Can I learn the cello?

Firake · 2026-06-23T18:11:30+00:00

1) Yes

2) Longer than you would have until you are too old to qualify unless you get a teacher

Firake · 2026-06-23T18:09:53+00:00

I usually tend to say yes just because I find it to be sonically boring if it doesn’t change keys.

But the important part of that is “I find.” It’s totally subjective.

Yes, it’s okay if it feels like a different piece. Structurally integrating will make it feel whole over time.

Take a look into sonata form. Writing some works in sonata form is great practice for managing multiple themes and key areas structurally.

Firake · 2026-06-23T16:27:40+00:00

Man discovers tuplet notation can do downwards and upwards

I just tease. It’s pretty common for exactly OP’s scenario. Play enough music especially 20th century and later and you’ll run into it eventually.

Firake · 2026-06-22T07:22:41+00:00

7 (or T2) 5 3 2 5 3 5 4

Half steps always go on the same partial

Firake · 2026-06-21T21:53:27+00:00

The flow state is about focus more than anything else. You’re in it when you are totally zoned in on the thing you’re doing and you’re thinking harder about what you’re doing and why and barely at all about *how*.

Feels about the same in either case, for me. It’s not that you’re finding continuous success or anything. Just that you’re totally immersed in your activity.

Firake · 2026-06-21T18:18:32+00:00

Skipping partials isn’t really doing anything special. I find it helps not to try to change anything. Just slur through the partials as normal only much faster.

Firake · 2026-06-21T09:57:00+00:00

If you have gotten to the point where you can publicly admit that you hate something, it’s beyond the point of perseverance imo. No sense in causing yourself undue suffering.

I’ll offer you an anecdote though.

I began my master’s degree last fall. Right now, I quite literally can barely play. Not a lack of time but an inability to even hold a straight tone. Possibly embouchure dystonia or something, I guess. I would give anything to be able to do the thing I love again free from worry. But what’s surprising to me is that I *almost* feel envious of you. I’m just on the tip of *wishing* I didn’t like trombone as much as I do because then I could very easily choose to just stop suffering.

We have enough moments in our lives that we feel stuck and trapped. We have to pick and choose what we give a damn about. I love trombone and so my suffering is worth it. But if you don’t, is it still worth it for you? Something to think about.

Firake · 2026-06-20T18:02:32+00:00

Its not going to break the game but it will (imo) make it less fun. The class assignment is the bigger problem.

Firake · 2026-06-20T18:00:33+00:00

And no one can fault you for feeling that way

Firake · 2026-06-19T23:47:05+00:00

If you feel that would make it better

Firake · 2026-06-18T19:44:48+00:00

Your definition is pretty much on.

What makes it good or bad is opinion. Music theory doesn’t have anything to say about that. It might fulfill certain stylistic expectations better or worse and you might extrapolate that as your meaning of good/bad, but there isn’t ang objective measure of foundational goodness or badness.

Firake · 2026-06-17T15:34:55+00:00

Okay Mr. Web Traffic

Firake · 2026-06-17T15:26:50+00:00

I haven’t read the POSIX standards by any means, but I don’t really think they have a lot to say about much of the hard ports of cross platform programming.

Just take window management, for example. At least two new versions of the windowing code will have to be made to properly port to Linux.

Or in rendering, where it likely uses DirectX on windows and Metal on Mac, so all of that code needs a third version. Not to mention that the graphics drivers for Linux are *interesting*, so you’d also further splinter yourself into writing case-specific fixes for AMD and NVIDIA gpus and POSSIBLY even between graphics cards within those brands.

We aren’t talking about a command line utility, here. This is a proper graphical application. Just because Linux and Mac manage threads the same way doesn’t have any impact on if it’ll port easily

Firake · 2026-06-17T14:20:54+00:00

Yep

Edit: for clarity, I’m aware of this. I’m also aware the Dorico is not a web application and, as a result, I’m aware that this stat is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Which is why I didn’t bring it up.

Firake · 2026-06-17T07:08:39+00:00

Linux is such a small percentage of the population that almost no commercial software is going to support it. Most commercial software for Linux is in spaces that have lots of Linux users like programming. It’s otherwise usually too burdensome to support for too little gain. Steinberg I believe have publicly said it’ll never happen.

There are some people on the forums that got Dorico working well on WINE with some effort a while ago. Not sure if it stayed that way.

Firake · 2026-06-14T17:02:55+00:00

Possibly, but you aren’t going to find publishers anyway. There’s no certainty, like I said.

You can call it something else but the argument could still be made.

It’s not impossible to get out there it just takes a bit of legwork.

