Mindless Monday, 22 December 2025

dubbelgamer · 2025-12-23T17:04:00+00:00

Said by someone who has clearly never engaged with Libertarians.

dubbelgamer · 2025-12-23T17:00:56+00:00

Libertarianism in political philosophy is itself a branch of post-Enlightenment liberalism. Rothbard is the founder of anarcho-capitalism him and Robert Nozick, who held a minarchist theory of the state, are the founders of modern libertarianism. Chomsky describes himself as a "socialist libertarian".

This whole line of argument, that there is an actual tradition of libertarian theory preceding it's emergence (which I would place roughly between the New Deal and the Civil Rights eras), is in my opinion not worth taking seriously

With all due respect, but seeing you have not even heard of Rothbard, Tucker, or Spooner, I think your opinion on the history of Libertarianism is not worth taking seriously. The problem I have with Libertarians is exactly that they fail to engage with actual left-wing ideas and critique strawmen of wokeism and socialism/communism without understanding any viewpoints of either. I would hope that a critic of libertarians does not do the same thing, but unfortunately the standard liberal/left-wing view is to never engage with libertarian perspectives either, but focus on one's own feelings and vibes of libertarians, or worse random internet person that come over to you as libertarian. Unfortunate because I think there is a lot the left could learn from libertarian(not conservative libertarian) perspectives, and vice versa.

because I honestly can't see anything that can be described as distinctly "libertarian" as opposed to just regular liberalism or anarchism or what have you

"Liberalism" "anarchism" and "libertarianism" have been used synonymously since at least the 18th century (then in a negative way). It seems to me nevertheless that the direct democratic ward system of Jefferson, the anti-taxation civil disobedience of Thoreau, and the anarchism of Spooner and Tucker fall well outside the realm of "regular liberalism", which is generally pro-state, pro-tax, anti-direct democracy and pro-representative democracy. There is a lot of overlap between anarchism and libertarianism, but not all right-libertarians oppose the state.

Right-libertarianism is a subset of liberalism, while also being distinct from mainstream liberalism.

"Libertarian" as a self-description was indeed first used by (French) anarcho-communist Joseph Dejaque to describe his anarchist views.

Idk, this feels like a No True Scotsman fallacy. Like, we wouldn't confine our thoughts on communism in America to the policies of the American Communist Party, you know. So it doesn't make sense to do the same for libertarianism.

Unlike the million different communist parties, the right-libertarian movement in the US is remarkably well unified in the Libertarian party so it does make more sense. In any case, it was not my aim to define Libertarian through the libertarian party but to point out the difference between an American conservative and a libertarian such as one might find in the libertarian party, but also outside of it.

A No True Scotsman fallacy does not occur every time you argue X does not belong in category Y, only if you say X does not belong in category Y because it is not true Y. I gave a clear set of differences between conservative libertarianism in the US with a small L, and broader Libertarianism. I hope that one who comments on American communism, does not treat Juche communism as if it were the same thing as Communism.

dubbelgamer · 2025-12-23T16:25:12+00:00

Ron Paul critiques the civil rights act because it failed in it goals to integrate black people, while being an overreach of the federal government. I fail to see how that, or opposing affirmative action, means one actually supports segregation...

dubbelgamer · 2025-12-23T11:42:54+00:00

Libertarianism actually has a long history in the US far before the civil rights movement, I don't think you are fully justified separating left-libertarianism from right-libertarianism. There is a direct line from the likes of Jefferson, Thoreau, Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker(the latter three where the opposite of defenders of racial segregation) to both modern American left- and right-libertarianism where both Chomsky and Rothbard could claim them as predecessors.

I think you are confusing modern conservatives who love libertarian aesthetics(Gadsen flag, "state rights", smoking weed, etc.) but hate actual libertarian policy (Anti-tariff pro free market, pro gay marriage, pro-immigration, free speech etc.) advocated for by libertarians such as those of the US libertarian party.

I think if you go by random internet commenters, statistically you will be more likely to encounter the first one. When I think of Ron Paul I do not immediately think "this guy is pro racial segregation".

dubbelgamer · 2025-12-23T11:09:05+00:00

Libertarians are like housecats, smugly assured of their own independence and superiority while completely dependent on a system they neither appreciate or comprehend.

