Tag Archives: Mozart

Crescendo

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Crescendo: (n) a gradual, steady increase in loudness or force.

I do realize there’s a danger in over-analyzing things. It can become tedious, if not obnoxious. Yet I will tell you—life becomes much simpler when you first realize it’s supposed to be simple, and then you start looking for the parallels that dwell behind every experience and lurk beneath each rock.

Over the years I have played my share of music.

Some people have even accused me of being a musician.

I’ve written songs and I’ve composed about eight symphonies (though Mozart and Beethoven shouldn’t be worried about their day jobs.)

Music has taught me a lot.

That’s not a very profound statement, but once again—simple.

Music knows what the key is meant to be in every situation.

It finds a melody, so some sensibility can be mustered for the hearer.

It certainly acknowledges the need for harmony.

And it has a great desire to strike a chord of commonality among us.

But never does music teach us anything more than it does with the crescendo.

Some people live their lives full out, loud, always punctuating their crescendo to the maximum. Then when they need to say something essential or shout out a truth, no one listens because they are always blaring and trumpeting their feelings.

The wisdom of music is to start your piece quietly and build.

Let’s be honest—if the audience doesn’t want to hear the song or doesn’t prefer the tunefulness of it, playing it more loudly does not achieve much of anything. But if you can acquaint all those around you with a theme they really embrace, by the time you get to the finale, you can generate a crescendo that triumphs the message and the music to the climax.

I used to be of a mindset that the louder I said something, the more emphatic and powerful it became. But I just ended up in a room with a bunch of fellow bellowers, shouting over the top of one another.

I shall never forget the night I was playing a concert, and the band that was on right before our troupe closed out with a screaming anthem, leaving the audience leaping to its feet, applauding wildly.

I realized there was no way to top that, so I looked for a bottom. I took the stage with just my guitarist and sang our sweetest, most childlike ballad. By the time I finished, the attention was mine. If I had desired, I could have manufactured my own crescendo. There was no hurry. It wasn’t a competition.

Turn down the noise.

First in your own mind—your own twitter—and then patiently let it all tone down around you.

Take a deep breath, pick your moment, make sure it’s timely…

CRESCENDO.

 

Subscribe to Jonathan’s Weekly Podcast

Good News and Better News

 

Classical

Classical: (adj) standard, classic.

I have worked for 22 years with an oboist.

She’s a little bit Mozart; I’m a little bit rock and roll.

When we teamed up, I think she was concerned that our musical tastes might be ill-suited for one another. She had played in symphony
orchestras, and I had bopped around with gospel, blues and pop.

What she did not know was that as a boy of eleven years of age, I got hooked on a record series called “The 25 Greatest Melodies of All Time” and “The 50 Most Influential Classical Music Pieces.” So along with listening to rock and roll and some gospel music, I played my recordings of Strauss, Wagner, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Rachmaninoff.

It was perfectly produced–the records didn’t have so much of each composition to bore me, just the highlights. What you might call the Cliff notes of the masters.

I loved the music. To this day, I think my partner is a little surprised when I insert a bit of understanding (or sometimes misunderstanding) of the music of that era. Matter of fact, she and I joined together to write some symphonies–our tribute to the styling, with the addition of our original juice.

It’s too bad we have to call something “classical.” It scares off the best market–young humans. After all, why would they want to listen to any music their parents might enjoy?

But what they don’t understand is that these composers who wrote this dynamic material were just a bunch of radical, rebellious, rag-tag and reckless adolescents.

 

Listen to Stitcher

Donate Button

Austrian

Austrian: (noun) a citizen of a republic in central Europe

I often laugh out loud at my American sense of intelligence.dictionary with letter A

Here is how I would describe the average American’s assessment of the entire world: it’s like a huge coffee-table book full of colored pictures with one-line captions.

In other words, we have a picture in our minds of what everything in the world consists of, and then only one line of explanation to reinforce the vision.

I am completely confident that Austria is a country filled with normal people, computers, vice and virtue and typical human behavior.

But my personal caption to this Austrian tableau would be: “The Sound of Music” meets “Strauss waltz.”

So I would imagine a country filled with people walking around singing all the time or on their way to a rehearsal with Mozart.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, but since I’ve only allowed myself a one-line caption for the picture, I’m afraid they’ll just have to live with my assessment.

Donate Button

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

*******************

NEW BOOK RELEASE BY JONATHAN RICHARD CRING

WITHIN

A meeting place for folks who know they’re human

 $3.99 plus $2.00 S&H

$3.99 plus $2.00 Shipping & Handling

$3.99 plus $2.00 Shipping & Handling

Buy Now Button

 

Akron

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Akron: (n) a city in northeastern Ohio; population 217,074. Noted as a center for the rubber industry, the first rubber factory was established there in 1870 by B. F. Goodrich.

