What’s on your mind?

[rm5]

Additionally, there is a huge stigma surrounding playing "what's appropriate for the repertoire," and "getting down to the last staccato marking in the score." Okay, I think there's something to be said and appreciated about both those things, but I don't necessarily think they apply well in all contexts. The reason why this is promoted in classical tradition is because:

1. According to some people, it is necessary to devise a program where everything fits together perfectly.
2. According to some people, a performer needs to appreciate every single element of what the composer wrote, with no room for interpretation.

I should note that the above two things are NOT my opinion necessarily. I think it's fine in some cases to have a recital program where everything is from different historical periods or by different composers. That's fine to me. Unless the recital is specifically geared towards a certain thing, of course. Otherwise, I think it's okay to have deviation.

Let me make myself clear though: this - what I have said above - is FINE. Where the issue lies is the fact that this kind of stuff is promoted - from what I have observed in my own experience - EVERYWHERE. It is promoted at conservatories (speaking generally, not of any specific institution), during artist residencies, and "by the laws of the trade," so to speak.

My point is that this concept - what I have just described - either didn't exist, or was not promoted as much as it is now, 300 years ago. Since I don't study this and I'm not a musicologist, I don't know the answer. But I have heard, not only from some YouTube videos made by professional musicians, and by some of my own music instructors - that improvisation was not only allowed in the classical realm 300 years ago, but it was ENCOURAGED.

So clearly this whole "no improvisation allowed!" and "you must follow a specific repertoire!" thing is rather recent.

 

[rm5]

Also, on a somewhat related topic, since I've been listening to the transposed versions of songs so much, the originals sound bad to my ears! Best way I can describe it is "jittery" - almost like a how a record player with a messed up belt sounds.

 

[bousozoku]

I just finished judging at the California state science and engineering fair. I was judging in the junior division, which is for students aged 12 through 14 in the physics division, which includes acoustics. Of the 17 semi-finalist projects from the various counties across the state, two of them had to do with classical music. One had to do with bridge placement on string instruments, and the other one examined the layout of symphony orchestrates.

The teaching and appreciation of classical music Is alive and well.

Were the winners all from the rich counties?

We have a number of people who have moved from the San Fran Bay Area to here, but the schools out here as not so good.

 

[bousozoku]

Feeling conflicted.

Yesterday I was at WalMart and as I was walking back to my truck I passed a local business's van with a dog inside. The vehicle was not running and it was upper 80's.

I called the police but didn't have time to wait for them to see if they got there before the driver came out.

I am concerned that somehow his employer will find out and may fire him which is not what I wanted, I just wanted a cop to chew his @$$ out for leaving a dog in a car on a hot sunny day.

I don't know if AZ law provides immunity to break a window to save an animal, so I didn't.

People are *******s sometimes.

When I lived in the Orlando, FL area, I would see one incident a week where a child or a pet died while locked in a vehicle.

The worst was when a car was parked outside a bar with two or three kids. Can you guess where the parent was?

 

[rm5]

UGHHHH!!! Trying to figure out how to get back home for summer vacation has been an absolute nightmare! Ideally, my parents would pick me up here, then we'd drive back over the course of 4 days. Issue is if someone offers me a gig or other work in that 4-day window—in which case I'd have to pack up my entire dorm, figure out where to store everything (which wouldn't be an issue if we drove...) and fly back.

Literally the ONLY thing I dislike about being at an out-of-state university... TRAVEL. I mean, don't ge tme wrong, I absolutely love traveling, but when it's like this, it's a bit stressful. Luckily that's still a month and a half away.

Honestly, it's put me in a terrible mood today, I just wish everything was figured out, but nope.

 

[Apple fanboy]

UGHHHH!!! Trying to figure out how to get back home for summer vacation has been an absolute nightmare! Ideally, my parents would pick me up here, then we'd drive back over the course of 4 days. Issue is if someone offers me a gig or other work in that 4-day window—in which case I'd have to pack up my entire dorm, figure out where to store everything (which wouldn't be an issue if we drove...) and fly back.

