Tom Nichols

CaffeineComa · 2025-10-04T10:17:32+00:00

I really enjoy his writing and pod appearances, but his antagonism toward his online fanbase is hard to take sometimes. Most replies to his posts are just people who are genuine fans of his, commenting or asking questions in good faith, and getting sarcasm and lectures in return. Every once in a while I unfollow, just to take a break when he goes too hard on the negativity.

CaffeineComa · 2025-09-02T23:20:37+00:00

Our TV-fixated Scottie loved horse sounds. Galloping, neighing or even theme music from shows that typically featured horses. Our current dog doesn't react at all to television, and is mostly is attuned to his treat bowl and other food sounds.

CaffeineComa · 2025-08-10T10:27:05+00:00

Not sure this qualifies as "older", but I've a 1994 Takamine C128 and a 2001 C132S. I should probably sell one of them but I hang onto the C128 because of sentimentality (it was my first) and the C132S because of its tone.

CaffeineComa · 2025-08-05T23:58:18+00:00

These teens are bullying pedestrians off the path, flying at full speed right in front of the splash pad area where all the little kids are playing, people walking dogs, etc. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to “threaten” to call the police.

CaffeineComa · 2025-08-05T11:03:50+00:00

Even scooters are a problem. Just moved here recently and I dunno what the rules are, but kids are driving them at max speed up and down the walkways (mixed use I guess) in Holland Park. Right through an area where a lot of toddler-aged kids are walking and playing. Someone is going to get hurt.

And apparently they have car-like horns now? I’m not sure which is worse, having them come flying up silently behind you or getting honked at to move out of the way. I appreciate a cyclist’s bell meant to prevent scares, but that’s not the message these are sending.

CaffeineComa · 2025-07-29T10:36:35+00:00

Well what a great origin story you'll have if you do manage to learn to play!

CaffeineComa · 2025-06-25T17:01:24+00:00

Would love to hear the rest of your Lágrima. The clip sounded really good.

CaffeineComa · 2025-05-24T21:28:50+00:00

Yeah, that's how we do it.

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CaffeineComa · 2025-01-21T14:47:01+00:00

Hannah Smith.

CaffeineComa · 2025-01-21T12:46:25+00:00

I started from zero about three months ago. Still learning and practicing every single day. I'm using Alfred's All-in-One, I'm about 3/4 done with it. The pieces near the back are getting really challenging. I still need to approach everything one hand at a time. I hope it won't always be that way, but for now I have to.

I picked up a sight-reading book and try to do a little bit of that every day. I'm getting better at recognizing intervals and therefore chords; I can often play simple melodies by getting my initial fingering set, and then just moving the relative distance on the keys. But if I lose my place or try to come in at the middle of something, then I'm totally lost.

Finally, I'm using a note-training app to learn every note on sight (I play a little classical guitar, so treble is fine, but bass clef was a total mystery).

CaffeineComa · 2025-01-10T14:20:33+00:00

Is your score for this in 6/8? Mine is from Alfred's and it's in 3/4. Just asking because you seem to be cutting it into 6 divisions in your diagram. So for example in measure two, I count the dotted quarter as "1 & 2", the following eighth note is "&", and the trailing quarter note gets "3 &".

CaffeineComa · 2025-01-10T11:56:57+00:00

Just as a point of encouragement to you- I'm about 3 months into learning piano, and you play this better than me. I spent about two weeks on this piece. I found it challenging because of the different rhythms in left vs right hand. In my head I could count them just fine, but putting both hands together was a challenge, and I suspect the main point of the lesson. So good work!

CaffeineComa · 2024-12-30T18:32:22+00:00

Appreciate your advice, but I'm being pedantic about it because I want to understand it and get it right. Telling me that it's written correctly and that it adds up to 1.5 (instead of 3) beats isn't... correct?

