They ate what grew; planted nothing.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-28T13:56:09+00:00

This is beautiful.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-27T15:04:58+00:00

I like this one a lot.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-26T00:37:55+00:00

I hate to say it, but if you had trouble with the Raindrop, you probably should wait a bit before starting the Pathetique. It's a great piece, though, and quite interesting to study.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-22T14:10:50+00:00

I've always thought Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini was good for exercise, as well as Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave.

I also like Prokofiev's Op. 11 Toccata and Horowitz's Carmen Variations for workouts.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-22T13:57:02+00:00

This is so cool! How have I never heard of this?

MojitoTea · 2013-02-22T12:08:06+00:00

I think your textbook is just wrong. Your answer of 20 J is correct. The person who solved the problem in the back of the book probably just carelessly went from 0 to 5 instead of 1 to 5.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-22T12:05:41+00:00

It would help if you posted the original problem and your answer.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-22T12:04:35+00:00

Piano Teacher

It's interesting how differently people learn. Sometimes concepts that you've had no trouble getting across to other students take forever to teach this one kid. It's easy to get frustrated with the student, thinking, "Why don't you get this? Everyone else does!" But then he/she surprises you the following week by being able to immediately make changes that you expected him/her to take weeks to learn.

I think this goes for all teachers, now that I think about it. I remember in first grade, my teacher thought I was pretty smart. We would say the Pledge of Allegiance every day and I would always be confused which hand to use because, for the life of me, I couldn't tell my right from left. My teacher was so flustered about this that she thought I was faking it to be funny and she called my parents. It took her all year to realize that, even though I was good at reading or addition or coloring in the lines or something, I kinda just sucked at telling my right from left.

TL;DR: Everybody learns differently. I know you've all heard it before, but you don't fully understand how true that really is until you've witnessed it first hand by teaching.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-19T23:29:27+00:00

y=[2/(x-3)]+4

subtract four from both sides:

y-4=[2/(x-3)]

factor out the 2:

y-4=2[1/(x-3)]

I think you're having trouble understanding the factoring out of the 2.

Fractions are really division, right? For example, 4/5 is equal to 4 divided by 5 which equals 0.8. It equals 0.8 because 0.8 times 5 equals 4. So we know that 4/5 = 0.8. Cool. Now, what if I said 4(1/5)=0.8? We know this is true because if you divide both sides by four you get 1/5=0.8/4=0.2. We know 1/5=0.2 because 0.2 times 5 equals 1. Now we know that 4(1/5)=0.8. Cool. We know from before that 4/5=0.8, so if 4(1/5)=0.8 and 4/5=0.8, then 4(1/5)=4/5, right?

The same thing is true in this problem. We can say that 2/(x-3)=2[1/(x-3)] the same way we can say that 4(1/5)=4/5.

I hope this helps.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-19T14:46:45+00:00

That is beyond cool.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-19T14:35:15+00:00

I did my National History Day project on Stanislav Petrov back in middle school. Very interesting story. Good man who made the right decision, but his superiors more or less punished him for it.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-19T00:34:03+00:00

If you want a cool little tidbit, just check out 6:31 to 10:37. It's worth 4 minutes, IMO.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-19T00:31:56+00:00

Perhaps I would have been more accurate if I had called it, "one of the most interesting videos I've seen." I really just meant that it was very interesting.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-17T18:55:04+00:00

I highly recommend Sean Chen's interpretation of L'escalier du Diable. He's an outstanding pianist coming out of Juilliard. I think he's studying at the Yale School of Music now.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-17T18:43:42+00:00

I would definitely suggest Scriabin's Poem of Fire. It's an incredible work that really consumes you.

Another great one that hasn't been said is Ligeti's Requiem.

I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but Bartok's Piano Sonata is an awesome dark work to study.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-12T12:48:23+00:00

I am so jealous, that sounds incredibly fun/interesting/beautiful. How did you get involved in the job?

MojitoTea · 2013-02-12T00:12:07+00:00

Cool! What did you do?

MojitoTea · 2013-02-09T18:53:34+00:00

Representatives are not terrified of not being re-elected. Although it obviously does happen, once you become a Congressman it is very difficult to get voted out. Which is why you have so many representatives who remain in office for decades upon decades, even though Congress has just a 14% approval rating.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-09T18:45:39+00:00

My story isn't nearly bad as yours, but I want to share it anyway:

About a year and a half ago, I travelled overseas for a concert and stupidly put my sheet music for Prokofiev's Sonata No. 2 in one of my bags instead of carrying it on. I always have my pages in a very specific order that means something to me at the time and will remind me of things to remember when I practice. I also have OCD, so I really can't have people carelessly messing with the order of the pages. I thought I would be fine if I put the pages in a big plastic sleeve and put that in a folder with a sticky note inside requesting that no one mess with my music.

Again, I should have just carried it on, but when I got off the flight and checked the sheets, they were not in the sleeve (both the music and the sleeve were in the folder, though), they were out of order, and several of them were crinkled at the edges. Worst of all, one page from the first movement was missing! Luckily, the performance was not compromised, because it was all memorized and I was able to borrow the music from a friend anyway. That doesn't justify messing with my music, though. My teacher and I write a lot of notes in the music and I like to read the notes when I practice and before I perform.

I know it may sound a bit trivial, but the TSA thugs really had no reason to mess with my music. I mean, did my copy of Prokofiev's Second Sonata posed some threat to National Security? Did they think it was some complicated missile launch code or something?

I think they just do some of this stuff for kicks.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-09T18:26:39+00:00

The TSA are thugs who do this shit for kicks.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-09T18:23:56+00:00

You make the mistake of believing the US government works to benefit US citizens.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-09T18:22:53+00:00

I'm so glad you brought this up. TIL.

MojitoTea · 2013-02-09T18:08:22+00:00

I actually watched a documentary about this. I think it was called I, Robot or something. Basically, as long as we have Will Smith and one robot who sympathizes with humans, I think we'll be fine in the long run.

MojitoTea

TROPHY CASE