 1,200,000,000 cases, or about the same as the population of China and a significant percentage of the world. I think something is going to intervene by then, because of all the measures taken to control it. Even though it is like influenza, it is caused by a coronavirus, just like the common cold is.

So is this overblown? I say yes. AIDS and Ebola are far more serious threats - they kill everybody (almost) that they infect. This one kills only a small percentage. In future years, they will look back on this epidemic and how we reacted to it, but I feel it will not be as bad as the influenza epidemic of 1918, which killed millions, including my great aunt.

SUUSI and Mars

It's that time of the year again, when I register to go to the Southeast Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute (or SUUSI). So what am I going to do this year?

I enrolled in a workshop to empower my voice, and I also signed up for contra and swing dancing. I am also going on some nature trips, including one to a swimming place in a river.

I am giving three workshops, on Astronomy, Stories of the Sky, and Weaving Paper Polyhedra (see my SUUSI site for details). This will be the first time I have given Astronomy as a workshop to SUUSI, although I have given it to other organizations. So this should be interesting.

Especially since besides SUUSI, the event of the year is Mars. It will be coming closer than it has for the past 15 years; not only is there an opposition this August, but this occurs when Mars is closest to the Sun (perihelion), and hence to Earth. Mars is going to shine big, red, and blazingly bright in the southern sky on all clear nights at SUUSI. This is a planet which we may have our hopes on, that we may be able to walk on it someday, and find out if, perhaps, there ever was life on Mars. And it will be there in the sky, tantalizing us with hope as we go to SUUSI to the enjoyment that provides. This will be the Martian SUUSI.