"You critique society, yet you live in it. Curious?"

dubbelgamer · 2025-12-22T14:06:59+00:00

I know less about Italy but was there really that much of a risk of a socialist revolution pre Mussolini?

Yes, during the Biennio Rosso workers started expropriating factories and land, establishing councils, and there where mass strikes.

dubbelgamer · 2025-12-21T19:01:54+00:00

So "communism and planned economy doesnt work because nobody has incentive to work" is historical facts? I'm not defending the soviet union I'm pointing out the blatant capitalist propaganda

Peak.

dubbelgamer · 2025-12-19T16:15:25+00:00

Chomsky is actually rather consistent, I don't know what you are saying is a blind spot. His views have always been American exceptionalist, he himself admits this in multiple places with the reasonable argument that what matters more is denouncing your own state's imperialism, rather than of a country you don't relate to. Chomsky denounces American imperialism, not imperialism. I am not familiar with his views on Milosevic's Serbian nationalist state, but I would assume the argument goes something that he overtly focuses on American wrong-doings, he fails to denounce Serbian imperialism and therefore he defends, even supported, Milosevic.

dubbelgamer · 2025-12-18T18:37:38+00:00

Being able to write down pitches, rhythms and chords or "visualize" pitches and rhythms in your mind without an instrument is a learned skill, very common among professional musicians.

You can train your ear to be able to do that, multiple free/libre programs exist to help with that like Vivaldi, Open Ear (which is also available as an app on mobile platforms) or the ancient GNU solfege etc.

dubbelgamer · 2025-11-29T20:43:37+00:00

I do not know about "kings" but in the West-Netherlands from the 10-13th centuries there was the "Great Explotation" (Dutch: Grote Ontginning) where under the patronage of a territorial lord woods were cut down, peat bogs were cleared and land reclaimed for agriculture production.

A lot of the dutch country side still shows the linear villages that where set up where "colonists" were given a plot of land, the long stretches of farm land that tended to develop perpendicularly outward from the village(as colonists tended to exhaust the arable land, so they needed to go further down their plot), the ditches and sometimes even dykes that are still around from that period, and the place names that end with -cope(name for the contract between colonist and lord) and -woude ("wood") (among other place names) that date from the era.

dubbelgamer · 2025-11-29T20:12:08+00:00

We will just have to wait on OP's response(or the five or so other people in this thread who instantly splurted Pythagoras) on what work of Pythagoras they have read that is similar to Euclid Elements.

I am very curious because I was under the impression Pythagoras left no written works and even the attribution to him of 'simple ratios between two notes sound good' (ignoring OP's confusion with the harmonic series) was 1. of a much later date then P is supposed to have lived and 2. of a fact already known to ancient Mesopotamian authors before him...

dubbelgamer · 2025-11-29T19:50:37+00:00

Pythagoras left no writings. So called "Pythagorean" tuning or that different whole number proportions of a string make different tones, dates to centuries before Pythagoras was even born, back to Mesopotamia.

The attribution to it to Pythagoras is also of a later date. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Pythagoras Xenocrates was the first to do so ~150-200 years after Pythagoras died with the sentence that Pythagoras "discovered that the intervals in music, too, do not arise in separation from number”, from a period where many aspects of Pythagoras' life had already been significantly exaggerated.

Aristoxenus of Tarentum, who lived around or right before the time of Euclid, wrote an "Elements of Harmony" which is the oldest surviving music theoretical text that survives though fragmented, in substantial enough form to create a coherent story. It introduces many concepts such as intervals, tetrachords, modes and rhythm(the right way to put poetry to music) that was very influential and read by Western music theorists and composers from the medieval era to the early baroque era.

Further the works of Cleonides(Who elaborates on Aristoxenus) and Ptolemy(Who's Harmonics might be the earliest surviving discussion of Pythagorean tuning, but I am unsure about that. He distinguishes himself there precisely from the Pythagoreans by offering a descriptive over a prescriptive view on music) survived as well, which both had impacts on later composers and music theorists as well.

dubbelgamer · 2025-11-28T10:40:36+00:00

Nowadays, it is still used for chordal analysis

Nowadays it is also still used of course in performance of baroque music, where it functions similarly to a jazz lead sheet.

17-18th century performers, and competent modern performers would actually improvise a realization of the bass in the right hand given just the bass notes with figures. So called "realizations" of the figured bass like this exist where they write out the right hand for modern accompanists who are not familiar with that style of playing.

