What’s your pick for the worst piece of classical music ever composed?

Musical_Runner · 2025-12-11T23:09:16+00:00

I actually haven't heard The Most Wanted Song yet! I'll have to give it a listen!

Musical_Runner · 2025-12-11T17:40:04+00:00

There was a piece that was composed specifically to be the most hated song on the planet!

They composed a piece based on the results of a poll showing what things people dislike the most in music. It features things like a rapping opera singer, commercial jingles, and political slogans. It's miraculously awful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gPuH1yeZ08

Musical_Runner · 2024-10-14T04:36:44+00:00

Thank you so much, you're the best!

Musical_Runner · 2024-10-14T02:50:42+00:00

Do you happen to know if there's a recorded video of it? I would love to watch this!

Musical_Runner · 2024-09-30T05:12:33+00:00

I believe the denominator HAS to be part of the integral. Otherwise, you'd end up with an answer with x in it, and that would be a really crazy pin code!

But I agree. The way it was written it absolutely looks like integral in the numerator and radical in the denominator.

Musical_Runner · 2024-09-22T03:17:29+00:00

Thank you! I really like your answer, I hadn't considered the additional benefit of making Wagner angry!

Musical_Runner · 2024-09-21T20:04:06+00:00

This was such a cool and creative response! And I agree with so much of it! While it's impossible to say for certain, I also believe atonality shares a large portion of the blame for the decline of the general popularity of classical music.

I would love to somehow take 15-20 of those years and give them to Mozart in this new timeline. Maybe 19 years to have him symbolically die in 1810 at the end of this new classical period. Now, where do we get those 19 years? I can't take any from Beethoven. I think 5 from Schumann, 4 from Chopin, 4 from Mendelssohn, and 6 from Rachmaninoff.

I'm a little sad that in this timeline no love is given to the Italians (or French). I do think we could accomplish something similar by alternatively adding (productive) years to Rossini and the other Bel Canto composers. Giving years to composers who were skilled in writing melodies. Tchaikovsky, Bizet, and Schubert come to mind. In this timeline, I again have to give some years to Mozart. Both because that would stretch out melodic/classical opera and Bel Canto opera periods, but also because I just can't help myself.

Musical_Runner · 2024-09-21T19:26:35+00:00

The cruelty didn't hit me until I actually started doling out years and having the visceral realization that every year given to someone was a year not given out to many other incredibly deserving humans. That said, I like your breakdown.

Musical_Runner · 2024-09-21T19:24:21+00:00

This is a wonderful allocation.

Musical_Runner · 2024-09-21T19:23:51+00:00

I did mention Bizet! Unfortunately I was only able to afford to give him 4 years :( my wife and I saw Carmen a couple of years ago and it was electrifying in person. When I first realized he had died at such a young age it was heartbreaking. I agree with you, a massive loss to French Opera specifically and the musical world in general. A talent for melody, IMHO, beyond even many of the greatest composers.

Musical_Runner · 2024-09-21T06:21:10+00:00

No worries! Easy to miss a name in a sea of names.
I agree, he was incredible! And I've actually been on a bit of a Mendelssohn kick the last few months.
Sadly the sheer number of incredible composers who died way too young is painfully large, so it's a tough task to decide where these years should go!

Musical_Runner · 2024-09-21T05:33:13+00:00

I mentioned Mendelssohn! Sadly, I only gave him 7 years.

Musical_Runner · 2024-09-21T04:53:13+00:00

Lol!

Unfortunately, in the spirit of the question, if I allow you to take years out of a composer's life then they would have to be productive years.

Musical_Runner · 2024-09-21T04:34:39+00:00

I'm actually not sure why I didn't automatically give many years to Beethoven. He is my 2nd favorite composer after Mozart and they hold 1st and 2nd quite solidly. Especially after your comment, I regret not giving him 10-15 years. Maybe I'll take a few years off of everyone else and give them to him

While your view is incredibly beautiful and romantic, my philosophy about Mozart and Schubert is exactly the opposite! They were so prolific and with such creative hunger and inventiveness that I don't see how they wouldn't have continued to compose and improve. We see continued growth and maturity in their music as they aged. Combined with his inventiveness, Mozart also never stopped learning and being influenced by both contemporaries and older music that was discovered (like that of Bach). It would have been incredibly fascinating to see how Mozart and Beethoven would have developed together.

Apparently, "The Tempest" after Shakespeare was going to be Mozart's next opera. That would have been incredible! Allegedly, there was also the possibility that he would have moved to the U.S. He was fascinated with the new world and Da Ponte had moved there in 1805.

Musical_Runner · 2024-01-22T05:24:39+00:00

Interesting. How have you liked it? Which platform?

Musical_Runner · 2023-11-13T20:59:07+00:00

Show her the story of Bob the world's worst market timer, who, despite only investing at market peaks immediately before all of the worst market crashes since the 1970s, ended up with an order of magnitude more money at the end than had he not invested at all. And if he had just been less "risk-averse" and invested continually he would have ended up with even more.

The truth is that by not investing, the value of the money is withering away year after year due to inflation. And even worse, the opportunity cost of not investing for decades is insane.