Literally the ONLY thing I dislike about being at an out-of-state university... TRAVEL. I mean, don't ge tme wrong, I absolutely love traveling, but when it's like this, it's a bit stressful. Luckily that's still a month and a half away.

Honestly, it's put me in a terrible mood today, I just wish everything was figured out, but nope.

Look at the upside. Couple more years and you won’t even have a summer vacation. I don’t think I’ve had more than a week off at a time in decades.

 

[mtbdudex]

Tomorrow is “4/20” day:
My take on pot. I graduated HS in 1980 and did my share of drugs 1977-1982, have not smoked a joint since 1985.

Yea, it’s a gateway drug, why, because it opens you up to other possibilities for that ever elusive high.

I was high every single day in 11th grade , yep

So legalize it, supply of high school age kids goes up

Once I smoke pot, and liked that high , then of course that opened me up to ... LSD, hash, mesc, cocaine...

I woke up one day nearly shooting herion

Middle of 12th grade

High for 1.5 years

By end of 12th grade I straightened myself out, no hard drugs, just pot for next 2 years ... till quit

So yea, I’m against it ... been there ... done it...

Told my kids all my stories ..

I was upper 90’s% and always felt due to drugs ... I lost out on possibilities...

So yea, F drugs!!

I also realize I’m that “older guy”... and try to not sound preachy to my kids ... but back then if I got caught by the cops ... they’d take the drugs/beer and give a stern warning... way different today

 

[Chuckeee]

Tomorrow is “4/20” day:
My take on pot. I graduated HS in 1980 and did my share of drugs 1977-1982, have not smoked a joint since 1985.

Yea, it’s a gateway drug, why, because it opens you up to other possibilities for that ever elusive high.

I was high every single day in 11th grade , yep

So legalize it, supply of high school age kids goes up

Once I smoke pot, and liked that high , then of course that opened me up to ... LSD, hash, mesc, cocaine...

I woke up one day nearly shooting herion

Middle of 12th grade

High for 1.5 years

By end of 12th grade I straightened myself out, no hard drugs, just pot for next 2 years ... till quit

So yea, I’m against it ... been there ... done it...

Told my kids all my stories ..

I was upper 90’s% and always felt due to drugs ... I lost out on possibilities...

So yea, F drugs!!

I also realize I’m that “older guy”... and try to not sound preachy to my kids ... but back then if I got caught by the cops ... they’d take the drugs/beer and give a stern warning... way different today

I’m of the same generation but just a bit older (I was in the 11th grade in 1976). And while pot is a gateway drug so is alcohol and tobacco. so the question is where do you draw the line?

I use pot in high school And throughout college. And then on again off again through my career and now that I’m retired I’m using it a little bit more regularly (still just a few times a month). I still don’t smoke cigarettes and my drinking is just two or three glasses of wine or beer a week..

Did I try harder drugs? Yeah a few times in college, I tried to acid, shroom, coke. But they just weren’t for me.

Today most of the people my age, and most of the my friends from college are kind of in the same place. We smoke pot once in a while, but it didn’t run or control our lives.

Actually, in my friend/age group, I see more devastation from alcohol and tobacco. I’ve come to believe it is more appropriate to treat pot like those other legal drugs.

 

[rm5]

Look at the upside. Couple more years and you won’t even have a summer vacation. I don’t think I’ve had more than a week off at a time in decades.

This is true! Though hopefully I will have a job where I can take at least one week off per year.

 

[Herdfan]

I’m of the same generation but just a bit older (I was in the 11th grade in 1976). And while pot is a gateway drug so is alcohol and tobacco. so the question is where do you draw the line?

I don't buy the gateway drug theory. Because, yes, alcohol can be substituted for pot for almost every scenario.

I have a friend who is a cop and he and I have daughters of similar ages (his is one year older) and we were discussing our daughters going to college and he was concerned (rightfully) that she would find guys who were just like he was in college and how he worried she would get drunk and have bad things happen. All valid concerns.

I explained I would rather have my daughter hang out with stoners than drinkers and he thought I lost my marbles. Then I asked him how many fights he had broken up from cannabis use, or how many DV calls he had from cannabis use or how many rape calls he had because some girl got stoned.

