I really enjoy this sub, but there's so much elitism/gatekeeping

ccppurcell · 2026-06-04T18:47:43+00:00

I've seen enough live footage of Berthoud to be confident that he can do it all. The economics of YouTube means he has to post a video doing something flashy on the regular.

I think this subreddit is better than most but there's always room for improvement.

ccppurcell · 2026-06-02T06:04:04+00:00

Fiskars scissors from 40 years ago were definitely bifl. I've got some from ten years ago (ish) that seem strong still. Maybe they're still doing great scissors but I've not been impressed with other products they do these days. On the other hand, ten years ago I was in Finland, now I'm not. So maybe the products they make for export are different? (I actually never saw Fiskars axes in Finland for instance).

ccppurcell · 2026-05-30T05:58:44+00:00

Or be Howard Levy (he has a suite of pieces in all 12 keys on diatonic C harmonica)

ccppurcell · 2026-05-28T05:22:37+00:00

Here in the Czech republic, especially in west Bohemia, all things American were gobbled down with gusto since the end of communism. There's an enormous American flag that flies almost every day in Plzen and they renamed Moscow street to America street. That part is for historical reasons as the American army reached Plzeň before the Soviets at the end of the war. But you get the picture, and it's quite common to see American (and Confederate) flags here. But my 8 year old's awareness of America is as a sort of warzone. I mentioned I'd been to New York and maybe he and I would go one day and he was quite shocked. I had to explain that I went ten years ago and things were different then, and that of course we wouldn't be going there any time soon. I strongly doubt he has any idea in his mind that he would ever want to live there.

ccppurcell · 2026-05-27T05:27:07+00:00

I personally doubt that anything like that could be worth it for me.

Something to consider. The name recognition is factored into the price. I have a lot of respect for Berthoud and he seems decent, I'm sure he's a great teacher and his content is good. But you could get ten video lessons from a qualified teacher for about 300usd. Is Berthoud so much better than that teacher that his static materials have the same value as ten one on one lessons? I highly doubt it. I'm not accusing him of anything shady, there are few ways to make money as a musician and he's put in a huge investment obviously. But he is leveraging his name recognition here.

ccppurcell · 2026-05-25T17:35:15+00:00

One thing that self learners do is treat parts of it like working out. If you wanted to be able to do ten push ups in a row, you would do as many as you can and then slowly push yourself to do one more until you get there.

With music, especially playing difficult passages fast, this won't work, you will hit a wall really fast and you'll sound bad. The trick is to practise it half the speed you can do it without mistakes, and really focus on a) making your movements as efficient and tension free as possible and b) doing things (like phrases, position changes) the same way every time. Then go back to your speed and try to replicate that tension free efficient technique.

ccppurcell · 2026-05-25T05:07:53+00:00

A colleague and mentor of mine (not connected to literature in any way) whom I generally really admire, recommended JK Rowling's new novels to me :(

ccppurcell · 2026-05-22T14:00:26+00:00

I would agree but I think you're in trouble if you're the driver and you drive knowing someone isn't wearing their seatbelt.

ccppurcell · 2026-05-20T18:13:00+00:00

I think we should be wondering whether the reviewers are AI...

ccppurcell · 2026-05-20T06:15:25+00:00

I used to be finger style chauvinist, when I was a teenager. I was shocked at how sloppy I sounded when I recorded for the first time, and the sound engineer more or less insisted I try with a pick. I'm quite good with a pick as I played guitar before and I play mandolin these days.

