October Hello

[Ella Beck]

Hi there -
Just joining this forum out of curiosity and hope I'll be able to enjoy posting about music here.

It took about three gos to get here and I still haven't sorted out how to set up my profile and avatar, so my apologies. I am not much good at IT.

As regards the main topic I am not an expert either - but I am a fan of just about every sort of classical music from the year dot to the twenty-first century.

Hope to learn more and meet some new people on this site.

 

[Ella Beck]

Sorry for plastering so many threads on to this forum today - I just wanted to be able to start up a profile, which you're not allowed to do till you've got ten posts, just as on Talk Classical, where I'm also a member.

I'll be quiet now until somebody replies. I promise!

 

[John Watt]

Ella Beck! I just hafta say, when I'm out on a long distance bike-hike,
stopping to take a break beside the Adam Beck power plant is ordinary behavior for me.
I even have some copper fittings from the 1920's that were used there.

It's nice to see someone new who isn't reluctant to post.
You'll see it's very quiet here.
A couple of the older members even posted a "it's getting moribund" thread in discussions.
I see you're from England. I speak a little Gaelic.

Let the fontage begin!

 

[Ella Beck]

Ella Beck! I just hafta say, when I'm out on a long distance bike-hike,
stopping to take a break beside the Adam Beck power plant is ordinary behavior for me.
I even have some copper fittings from the 1920's that were used there.

It's nice to see someone new who isn't reluctant to post.
You'll see it's very quiet here.
A couple of the older members even posted a "it's getting moribund" thread in discussions.
I see you're from England. I speak a little Gaelic.

Let the fontage begin!

Thanks, Mr Watt.

(Ee, tha munna speak t'Gaelic, mind - Ah'm from Yorkshire.
http://www.nymcam.co.uk/081502.htm )

 

[John Watt]

Oh no! Please don't call me Mister Watt. I always say that.
I'm not a Mister or a Sir and I don't want to be.
I know that's the English coming out in you, and you can't help it.
I'm pretty sure you don't want me to call you Madam.

That's a very impressive show of font you have going on here.
I have never done the "originally posted" thing,
or mixed the font up for a single posting. It looks very nice.

Bay-an-uck let, blessings on you!

And Ella, no matter whose mind matters about minding classical music,
the best way to play the beginning of Beethovens' Sonata in C#minor,
is with a Stratocaster through a mild distortion and phase shifter,
using a 100 watt Marshall stack with custom full range speakers,
being as loud as a symphony.
Feeling the resonance in your body, holding the strings with your fingers,
is a beautiful thing to be, and it makes the music come alive in me.

Unfortunately, when it starts becoming all ten fingers on the keys,
I get left far, far behind, until I start to play a lead solo.

That was a nice photo tour of the area around your home.
You English with your standing stones.
Around here, the natives liked to lay around and chisel into exposed bedrock,
now called petroglyphs. Some of our local ones show Viking ships and warriors.
It's a lot easier to set your case of beer or bottle of alcohol down on a petroglyph, and your and your friends,
why the province buys up properties that have them and make them provincial parkland.
Here's some long distance bike-hike photos, being outside for almost two days.

Niagara Falls at night with the new lights.
Lake Erie with a heavy mist that obscures the sun.
A recreational path that at the perimeter, goes around the Niagara Peninsula.
This section is almost straight from Port Colborne to Fort Erie, seeing marshland here.
This is built over an old railroad track.
Turn right off this path at side paths and roads, and you see dunes along the lake or swamps.
That's the Peace Bridge at Fort Erie, a Buffalo female artist hired to light it up.
It has changing lights, going blue to purple, with different patterns.
Jimi Hendrix crossed this Peace Bridge, but I don't think his peace was what the original architects had in mind.
That still doesn't matter.

 

[Ella Beck]

Thanks, John Watt. Have a nice day.

Well, I think that just about wraps it up for my introductory thread.

Greetings to anyone else who's out there and may drop by.
Going to get my binoculars out.

 

[John Watt]

As far as your binoculars go,
does that mean you're looking for a Norwegian Blue?
I haven't seen any flying sheep for quite a while.

 

[Ella Beck]

My main interests in classical music are early music and baroque.
I like bits and pieces from every era, though. I look forward to reading the music threads on MIMF.

 

[John Watt]

I have spent some time on historic harpsichords...

I want to reassure you about my posting after you, not everywhere, not yet.
This is the only music domain I visit, unless you consider YouTube a musical domain.
I was an internet sensation six years ago with my inventive guitar,
and spent hours replying to questions and what got to be haters and negators in American domains.
That really turned me off to public music forums, when email went beyond them to my personal address.
My forum history was like this.
I could see a forum where a topic could have 40 to 50 views and five to seven replies after a few months.
I would post about my guitar with the two videos I paid to have made,
and get over 500 views and 250 replies in over a week. That was fun for me, having too much time on my hands,
and using a computer system at night that was quiet, waking people up with my typewriter.
Egglist, what is Kijiji in England, offered me a free life-time top of the page listing,
if I posted about my guitar there. They were too late. I was on to India already.