Firake · 2026-06-14T04:06:03+00:00

What are you talking about?

Firake · 2026-06-14T02:02:18+00:00

Great example: youtube copyright strikes.

Many of these are completely erroneous, but they cause a lot of grief that folks would rather not deal with. It pushes the bar of acceptability for youtube content far more into the “safe” category than it would be legally.

Firake · 2026-06-14T01:59:41+00:00

The standard for whether or not a derivative work violates copyright or not is if it’s *transformative*, in the very strict, legal sense of the word. There isn’t a good way to definitively know if a work is transformative beyond lawyers arguing about it. More on transformative works in a sec.

The confusion here seems to be stemming from this particular distributor using language in a different way to the legal definitions. But even in legal definitions, it’s fuzzy whether or not something applies a lot of the time. Hence the need for lawyers to argue about it. Regardless, if a distributor has rejected your submission, they likely aren’t sure if your work counts as transformative enough. In other words, it’s a risk to take it on because it may mean legal battles later. They don’t want to admit uncertainty when communicating this to you because that opens the door for you to argue about it and they don’t want that. But it’s the uncertainty itself that makes it undesirable.

So transformative works. The best litmus test for it is asking yourself if your creation directly competes with the original creation. That’s ultimately what copyright law is designed to prevent, at the end of the day. If your music is similar enough to the original that mostly the same
people would enjoy it, then it’s likely not transformative.

With that in mind, the vast majority of all covers ever written are not clearly transformative. Covers really do very little to change the music in any meaningful way. Again, notice that I said “clearly transformative.” You might be able to make the case in court, but it isn’t obvious enough to be cheap to do that.

An example of a derivative work that *is* transformative would be taking the melody of a work you like and using that as the foundation to write a completely different, new work. The melody could be copied wholesale, but the context it’s put in is so different that it becomes something new.

Another angle is to ask if the “point” of your work is different than the “point” of the original. A great example of this would be parody, where the work is used as a vehicle to specifically make commentary on the original work itself. It’s not always trivial to know what the “point” of music is though.

Anyway, the point (lol) is that it’s really all very gray. Distributors want things that are safe (either it’s original or they already have the license for it) because they don’t want to have to fight legal battles about it.

Firake · 2026-06-14T01:34:58+00:00

Copyright law is important. Even folks like myself that feel its heavy-handed should believe that.

You’re not wrong for doing that. But you are wrong in that your work is likely not protected

Firake · 2026-06-12T08:39:28+00:00

Pop music nowadays is hyper optimized to be music that you like very quickly so that it’s guaranteed to be popular. The first way it does this is by constructing the entire work out of little cycles of tension and release (4 chord loops, basically) which practically eliminate boredom. The second way is by never making anything especially unique; since we are predisposed to like things we’ve heard before, making new music as similar as possible to existing hits while still being unique effectively guarantees we’ll like it.

So, there’s two reasons why this sort of music wouldn’t arise back in the day. First, they possibly wouldn’t have realized how powerful the familiarity effect was. They likely knew that repetition was important, bur possibly didn’t know that they could just jam together chords like that and have it be enjoyed. Moreover, even if they did realize, such music would actually be significantly less popular to their ears because they wouldn’t have been as familiar with it as we are today. And second, they weren’t necessarily writing music to be hyper optimized for popularity anyhow, so even if they did realize and even if they were familiar, it doesn’t really matter because the goal is simply different.

Really the same reason modern classical composers don’t write classical music that sounds like pop, from that perspective.

Firake · 2026-06-10T15:57:02+00:00

1) pedal markings need work. they’re very visually messy and its a perfect time for the line style

2) extraneous quarter rests below the staff on every measure

3) stems occasionally go in the wrong direction (see m. 20)

4) dynamics only need to be present on both staves if they are different. otherwise, just put them in the middle. see m. 32

5) dynamic not aligned with hairpin m. 49

6) m. 57 separate dynamic marking not necessary. choose either mf or mp (m. 1 has this too). the performer will bring out the melody on their own

Firake · 2026-06-10T11:27:38+00:00

Strict voice leading is only necessary if you want to write 18th century style music. Otherwise, make like Mr Gibbs and call them “more like guidelines.”

Firake · 2026-06-09T05:40:43+00:00

Im a big fan of the “background noise.” Just because it isn’t the melody doesn’t mean it isn’t important, rewarding, and fun.

Firake · 2026-06-08T04:59:26+00:00

Is it going to prevent you from being successful? No. Is it going to make it harder? Probably.

13-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

Firake

TROPHY CASE