He just looked at me for while and admitted none. Always alcohol. One thing about cannabis that is not mentioned when compared with alcohol, cannabis use rarely impairs judgement. You always know what you are doing even if you aren't doing it very well.

I will take a gummy once in a while to help me sleep if I have gone and over did it.

 

[fanboy-ish]

Tomorrow is “4/20” day:
My take on pot. I graduated HS in 1980 and did my share of drugs 1977-1982, have not smoked a joint since 1985.

Yea, it’s a gateway drug, why, because it opens you up to other possibilities for that ever elusive high.

I was high every single day in 11th grade , yep

So legalize it, supply of high school age kids goes up

Once I smoke pot, and liked that high , then of course that opened me up to ... LSD, hash, mesc, cocaine...

I woke up one day nearly shooting herion

Middle of 12th grade

High for 1.5 years

By end of 12th grade I straightened myself out, no hard drugs, just pot for next 2 years ... till quit

So yea, I’m against it ... been there ... done it...

Told my kids all my stories ..

I was upper 90’s% and always felt due to drugs ... I lost out on possibilities...

So yea, F drugs!!

I also realize I’m that “older guy”... and try to not sound preachy to my kids ... but back then if I got caught by the cops ... they’d take the drugs/beer and give a stern warning... way different today

I'm 40, and I've seen two friends of mine destroy their lives because of pot.

One is particularly gifted, in high school he had good grades, he sang in a punk band and did sports. Then we discovered pot, we were four guys and three of us stopped by the time we were 19, this other friend kept going and pot acted as a gateway drug for him; he's getting out of it after 15 years of being in and out of rehab, now he's a painter, and a good one, art therapy worked wonders for him, but still lives in a community and his family shunned him, he's 40 like me, but he looks like he's in his late 50s, early 60s.

The other one was found out when he did the medical for the compulsory military service, they found cannabinoids in his blood, he was sent to rehab by the army doctors, to this day, he's still dealing with pot. As far as I know from his sister, he's never used any other drug, he moves from town to town, and it can take weeks, sometimes even months, for his siter to get any news from him.

Not everyone who uses pot will become addicted, as well as not everyone who drinks will become an alcoholic, but those who have a predisposition or are fragile will. However, I think that, as a society, we should move away from a narration that glamorizes and trivializes alcohol and drug consumption, the same way we stopped making cigarettes and tobacco products look cool, manly, or refined. I am a smoker and I'm fairly sure that hadn't cigarettes been perceived as a cool back then (late 90s), today I wouldn't be addicted to nicotine.

 

[bousozoku]

Yes, it's 4/20, and people will already be on the way to Hippie Hill in San Francisco even though there isn't an official event. The local police are conducting DUI stops today. I hope those officers don't get caught.

People without discipline fall victim to almost anything.

Another renter in this house used to be addicted to drugs but then, she came clean and became addicted to religion.

I don't see marijuana as that bad. I graduated high school in 1977. My adoptive grandfather was a mean drunk. A lot of men from that time didn't know when to stop.

Photographing at skate parks more recently, I ended up trying weed a few times. It didn't do anything. In 2014, you could get medical marijuana. Now, anyone of proper age can get it. Some people know when to use it. Others are so high, they can't function.

Meth is more of a problem than weed. What's amazing to me is that someone who couldn't pay attention in class could become a chemist and make their own meth. Then, the blow up their mobile home. I saw a lot of those on the TV news in another state.

 

[Herdfan]

Meth is more of a problem than weed. What's amazing to me is that someone who couldn't pay attention in class could become a chemist and make their own meth. Then, the blow up their mobile home. I saw a lot of those on the TV news in another state.

Meth in low dosages is indicated to treat ADHD. So that kind of tracks.

 

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

Yes, it's 4/20, and people will already be on the way to Hippie Hill in San Francisco even though there isn't an official event. The local police are conducting DUI stops today. I hope those officers don't get caught.

People without discipline fall victim to almost anything.

Another renter in this house used to be addicted to drugs but then, she came clean and became addicted to religion.