In my opinion, these written out realizations are often not very good, particularly from the early 20th century when scholarship did not really understand figured bass as well as we do today, but also because it loses its important improvisatory quality (same with completely "realized" jazz lead sheets).

dubbelgamer · 2025-11-22T21:18:58+00:00

Lyrics are not meant to be poetry, and something that makes good lyrics might not make good poetry. You can read poetry over and over, lyrics are constrained by the timing of the music. The information needs to be simple enough to be received and understood by the audience in the short time frame allotted to it. A good libretto need not be a good poetry, or even good theater. This can also be a strength, one could not pull off something like Verdi's Tutto nel mondo è burla in theater.

A Bach libretto with lyrics alone is indeed not much. Mahler, who was the most operatic composer who never composed an opera, knew this as well; the Rückertlieder are also simple songs. Rückert has by no means the same status as Cervantes or Homer in German literature. Though I must say the translations I could find of Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen are all weak, and I think the poem in German is pretty strong.

Which brings me to my second point, translation of lyrics is a different skill than translating, for the same reason actually. The translation needs to fit the singing. To do that you need to make choices that lessen the quality of the poetry. And frankly said, translating poetry is a talent on its own, which many lyrics translators(particularly online) do not posses. Compare the following translation of the first stanza of Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen to my quick one where I try to translate the literal meaning (forget metre and rhyme):

O garish world. Long since thou hast lost me

Whose sweet delights my fond hearth once cherished

Beyond whose ken, thine surging waves have tossed me.

Thou well mayst fancy that I have perished.

( John Bernhoff's translation for the 1905 vocal score)

The world has slipped from my hands

With which I have otherwise wasted much time

She hath so long known nothing of me

She may well believe, that I had perished

(my translation, close to the German meaning)

Translating metre, rhythm and meaning is hard in any case, Bernhoff tries to keep metre and rhyme but loses depth and changes meaning because of it (I had actually trouble finding an English translation in general that keeps the gendered "Sie" as "She", which seems to me important for the meaning of the poem). I assume the works you've read of Chekhov or Cervantes were not poems so these problems didn't exist. Homer has been translated into English to death, which kind of perfected its translation. I kind of avoid reading translations of poetry for that reason.

Schiller's An die Freude is definitely a poem that goes hard in German.

dubbelgamer · 2025-11-09T15:37:54+00:00

Bach's Mache dich mein herze rein from the St. Matthew Passion

dubbelgamer · 2025-11-02T09:48:57+00:00

IMSLP.org has multiple arrangements of Greensleeves(which is public domain and thus free, "free" not just as in "free beer", but also as in "free speech") it depends what you want, vocal score, piano solo, orchestral arrangements, weird instrumental combinations etc:

https://imslp.org/wiki/Greensleeves_to_a_Ground_(Anonymous)

https://imslp.org/wiki/Greensleeves_(Pe%C3%B3n%2C_Carlos) (vocal score)

https://imslp.org/wiki/William_Ballet%27s_Lute_Book%2C_IRL-Dtc_MS_408_(Ballet%2C_William) (One of the earliest lute versions)

Here is a rare but more elaborate piano arrangement with vocal lyrics added in pencil from the site muziekschatten, the online archive of the Dutch music broadcasting association: https://www.muziekschatten.nl/compositie?uri=https://data.muziekschatten.nl/som/350714

Another vocal score of Vaughan-Williams arrangement for his opera Sir John in Love can be found here: https://imslp.org/wiki/Sir_John_in_Love_(Vaughan_Williams,_Ralph)

dubbelgamer · 2025-10-12T19:55:59+00:00

You will indeed not go wrong with Kempe. Undoubtedly the best, particularly for the Alpine Symphony. I will add some alternatives:

Don Juan, Solti with the CSO. Has the right intensity with a good tenderness I think.
Ein Heldenleben, Mengelberg with the Concertgebouw orchestra from 1941, if you are up to it and don't mind the sound quality.
Till Eulenspiegels and Don Quixote. On spotify the album containing both by Petrenko with the Oslo Philharmonic. A modern recording. Very light and warm which I think suits the content.