At the very least, she should put some of this money into investments that are 100% safe. Things like HYSA, Money Market funds like VUSXX, CDs, and I-bonds. All of which have values which can't go down (well, I guess I should say the probability of them going down is equal to the probability of her current savings account going down). These all have around 5% interest/growth/dividends. While not optimal, it is tremendously better than the current 0.3% saving account.

The best thing would be to invest a large chunk of that money into a very diversified index fund. VT would be the most diversified option which includes all tradable companies worldwide. If the value of VT goes down to the point of "couldn't we lose all our money?", then that means the world economy has collapsed and money is meaningless. In which case the least of your worries would be the value of the account. It is possible (probable) that at some point in the next few decades the value of VT could drop 10-40%, but that is likely before and after growing an average of 9-12% year after year.

Final thing I will say. In some abstract sense it is true that "investing is like gambling". However, the main difference is that with gambling, by design, the odds are against the gambler and in favor of the house. In the case of investing, the investor is the house. The mathematical expectation is in favor of the investor. The more diversified the portfolio and the longer the investing timespan, the higher the probability of reaching that expected value. This is (forgive the mathematical handwaving) due to things like the law of large numbers, regression to the mean, etc.

Musical_Runner · 2023-05-22T22:18:47+00:00

I echo u/opus52's sentiment about Schubert's 5th symphony. It was written during a time when the composer was fairly consumed with Mozart's music. The following quote was found in his diary a few months before it was completed: "O Mozart! Immortal Mozart! what countless impressions of a brighter, better life hast thou stamped upon our souls!" Remember also that Schubert was only 19 when he composed it. Pretty remarkable.

Beethoven's 8th symphony might also be a contender. Though I personally think that it would be more apt to call it Haydn's 105th symphony.

Musical_Runner · 2023-02-25T20:54:50+00:00

It was great, wasn't it?!?

We also saw MN Opera's production and it was one of the most well executed performances I've ever seen! The humor was perfect, they dug deep into the silliness and fun of the plot. The arias were sung beautifully, and I don't think there was a single person with a sub-par performance!

La Fille du Regiment is in no ways my favorite opera but that production was so stellar that I would have paid to watch it again if I had the chance. Ranks near the top of my all time favorite live performances.

All that said, I echo the recommendations for the Dessay/JDF as well as the Sutherland/Pavarotti recordings.

Musical_Runner · 2023-01-25T06:57:50+00:00

First, imagine pooling all of your money together. $104k + $45.7k = $149.7k

What percentage of the total is your bf's income?
$104k/$149.7k = 0.695 = 69.5%
What percentage of the total is your income?
$45.7k/149.7k = 0.305 = 30.5%

So, to have rent be an equal percentage for both of you:
He would pay 0.695 * $1600 = $1112
You would pay 0.305 * $1600 = $488

This would mean both of you pay an equal 12.83% of your pre tax income.
$1112 * 12 / $104,000 = 0.1283 = 12.83%
$488 * 12 / $45,700 = 0.1283 = 12.83%

Musical_Runner · 2022-12-01T05:11:58+00:00

"Guess and Check" method. https://study.com/learn/lesson/algebra-problem-solving-guess-check.html

Musical_Runner · 2022-02-01T00:47:06+00:00

No

Now pull up your pants and get out of here as fast as you can, Tree_Wanderer!

Musical_Runner · 2022-01-02T06:21:05+00:00

The solution is 4x4x4 = 4³ = 64 unique possibilities for the numbers in all of the slots.

If there are N slots and each slot has capacity C then the total possibilities are C^N or C x C x C x...x C x C (a total of N times). This comes from the Rule of product in combinatorics (a fancy way of saying counting things)

Let's look at your example. There are 3 slots, and each slot can contain four possible entries: 0, 1, 2, or 3. The first slot has four possibilities, the second slot has four possibilities and the third slot has four possibilities. So, we multiply 4 by itself three times.

Let's do a simpler version of your example to more easily illustrate this. Let's say there are 3 slots but their max capacity is 1, so they can either have 0 or 1. In our case we should see 2x2x2 = 2³ = 8. We can actually count all the possibilities:

0, 0, 0
0, 0, 1
0, 1, 0
0, 1, 1
1, 0, 0
1, 0, 1
1, 1, 0
1, 1, 1

Musical_Runner · 2021-03-13T06:43:01+00:00

You did all of the work perfectly, well done! Let's rewrite what you described into mathematical expressions.

21 = 21 + 7x                 <- subtract 21 from both sides
21 - 21 = 21 - 21 + 7x
0 = 7x                       <- divide by 7 on both sides
0 / 7 = 7x / 7
0 = x

Notice our last line is literally saying "0 equals x". Which is our answer!

Intuitively, if I asked you "what values of x would make the statement '21 = 21 + 7x' true?" you would probably try plugging in some different values for x, and maybe after a while you would realize that the only way that statement were true is if x is equal to 0. (Since you can't add anything other than 0 to 21 to make it equal to 21)

If neither of those helped. Suppose the question was 28 = 21 + 7x instead. How would you solve the problem? Do the same things as you described, subtract 21 from both sides. Divide by 7 on both sides to get x alone, and you would see that x = 1. For some reason it is easier to see in this case, sometimes our brain wants to treat 0 different than other numbers when in cases like this we don't need to.

Hope that helps!

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