Sunday, December 2, 2007

Things to think about

Beethoven was special. He built a musical bridge from the Classical to the Romantic period. Some interesting questions come to my mind which I might or may not answer.
1, What are some things I could not do if I could not hear?
2, When Beethoven was deaf, he used conversation books. People could write their questions and comments on blank pages in these books. Can I just spend one hour using conversation books to communicate with people?
3, Beethoven was inspired by nature and social events, what kind of things can inspire me to do a better performance?
4, Beethoven changed music history, what history am I going to change?

Beethoven vs. Mozart

In my piano literature class, we just finished learning about Beethoven's piano music. Beethoven is one of my most favorite composers, I think I need to write something about him. I would like to compare Mozart with Beethoven. Both of them are very famous and left a lot of great music, but their music are very different.
Mozart was happy, Cheerful, and not very responsible with money. Beethoven was moody, ill-tempered, and handled business very well.
Mozart's music writing was neat and was almost always completed in his head before he ever wrote it down. Beethoven's music writing was sloppy and he was always making corrections. Beethoven could support himself by writing music for the public rather than kings and queens. His music didn't have to be for parties or entertaining , like composers before him. Mozart had to depend on royalty to pay his wages.
Beethoven published his first symphony when he was 30. Mozart had already written almost 40 symphonies when he was the same age./ Mozart married, had children, died at 35, and was buried in an unmarked grave.
Beethoven never maried nor had children. He died when he was 56. His funeral was attended by thousands of people.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

supervised teaching

I am taking Supervised Teaching course this semester. I feel it is very helpful for me. I used to foucus teaching on the details of the pieces, but neglect the general thing from the student himself(herself). Now I know that I need to give students a range, and let them play different kind of pieces with various characters. Find ideas and reasons behind music, let them know how to practice themselves.
" If you give a Hungry man a fish, he can eat it, and tomorrow he will be hungry again.
If you give hime a fishing rod, he can catch fish and feed himself. "

presentation of Theology

Theology is a very broad topic for disscussing. I spent several days for doing research about it, and felt headache. The topic is just like from a small dune to a big mountain. Whenever a question showing up, you want to work out it, but the one question connect another one, finnaly the questions become a chain. I wish I were a student in theology department, it would be easy for me.
I am still not sure if I would talk correctly or not, but generally I worked hard for doing it.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Mozart's Requiem

Mozart's Requiem Mass in D minor (K.626) was composed in 1791. It was his last composition, and is one of his most powerful and reognized works.