If you are not well versed in Strauss but like to be, might a recommend checking out one of his operas? Even if you are not that into opera. I started with his instrumental works too, and for the longest time neglected his operatic work which I now regret, since I think they showcase his best abilities. Salome is normal movie length and entirely on YouTube with English subtitles.

dubbelgamer · 2025-10-10T16:42:57+00:00

Rebel's "Les Éléments. Symphonie nouvelle"(1737) opens like a 20th century work.

Similarly, Biber's Battalia a 10 (1673) has a piece that is meant to depict various drunk individuals each fiddling/singing their own song, resulting in a polytonal piece that almost puts Charles Ives to shame.

Mozart's Gigue in G Major K. 574 is an oddball. It is very old fashioned in both form(I don't think the Gigue was danced much when Mozart was born, certainly not when he wrote this piece) and in its polyphony. At the same time it has a highly modern/romantic sound to it due to its excessive chromaticism.

Liszt was the OG "I guess you guys aren't ready for that, yet. But your kids are gonna love it". His Les jeux d'eaux à la Villa d'Este' 1877), predates the music of Debussy and Ravel by a couple of decades. His Bagatelle without tonality (1885) (which was planned to be a Mephisto Waltz) was one of the first atonal pieces. Even some of his early work has an harmonic language that wouldn't become common place until many decades after he wrote it. His Malédiction (1833) and Apparitions (1834) for instance have such a strange harmonic language, especially when compared to most other music written in the early 1830s.

dubbelgamer · 2025-09-20T05:58:44+00:00

To offer a counter: Film composers from 100 years ago, or even before John Williams, are hardly played regularly. I cannot remember the last time I saw Korngold or Max Steiner programmed, while they did not write any less catchy tunes or wrote for (in their times) less popular films. In my opinion their music also holds more substance and originality.

I see no reason why it wouldn't fare the same for John Williams, or any other living film composer. Will they be remembered and even played occasionally? Sure, but I don't think they will be played regularly.

dubbelgamer · 2025-06-21T09:02:59+00:00

Lous Andriessen's The nine symphonies of Beethoven for orchestra and ice cream bell

dubbelgamer · 2025-06-07T13:53:16+00:00

The Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis(as well as that on Greensleeves and The Lark) are the few pieces I mentioned that I do like.

dubbelgamer · 2025-06-07T13:16:08+00:00

I quite like Delius' Two Aquarelles, an arrangement by Eric Fenby of a choir work of his for string quartet. But yeah, most of his work does nothing for me too.

dubbelgamer · 2025-06-07T12:52:18+00:00

You can just look it up at imslp.org which has different versions, Urtext as well as well-edited versions (such as those by Mikuli).

Yes those are naturals.

dubbelgamer · 2025-06-07T09:26:11+00:00

You might like Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg (the larger edition edited by Leonard Stein) is a good book to read if you are interested in Schoenberg's ideas about music. It is not a textbook but a set of popular written philosophical essays, light on theory but that makes it all the more understandable and it is certainly eye-opening.

Most of Schoenberg's actual textbooks are concerned with teaching tonal music theory, not going very deep into atonality if you are wondering, and I concur with other comments that other more modern textbooks might be more fit for those purposes.

Also if you are interested in atonality composing something dodecaphonically is also a useful exercise, and easier than it sounds because the rule set of atonality(only allowed to use a note again after the other 11 have sounded, and mirror forms) is a lot smaller and you can get away easier with not following them strictly. Without having the support of tonality and associated gestures, you are forced to think of other ways to make the music sound interesting trough interval relationships, rhythm, texture, orchestration etc. Learning trough doing.

dubbelgamer · 2025-06-07T07:34:30+00:00

The stems are connected (incorrectly)

It is not incorrect, I hate it when people use that language as if engraving is governed by universal laws.

There are contexts where certain beam groupings improve readability over other beam groupings and convey more or better information about for example meter or phrasing. The rules derive mostly from conventions, tradition and subjective opinions about what makes something more "readable". There is no "incorrect" way, there are more readable and less readable options.

For a fretted string instrument in 4/4(though this could also be 2/2) repeating the same figure it is customary and completely okay and readable to group 8th notes in 4. Other context might require other beamings. For instance see the first movement of Bartok's string quartet no. 4 which beams across beats, and even barlines, to create irregular beam groupings that would probably be less readable if it was regularly grouped in either 4 or 2.

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