I don't see marijuana as that bad. I graduated high school in 1977. My adoptive grandfather was a mean drunk. A lot of men from that time didn't know when to stop.

Photographing at skate parks more recently, I ended up trying weed a few times. It didn't do anything. In 2014, you could get medical marijuana. Now, anyone of proper age can get it. Some people know when to use it. Others are so high, they can't function.

Meth is more of a problem than weed. What's amazing to me is that someone who couldn't pay attention in class could become a chemist and make their own meth. Then, the blow up their mobile home. I saw a lot of those on the TV news in another state.

The problem with marijuana is that, for some people, it only takes one exposure to make them schizophrenic. There is no telling beforehand who it will affect that way.

As well, chronic use causes the same physical brain damage that chronic alcohol use does.

 

[rm5]

Because I personally would rather not talk about it, I will say one thing about addictive/narcotic drugs: I will never take them, because I am very aware of the negative effects, and I don't want to destroy my body in the process.

 

[bousozoku]

The problem with marijuana is that, for some people, it only takes one exposure to make them schizophrenic. There is no telling beforehand who it will affect that way.

As well, chronic use causes the same physical brain damage that chronic alcohol use does.

Right, for some people, it's a problem.

Peanut oil is a deadly chemical for me. Some people are somewhat allergic to peanuts or peanut oil and the majority are not.

Many prescription drugs can cause death in a small number of people. Other people may be allergic to the ingredients.

 

[bousozoku]

Because I personally would rather not talk about it, I will say one thing about drugs: I will never take them, because I am very aware of the negative effects, and I don't want to destroy my body in the process.

I remember listening to the radio and saying something like that when they were talking about Berkeley, California and the free drug movement.

In fifth grade, I made a list of drugs, their names, their street names, their effects, and more. Some of the parents at Science Night wondered about my knowledge. At one point, I was considering being a pharmacist.

You have to be true to yourself.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

The problem with marijuana is that, for some people, it only takes one exposure to make them schizophrenic. There is no telling beforehand who it will affect that way.

As well, chronic use causes the same physical brain damage that chronic alcohol use does.

And some of us are simply allergic to the stuff.

I have long known that I am allergic to nicotine, and now know that I am violently allergic to marijuana.

This stuff is not harmless.

And - despite its deceptive image of harmlessness - it is not as though taking it does not have consequences.

Moreover, I am not convinced that it is not - or does not serve as, - a gateway drug, as I have personally known a number people (all middle class males, idiots from good backgrounds that I grew up with), some of whom subsequently died, who got into this stuff, having started out with marijuana.

In any case, I can honestly say that the two worst sinus attacks in my life, (when I had to retire to the kitchen, filling kitchen tissue - ordinary tissue didn't suffice - with what streamed from my nostrils for quite literally several hours), occurred at parties (decades ago), where many of the participants smoked marijuana.

Actually, these days, as with smoking cigarettes, I simply ban it entirely from my house.

 

[avz]

Moreover, I am not convinced that it is not - or does not serve as, - a gateway drug, as I have personally known a number people (all middle class males, idiots from good backgrounds that I grew up with), some of whom died, who got into this stuff, having started out with marijuana.

I find the gateway/"slowboiling" concept is very interesting.

It is like Metallica can be seen as a gateway to a more extreme metal music. You start with Metallica's "For Whom The Bell Tolls" and before you know it you are rocking to and find incredibly uplifting "Sacrificial Suicide" by Deicide.

 

[bousozoku]

Yesterday, I made some jokes to people in my check lane about 4/20. Some didn't even know (or pretended to not know) and learnt something new. Others would grin. Loads of people were buying loads of snacks. I wonder how many bags of Frito-Lays' Munchies were sold at stores yesterday.

The people who are typically high when they come to the store didn't even visit. I wonder if they were in San Francisco. I watched the news from there and it didn't look like a huge crowd. It reminded me a bit of those early days at Berkeley on the news.

It's always good to see people getting along.

 

[bousozoku]

And some of us are simply allergic to the stuff.

I have long known that I am allergic to nicotine, and now know that I am violently allergic to marijuana.