It was a process called “vulcanization,” which had absolutely nothing to do with Mr. Spock or mind melding. I know very little about it–except that tires for cars are the blessed by-product.

But for me, Akron has a very different association.

On a Tuesday night, I drove the 116 miles from my home to a little coffeehouse in Akron called The Avalon. I was young, foolish, energetic and very viable, which was cancelled out by my penchant for stupid decisions.

I had just started a music group and we were looking for anywhere to perform, where people would listen for a few moments and hopefully praise us for our efforts instead of giving us the benefit of needful critique.

The Avalon coffeehouse agreed to let us come and sing a couple of songs, so we were ecstatic. I knew nothing about this venue. As it turned out, it was one of those spiritual youth hostels, where people under the age of thirty gathered to teeter in an existence in spirituality would not totally disrupt their carnal pursuits.

On the other hand, my little group consisted of small-town-America high school graduates who had all the travel sensibilities of Christopher Columbus heading for the West Indies but settling for the Caribbean.

So the first thing we did was dress up for the occasion. All I owned was a fancy dress coat with a shirt and tie. The two girls traveling with me had their prom dresses from the previous year, and felt they shouldn’t go to waste, so why not wear them to the Avalon?We also traveled with a young hobbit-looking oboe player, who wore glasses which resembled goggles from a steel mill.

So you can imagine the surprise of the young hippies at The Avalon, dressed in blue jeans and hemp blouses and shirts, with bare feet, when the prom king and his two queens showed up.

Even though there was a pending snicker in the air, to their credit, the patrons set aside their bigotry and gave an ear to “Goober and the two Gooberettes.”

We sang a song called “Jesus Generation,” which was about the corniest thing I’ve ever written, and a rendition of the Beatitudes called “Blessed,” which had a prelude played on the oboe suitable for chamber orchestras in the Mozart era.

We survived.

Matter of fact, there was a level of appreciation–perhaps mainly for our courage in showing up–which warmed my heart.

And to top the evening off, for the first time in my life, the hat was passed and we left that small gathering with $33.25, believing we were successful prospectors from Sutter’s Mill.

I don’t know what they said about us after we left. It doesn’t matter. But for one night, cultures clashed without the need for violence, ridicule or debate.

It is how I will always remember Akron.

It is the blessing I received at The Avalon.

 

Acoustic

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acoustic: (adj.) of music or musical instruments not having electrical amplification: e.g. acoustic guitar

  • It has to be fun.
  • It has to be humble.
  • And it has to be willing to learn.

Those are the three ingredients I think are necessary to make any adventure workable, enjoyable and realistic. Whenever any group of people takes themselves so seriously that they believe they’ve arrived at the apex of all understanding or the pinnacle of all talent, they are obnoxious and in some ways, dangerous.

This is true of musicians.

Music, which was meant to be a heartfelt explosion of joy, intimacy and emotion, has become, God forbid, a craft. And as craftsmen, we sit around and discuss the subtleties of the use of particular implementations which hold our delicate treasures together.

Thus the word acoustic.

So the rock band, which was once willing to admit “they only knew four chords and that’s why their music sounded the way it did,” pretentiously now does a documentary film, sharing their music acoustically instead of using electronic assistance. We’re supposed to stand back in awe of these cave men, who have discovered that there is some little world outside their enclosure, and mull over their genius simply because … “they’ve unplugged.”

I love music.

  • Music was God’s way of saying life should be tuneful.
  • Music was God’s apology for conversation.
  • And music is our way of expressing ourselves without insisting that the whole room listen to us pontificate.

So we should HUMBLY pursue it, realizing our limitations and ceasing to make excuses for our frequent bobbles.

But instead, we proclaim some people who compose to be “masters,” and everyone else mere “minstrels.”

So rather than enjoying the fact that other people have picked up our instrument and exceeded our efforts, we instead attempt to tear them down because they are not purists and don’t honor the traditions of syncopation or structure.

YUK.

I don’t care if you rock, jazz, square dance, hillbilly, rap or insist on Mozart. Be humble about it and have some fun. You’re not a better musician because you play an acoustic guitar instead of an electric one. It’s not a better auditorium because it’s acoustically adjusted to the high A-sharp on the first violin.

It’s supposed to be joyful. “A joyful noise”–remember that? So unless you plan on giggling and dancing, don’t come my way.

Acoustic set.

Somebody needs to take off the rubber nose and the big floppy shoes.