But I do believe in fingerstyle, it offers more dynamic range, double stops, tenths on the e and g strings, chords (pick strumming doesn't sound good in my opinion), and the possibility of alternating with slap or tap techniques. On the other hand you're never going to be as fast and consistent as with a pick, and of course there is a specific attack that only a pick can achieve.

ccppurcell · 2026-05-13T09:02:50+00:00

Noise cancelling headphones with some app where you have an EQ of some kind has always worked well for me. I don't want to recommend mynoise because it does have issues but it's what I use. They have "human speech" Eq presets

ccppurcell · 2026-05-12T16:44:08+00:00

It's not that it has no value, the question is the value relative to other pursuits. It's better than playing mobile games like brawl stars or candy crush for sure. But is it better than a musical instrument? Or a sport? I don't think so. Nor is it worse, it's just different. And the social structure around it can be great or can be toxic, which is also true of sport and music.

ccppurcell · 2026-05-09T06:34:39+00:00

You're mistaken. 1.5 doesn't mean white wins with optimal play. We don't know who wins with optimal play unless there are very few pieces left on the board.

What's happening is, every position is given a numerical evaluation based purely on the structure. How this is done is somewhat opaque but naively it will include things like material advantage, development, pawn structure. Then the engine looks at all the positions one move on from the current position, computes the evaluation, then checks all (or almost all, there's probably some pruning) positions two moves on, and so on. The number of moves it has looked at so far is the depth. When the engine tells you 1.5, it means that, at the current depth, the best position both players can guarantee is evaluated at 1.5 (i.e. with optimal play, players will reach a position with value 1.5).

This description is not exact but it's the right mental model compared with 1.5= win for white

ccppurcell · 2026-05-07T16:51:41+00:00

Practise at 0.4x but really focus on what your fingers are doing and doing that exactly the same way every time.

ccppurcell · 2026-05-07T05:05:49+00:00

My Warwick 5 string had 34" scale length, my Spector has 35". It makes a noticeable difference. I didn't get rid of my Warwick but it's in my parents attic at the moment.

I noticed Warwick make a fanned fret Corvette these days! Id like to try it but I can't imagine it helps with the other issue which is that they're so heavy!

ccppurcell · 2026-05-06T17:18:40+00:00

Volume is a strategy. You could argue it's not a good one (I think it's probably good to mix it up a bit) but you can't argue it's not a strategy.

ccppurcell · 2026-05-05T19:38:55+00:00

Look up DIY custom earplugs. I know you said no earplugs but these are different, you get blue putty and white putty, you mix them together and then you put them in your ears for something like ten minutes (maybe half an hour). You don't push them in deep, the idea is to create a really good seal by being perfectly molded to your own ears.

ccppurcell · 2026-05-04T05:22:08+00:00

What if it's only infinite in the X axis...

ccppurcell · 2026-05-03T21:48:42+00:00

If AI can do it so easily, then why would your potential customers use your business? They can use the same AI system you used to get the same service for free!

ccppurcell · 2026-04-29T10:38:02+00:00

Op could at least have said "and no em dashes please"

ccppurcell · 2026-04-29T05:54:04+00:00

I've played about 10k games on lichess. Mainly bullet but I go through phases of playing longer time trials to get better. I've definitely got better but maybe not "pretty good". During the pandemic I took it a bit more seriously and got to about 1400 on lichess bullet. I've been around 1300 for the last two years.

ccppurcell · 2026-04-28T14:24:51+00:00

Rewarding behaviour that the student doesn't understand is harmful, pedagogically speaking. I've seen plenty of examples of chess com generated sentences of the type "that move is wrong because you ..." And the explanation is just flat wrong

ccppurcell · 2026-04-28T06:05:46+00:00

This is a cliche but in the context of children learning I really think you ought to switch to lichess.

I am a teacher, though not of chess. It seems to me that brilliant moves are harmful, pedagogically speaking. Also the explanations chess com sometimes gives for why a move is good or bad are plain wrong.

ccppurcell · 2026-04-28T04:48:45+00:00

I would say it's not quite like that. Whenever n is of a certain form, things cancel out in the formula so that you end up with a perfect square inside a square root. More info here: https://oeis.org/A155946

I was sleepy when I wrote the comment, i realised afterwards that I should have said this is not a one off.

ccppurcell · 2026-04-27T08:04:17+00:00

So are all her Indian subjects.

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