I really like Frederik Magles' music and his videos. That's what keeps me here.
I see the interior email here as being used by his friends more than the public posting.
They are musicians who are traveling the world playing or singing with foreign symphonies.
I even mailed Frederik Magle a money order for $75 Canadian, as thanks for all my domain use.

My references to the Norwegian Blue and flying sheep are from the original black and white,
half hour Monty Python Show.

I understand your musical interests, but let me urge you to watch "onacarom" videos.
He calls them "poetic videos", and I agree. Very expressive, very detailed, with thoughtful songs.
I always find they inspire some thoughts in me, and I always comment.
He's from South America, Brazil or Guatemala, I'm not sure.

I'm a lumber jack and I'm okay.
I work all night and I sleep all day.

 

[Ella Beck]

Here's an example of a crossover of my musical interests - Scottish folk music and baroque music.
It's the Hawthorn Sonata by the eighteenth century composer James Oswald:

 

[elderpiano]

Here's an example of a crossover of my musical interests - Scottish folk music and baroque music.
It's the Hawthorn Sonata by the eighteenth century composer James Oswald:

That's really lovely Ella, is that you playing ?

 

[Ella Beck]

That's really lovely Ella, is that you playing ?

Oh, I wish! :grin:
No, it's an Australian baroque ensemble, Shane Lestideau & the Evengreen Ensemble.

I do have the music for this sonata, but I chickened out of playing it, I'm afraid.
However, I have another book of shorter baroque pieces called 'Thistle and Minuet - 16 Easy Pieces from the Scottish Baroque' which I worked through with Fiddle Guru (my teacher is an HIP Baroque Professional) with my baroque bow. They were gorgeous tunes which I could more or less manage.

 

[John Watt]

I always talk about Sons and Daughters of the Gael who speak Gaelic,
and if I just said Scottish I'd be going for broke.

I can listen and comment on the intrinsic value of that performance,
but I have never been able to embed a video as you have.
Here's a display of tartan I wear, and... as a special visual treat,
a wall panel I half-made myself for a special left-handed musical event,
that was held in Dunburntwon Castle for the laser-cut cutting-edge concert.
Yes, you can't even buy little strawberry stickers over here without seeing laser cut artwork.

I can feel a magle.dk duet coming on next, if my posting here with a photo,
is enough to create a page two.

 

[Ella Beck]

I grew up in this town - answers on a postcard, please:

 

[John Watt]

Like other people whose ancestors didn't go through the Dark Ages,
I have over 20/50 vision, and my small print could be almost a chapter on a postcard.

This is a beautiful photo, as much for the layout as the content.
The stone fence, or ballistrade, is a visual pointer toward the distant, more complex stone-works.

The green sveld looks like a wave reaching up against a stoney shore,
leading up to the darker greens of the trees that carry as areas of green in the city.
I can see how the camera accented the grey lines between the stones, a nice detail.

My parents waited to get married, wanting a Highland Reverend to come to Welland,
to officiate their ceremony and work at the church they were founding and charter members of.
I have never used this scan as introducing myself here in new members,
but it shows you the fine print my ancestors like to read.
These are pages from a ceremonial Holy Bible I inherited.
You can see an authentic Holy Bible doesn't end at Revelation.

That's not an ordinary military cap, what was my fathers'.
That's untarnished Scottish silver, an ancient design still in use today.
The pillowcase is over 120 years old and came from a Scottish castle.
My great-grandmother made it, the green and yellow being Royal Buchanan.
When you hold it up to daylight, the little holes create a light show around the design, very beautiful.
The red, which means being of the blood and goes with the white light, has faded a little.

 

[Ella Beck]

Classical music - in some ways there are more people listening to it than ever before, with the technology we have. In other ways, it's fallen out of mainstream education and is much less fashionable and popular with young people.

As for learning music - there never could be a better time. If I want to learn a new tune, I can find it on YouTube. If I want to listen to a classical composer that someone else recommends, ditto.

 

[Ella Beck]

i belong to a number of internet forums, dealing with a number of subjects, and I've learned a lot - mainly about human nature.

 

[John Watt]

Hmmmm! I'm going to disagree with "much less fashionable and popular with young people".
For sure, North American culture isn't about being knowledgeable with composers and the names of compositions,
it's about classical music being used in the soundtracks of movie and TV shows.
And if royalties were involved, for sure, classical music wouldn't be used when locals could financially benefit.

Coming up against haters in American guitar forums made me think of a new word,
because hate is far greater than anonymous predatory conduct.
I forget what country singer came up with "negatory" in a song,
making me think of "negators", people who just want to put you down,
with a blend of alligator, like they want to take a big chomp out of you.

You can only trust me and have every confidence in me,
my dearest Ella Beck, yes, oh yes,
because we both have names that are four letters each,
with a last name that is also a word.
I don't have to dive very deep into my human nature,
to know that you're not at everyones' beck and call.

 

[Ella Beck]

I was lucky in that York, where I grew up - see above, mystery city - had a scheme whereby pupils could have free violin lessons in school. This was really where I got to grips with classical music. I remember playing Handel's March from Scipio for the first time, and thinking, 'this is lovely'!

 

[Ella Beck]