This stuff is not harmless.

And - despite its deceptive image of harmlessness - it is not as though taking it does not have consequences.

Moreover, I am not convinced that it is not - or does not serve as, - a gateway drug, as I have personally known a number people (all middle class males, idiots from good backgrounds that I grew up with), some of whom died, who got into this stuff, having started out with marijuana.

In any case, I can honestly say that the two worst sinus attacks in my life, (when I had to retire to the kitchen, filling kitchen tissue - ordinary tissue didn't suffice - with what streamed from my nostrils for hours), occurred at parties (decades ago), where many of the participants smoked marijuana.

Actually, these days, as with smoking cigarettes, I simply ban it entirely from my house.

It's sad that you're that allergic. I sympathise, as when I got Chinese food for Lunar New Year back in 2020 and found that they apparently cooked something in peanut oil. I was coughing up peanut oil for more than five weeks. Every time I coughed at work, someone seemed to point at me and yell "Coronovirus!"

The only real problem I have with marijuana is that people try to drive. No one should be driving under the influence.

 

[rm5]

Actually, these days, as with smoking cigarettes, I simply ban it entirely from my house.

So does my family. No reason to have it around at all.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

It's sad that you're that allergic.

Not really.

I cannot abide the stuff, and deplore attempts to portray it as "harmless". It's not harmless, nor does taking it occur without consequence.

In any case, I'm also (totally) allergic to nicotine.

I sympathise, as when I got Chinese food for Lunar New Year back in 2020 and found that they apparently cooked something in peanut oil. I was coughing up peanut oil for more than five weeks. Every time I coughed at work, someone seemed to point at me and yell "Coronovirus!"

My sympathies.

I cannot think of an Asian cuisine that does not appeal to me.

The only real problem I have with marijuana is that people try to drive. No one should be driving under the influence.

Or doing an exam under the influence.

Or talking pure drivel at length - while assuming that you are somehow aware, enlightened, and spiritual, - while under the influence.

I accept - or, rather, I am open to arguments about possible medicinal (that is, possible proven medicinal) benefits to marijuana (although, I understand that the scientific arguments may still be out on that).

However, I also think that "gateway argument" has some validity.

Above all, I think that marijuana gets far too easy (and uncritical) a press, and a pass, in society, and is all too casually excused the sort of critical analysis and interrogation that other drugs such as alcohol, heroin, cocaine are subject to.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

So does my family. No reason to have it around at all.

Agree completely.

 

[bousozoku]

Not really.

I cannot abide the stuff, and deplore attempts to portray it as "harmless". It's not harmless, nor does taking it occur without consequence.

In any case, I'm also (totally) allergic to nicotine.

My sympathies.

I cannot think of an Asian cuisine that does not appeal to me.

Or doing an exam under the influence.

Or talking pure drivel at length - while assuming that you are somehow aware, enlightened, and spiritual, - while under the influence.

I accept - or, rather, I am open to arguments about possible medicinal (that is, possible proven medicinal) benefits to marijuana (although, I understand that the scientific arguments may still be out on that).

However, I also think that "gateway argument" has some validity.

Above all, I think that marijuana gets far too easy (and uncritical) a press, and a pass, in society, and is all too casually excused the sort of critical analysis and interrogation that other drugs such as alcohol, heroin, cocaine are subject to.

I only speak drivel under the influence of life. 😆

Peanut oil has no boundaries. Any cuisine can be affected by a choice to use the cheapest oil possible.

The gateway argument goes along with my statement that a person without discipline will fall victim to anything. If you can control yourself, unless you're violently kidnapped and put through torture, you're probably not going to fall victim and become addicted to anything.

If marijuana has been getting a pass, I'm surprised. When it was clearly illegal, I would see news articles about the police beating a smoker for having marijuana versus letting someone go but taking their bottle of alcohol.

In retail, loads of people would queue up for alcohol on Thursday and Friday. There was certainly no stigma about getting passed-out drunk. They'd just laugh.

I don't bother with either, although I've got a bottle of Geikkeikan o-sake from 2019. 😁