These are really prototypes. I'm hoping someday to realize this kind of thing in app form, but I've already found them very useful for navigating large-scale pieces in lectures on form and the like. These may not work well on mobile devices as they're designed to take advantage of larger screens. Note that these may take some time to load, so please be patient. Included are guides for:
- Bach: Cantata No. 4 (least developed)
- Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 (all)
- Beethoven: Symphony No. 3, 1st mvt.
- Beethoven: Piano Sonata, Op.111, 2nd mvt.
- Brahms: Symphony No. 4, 4th mvt.
- Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto, 1st mvt.
- Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro, Act II Finale
- Solfèd - a solfège-based bird-feeding game.
The two Bach canon videos have garnered more than 250,000 views combined, which has always kind of astonished me. Someone's using them for something. The Poulenc visualizes the looping quality of his most famous piece, and the Haydn reveals how orchestration turns a D Major scale into something special.
- Bach: Crab Canon
- Bach: Neverending Canon
- Poulenc: Carrousel perpétuel
- Haydn Sunrise
UNEXPECTED CONNECTIONS
- Webern in Mayberry (2nd Viennese School in Hollywood)
- The Rite of Appalachian Spring (Copland owes a lot to Stravinsky)
- A Bach Courante in Duet with its Double (Counterpoint not intended to be heard as such)
- The Rite of Eroica - Stravinsky's chords fit right into Beethoven's musical drama
- The Reich of Spring - Iconic Stravinsky + Iconic Reich = ?
- Somewhere between Beethoven and Strauss - origins of "Somewhere" ?
- The Rite of Stormtroopers - perhaps not so unexpected that Williams borrows some Stravinsky
- A lonely bassoon note links Mendelssohn to Copland (just odd; not really helpful!)
HOW MUSIC WORKS
- Mozart's 3rd, 4th, and 5th violin concertos stitched together seamlessly (?) - reveals patterns common in Mozart's syntax
- Mr. Stravinsky's Random Accent Generator - explores whether Stravinsky's asymmetries are the best asymmetries
- Tchaikovsky's Endlessly Looping Sequence - fun illustration of a sequence in action
- Musical Storyboarding - hearing the big picture in sonata form
- 12-tone Sandbox - building and manipulating 12-tone matrices is fun!
- Backwards Satie - reveals directionlessness of Satie's music
- UPDATE: Gymnopédie style randomized and 12-tone-ized
MORE MASHUPS
- Classical Mashups - YouTube playlist of various musics smashed together
SPORTS + MUSIC
- Atonality on Ice (helps explain how bewildering atonality might be compelling)
IF YOU LIKE WORDS THAT RHYME (on "hot" music industry topics from many years ago)
PERFORMANCE PRACTICE
- How Slow Can You Go? - Callas and Fleming face off in O mio babbino caro
- In C Practice - get your students in shape for that inevitable In C read-through with this handy practice video.
- Sax and Violence - (really should be "sax instead of violins" - exploring the new rage for saxophone ensembles.)
OTHER FUN STUFF
- Testing With the Stars - composers talk back on exams
- J. Peterman sells Schubert & Stravinsky
- Chopin's "Minute" Waltz - in exactly one minute
AWESOME BERNSTEIN LECTURE
- The Infinite Variety of Music - OK, it's Bernstein's lecture, not mine - but I uploaded and annotated it.
Let me know what you think...
