by Kurt Knecht | May 19, 2012 | Uncategorized
Pietro Agostini (c. 1635 – 1680) was like a lot of composers that I know. He had extra-musical interests that wound up causing him a lot of trouble. Giuseppe Pitoni says that Agostini “led a swash-buckling and notorious life and had a natural...
by Kurt Knecht | May 19, 2012 | Uncategorized
Haven’t had time to post recently. I’ll try to get back on my game. In the meantime, enjoy this description from Aelred (c. 1109-1166). He doesn’t appear to be very pleased with the new music the kids are trying out in...
by Kurt Knecht | May 8, 2012 | Uncategorized
Adam de Halle (13th century) is quite rightly the most famous of the trouvères. He was also commonly known as Adam le Bossu (Adam the Hunchback). Funny thing is, we have record of him explaining that it was a family name and that he wasn’t personally...
by Kurt Knecht | Apr 30, 2012 | Uncategorized
Mostly musicology will be a new set of posts of music history stories that I find amusing. The first entry is John Abell (1653-?). Scottish composer, countertenor and lutenist. The Groves dictionary has this wonderful story.”Upon his arrival at...
by Kurt Knecht | Apr 28, 2012 | Uncategorized
The fabulous Betsy Bobenhouse was able to get a little funding together for a commission to write a piece for her student recorder ensemble. Having never written for recorder ensemble before, I quickly sent of messages to composer friends asking for...
by Kurt Knecht | Apr 18, 2012 | Uncategorized
As soon as I made yesterdays post, I received some comments via Twitter and Facebook about self-publishing. An interesting blog post from Clay Shirky also popped up on my Twitter feed at the same time.I think Clay gets it right when he says, “Publishing is not...
by Kurt Knecht | Apr 17, 2012 | composers, kurt knecht, Uncategorized
I have a few thoughts about the state of things for composers that I will post over the next few days. Stay tuned for more exciting and depressing thoughts.I have a trusted friend who is a wonderful musical mind and a genuine and caring person. He happens to be an...
by Kurt Knecht | Apr 8, 2012 | doppler shift, music, Uncategorized
Dr. Weiss wrote back and asked if it would be possible to produce any major (or minor) chord of higher or lower frequency using the Doppler shift.(You can read the previous post here.)The problem with this is that once we hit 340 m/s, we are at the sound barrier. As I...
by Kurt Knecht | Apr 7, 2012 | doppler shift, music, Uncategorized
A physician friend phoned me the other day with an interesting problem. He was discussing the Doppler shift with some physics friends. They wondered if it was possible to hear a chord shift from major to minor due to the Doppler shift. If you don’t know anything about...
by Kurt Knecht | Apr 6, 2012 | Uncategorized
Here’s a little 12 tone arrangement of the Passion Chorale that I scratched out in a few minutes the other day for our SPACE service. For all of you that don’t believe that I wrote serial music for 10 years, here’s the proof. Of course, this had to...
by Kurt Knecht | Mar 29, 2012 | Uncategorized
Because it has become a topic of interest once again amongst all the young parents that I find in my life right now, I will recapitulate the two rules that my children where taught from their infancy. If you ask them, “What are the rules?”, they will...
by Kurt Knecht | Mar 24, 2012 | creativity, kurt knecht, robert woody, science, Uncategorized
The internets are all worth it if I get to interact with such a fertile mind as the one Bob Woody carries around in his skull. You can read his response to my last post here. Let me say a few things in reply.I am certainly not opposed to technique in any sense. In...
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