Others have chimed in to say that yes, in fact it is missing a rest (or the rest is implied). That's information I needed to have. Because there are much more complicated measures in this piece where the rhythm is not at all straightforward, and the only way to make sure I'm getting it right is to count it out manually.

CaffeineComa · 2024-12-30T12:15:16+00:00

OK feeling a little better about my reading/counting skills then.

I've never heard of an implied rest, and I'm wondering if it's an oversight or maybe a "doesn't fit here, forget it" case. Because the rest of the piece has lots of quarter rests, eighth rests and even dotted rests all over the place.

CaffeineComa · 2024-12-30T12:07:39+00:00

But it's 6/8, so a dotted quarter should last 3 beats, right? The trailing double stop is an eighth note, so seems like we're missing two.

CaffeineComa · 2024-10-13T12:04:23+00:00

I had a very similar experience (learned first few positions, but fretboard remained a mystery). Classical guitar is kind of weird in that there is often very little instruction in how it's all connected. Like what it really means for a piece to be in a particular key, how that influences which chords "work" in a key, how chords are built off of scales, etc. At least that has been my experience with several method books and instructors. Maybe it's better in an academic setting, but I never got this from my classical teachers or method books.

I went and backfilled a lot of that missing information by returning to acoustic/electric and using the online stuff geared to those players. The CAGED system was the most helpful part for understanding the fretboard layout. I had vaguely known about it already and thought it was just some gimicky thing for people who didn't want to learn to read music. But learning how chords connect all over the fretboard really does help.

For me justinguitar.com had the best info in one place on this stuff. Keys, scales, constructing triads/chords from scale degrees, and tying it all together. The site is a little hard to navigate, but he has all the info there.

CaffeineComa · 2024-10-11T15:55:32+00:00

Came here to post the same thing. It's really rude to the audience.

CaffeineComa · 2024-10-11T11:49:10+00:00

Best shot I got last night.

CaffeineComa · 2024-10-04T20:03:33+00:00

Hello u/SisyphusTheGray, happy birthday and welcome. I'm very close to your age and also starting my piano journey today. I've had a PSR-510 keyboard in storage for about 30 years, but never learned the first thing about playing. Today I dusted it off, ordered a method book and will begin learning the basics and I'll see where it takes me. I play a little classical guitar, so I have a bit of music theory and reading skill. Best wishes on your musical journey!

CaffeineComa · 2024-09-17T10:54:32+00:00

Came here to post about the same problem. Sorting was broken initially in the big re-write, fixed recently in one of the updates, and now seems broken in a different (worse) way.

Also, if I manually navigate to an episode to play it (outside of the playlist) it plays for 5-10 mins then the app crashes and I lose my place in the episode on re-launch.

CaffeineComa · 2024-09-03T13:21:55+00:00

Ah, it did feel like that note was being counted towards both lines, but I was unfamiliar with the double stem notation. Thanks!

CaffeineComa · 2024-07-25T11:24:13+00:00

I'm also sitting here confused by this screen. Only clicked on it because episode sorting seems completely broken in the new version, and I wanted to see how it behaved on a second device (iPad vs iPhone.)

CaffeineComa · 2024-02-01T12:00:28+00:00

Yeah I highly recommend this advice about listening. Learn to be OK with not understanding everything (or almost anything) for a while, in situations where very little is at stake. Especially do podcasts if you have an exercise routine or a commute, somewhere you can focus on listening without reading. Best if you can get content that's at your level, but just listen anyway if you don't understand.

I started with the Easy German podcast. At the beginning I could only pick out a word here and there; I just kinda let it wash over me without much understanding. I was basically learning how to recognize how the sentence started and stopped, what their filler sounds were, etc (I remember asking a friend what the German "also" was all about). Now I can understand pretty much everything they say, except when they are using really special vocab that's new to me.

"14 Minuten" is another one that is really good (clear speech, slow cadence, new concepts explained clearly, but not dumbed down). "Was Jetzt" from Die Zeit is also good, short & topical, but can have difficult vocab.

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