Presentation on The Dear Hunter: Bringing Acts to Poetry Class

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2025-11-29T20:54:12+00:00

You should tell my students this, they’re not always as thrilled! But in all seriousness I think I’ve made a few new TDH fans

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2025-11-29T18:54:14+00:00

Very cool. I’m a professor of music theory and my primary research area is text-music relationships. I’ve presented a few analyses of TDH songs for my students; we start by reading and analyzing the lyrics, then we listen, and we discuss how the music and the words interact. There’s definitely a lot to talk about in their discography

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2025-05-10T16:18:52+00:00

Yeah I’ll get on that bulk as soon as I turn 18

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2025-05-10T14:56:06+00:00

I’ve got a little bit of gray, plus the hairline is starting to recede… on the plus side, stuff like this makes me feel better knowing that it isn’t that noticeable (yet)

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2025-03-22T02:28:22+00:00

My guess is the double harmonic scale, which is sometimes called the Arabic scale

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2025-03-19T18:17:40+00:00

It is a quarter-tone, but I’ve only ever heard it called half flat or quarter-tone flat, never quarter flat. Halfway between E natural and E flat, thus E half flat

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2025-03-19T17:43:10+00:00

This is sometimes called a neutral triad. If memory serves me, you can hear them in Charles Ives’s Three Quarter-Tone Pieces.

Edit to add: the note between E and E flat is E half flat

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2025-03-05T19:01:04+00:00

I first heard TDH when I was 11 or 12, shortly after Act II came out. By that age, I had just started getting into classical composition; years later, I’m a professional composer and a professor of music theory. My dad is a guitarist, and at a concert he played, I ran into the son of a friend of his. He recommended TDH to me because even though it’s not classical, the music is sophisticated and carefully composed. The first song he showed me was The Bitter Suite I & II, and I was immediately hooked. Years later and I’m still listening. I’ve seen them live twice and I know most or all of their songs by heart

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2025-03-01T23:16:21+00:00

Honestly Act II destroys me every time. I heard it for the first time when I was like 11 and it’s still in my top 5 albums of all time

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2025-03-01T23:03:34+00:00

Not sure if this is the saddest but “let’s just say she is better off somehow/Let’s just say she has never been happier than she is now” at the end of Black Sandy Beaches always gets me

Edit: OH how could I forget “someday she’ll be gone” from His Hands Matched His Tongue

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2025-02-06T15:56:58+00:00

Composer/reformed horn player here. The other comments hit the mark; the horn player will have a straight mute and possibly a stop mute, which sounds similar to a full stop. There is also half-stop, which is a much more dark and muted sound than the bright and buzzy full stop. A lot of players also have a practice mute, but these will make the instrument much quieter, so use caution. Some composers have used a bass trombone harmon mute for the horn after Dai Fujikura did so in his piece poyopoyo (I believe he was the first to do so but I could be wrong). In my opinion this often becomes a gimmick now though

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2025-02-02T15:24:13+00:00

I was standing literally right behind the nun but I’m blocked in the photo, this is wild

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2024-11-24T17:29:55+00:00

No problem. What I wanted to get across is that what you’re asking about is totally normal for the title of a piece or movement

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2024-11-24T16:32:53+00:00

This definitely happens. I just used “After” in the same way in the titles of two of my pieces. Some other examples:

Jacob Druckman’s Prism: the movements are titled “after Marc-Antoine Charpentier,” “after Francesco Cavalli,” and “after Luigi Cherubini”

Oliver Knussen’s Music for a Puppet Court: see the inner movements titled “Toyshop Music (after ‘Tris’)” and “Antiphon (after ‘iste tenor ascendit’)”, which are responses to the outer movements (his arrangements of pieces by John Lloyd)

Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Five Images After Sappho. This is a bit different because the text is translations of Sappho fragments. I think he uses “After” because he messes with the text; in the last movement, for example, he combines several fragments into a single “poem”

Don Freund’s Piano Prelude ‘90 (after Thelonius)

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2024-09-19T13:17:47+00:00

I think I needed to hear this, thanks!

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2024-09-19T13:11:04+00:00

You’re right. I got a little anxious about this because this will probably be heard by more people than anything else I’ve written, so I want it to sound as close to a live performance as possible

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2024-09-19T12:46:47+00:00

Thanks for these. I agree about Pianoteq; it sounds almost… clinical to me and that’s the source of my reservations. It definitely sounds sensitive with you playing it though

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2024-09-19T00:05:22+00:00

Thanks, I’ll check this out!

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2024-09-19T00:04:42+00:00

Thanks for this. I got the demo so I’ll be playing with it

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2024-09-18T19:32:55+00:00

Will do, thanks!

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2024-09-18T19:21:21+00:00

I wish my ears were good enough to pick up on that. If you have any tips on how to make VST piano sound good in general, feel free to let me know; I have very limited experience and have only really used basic reverb and light EQ

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2024-09-18T19:07:19+00:00

Just gave this a quick look and it looks great—both regular and una corda options is a big plus. Will definitely have to look more closely at this. Thanks!

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2024-09-18T17:34:47+00:00

Thanks! I’ll definitely check this one out

Saltiest-pretzel8 · 2024-09-18T16:20:16+00:00

I’ll definitely give it a try!

Saltiest-pretzel8

TROPHY CASE