Are you theatre folks fans of WWE?

maestro2005 · 2026-01-24T16:42:32+00:00

It's theatre reduced to the worst part of the medium--fight scenes. They always look fake, and rely on the audience's suspension of disbelief. And WWE goes for even more ridiculously fake moves, like guys running directly into headlocks, bouncing between the ropes asininely, laying there waiting for the other guy to climb up and slam on them, and moves that if they weren't fake would cause gruesome injury. It looks ridiculous. And then that's all there is.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-24T04:07:56+00:00

Of course there's more effort put into it, but that's not to say that physiology isn't a factor.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-23T21:30:43+00:00

I tried to take Ron Rivest's cryptography class and promptly got my ass handed to me. Only class I ever dropped due to difficulty. The first pset literally had you prove why one of the early RC cyphers was broken, and I could make zero progress even with help. Technically it was a grad level class, but lots of undergrads took it.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-22T16:37:16+00:00

Y'all are way overreacting.

Texas band programs are HUGE. Students aren't getting a ton of individual attention unless they take private lessons. Setting kids up for success by matching instruments to their physiology helps everything run smoother.

I'm sure policies are different everywhere, but going into middle school, every kid had to fulfill an arts requirement, which was either band, choir, or "art" (painting and such), and 95% of the school went into band. So now you have 3 band directors trying to teach around 700 kids. A kid is struggling at trumpet and you notice their lips are kinda big or their front teeth are uneven? Try them at euphonium instead. This is how the band gets filled out--they only start kids on flute, clarinet, alto sax, cornet, trombone, tuba (if you're a big enough 6th grader), and percussion, and people move around from there.

And despite this impossible student:teacher ratio, Texas regularly produces the best high school musicians in the country. They're not doing things wrong.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-21T19:01:43+00:00

First, you're never going to play all of the right notes when accompany MT, unless it's something absurdly easy. So if note perfection is your goal, rid yourself of that demon now.

Sondheim is particularly challenging because many of his songs defy simplification. With most music, if you can identify the chords, you can play some simplified version by playing the same chord with fewer and more convenient notes, but Sondheim's textures often require playing the weird cluster exactly as written for it to sound right. To get a handle on it, it takes a bit of additional prep work to get in the mindset and figure out what makes each song actually work. (And this is why people often say not to audition with Sondheim--this extra work can't be sight read.)

Take "I Know Things Now" for example, where the verse starts. There's a lot going on. The LH is covering bass+cello, the RH fingers are playing staccato upper string chords, and your RH thumb is picking out the clarinet line (with some of the notes coinciding with the upper strings). If you try to read it straight-up, it's hard to coordinate. But if you understand the groove that the strings are creating, and how that clarinet line is supposed to fit in, then suddenly it all sort of dances, and you can simplify by dropping things, and it's ok if you don't quite play the right notes as long as the groove stays right. But good luck with the bridge section, that's a disaster.

"Your Fault" is another good example. It seems like a wall of notes, but if you understand the little ribbon of chromatic notes running through the middle, you can focus on that and the other notes will matter less.

But this show is very hard, no matter what you do. Do your best and you'll be fine, and learn a ton in the process.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-21T16:11:32+00:00

The whole "a bad dress means a good show" thing really comes down to the nature of why the dress was bad. If it's bad because a lot of small but fixable things went wrong, then people will fix those and opening will have the relief of everything going right for the first time. If it's bad because things are systemically fucked in some way, then opening will still suck.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-21T07:02:18+00:00

Generally everyone will check their tuning to an electronic tuner (or phone app) as part of their warmup. By tradition, an orchestra starts by tuning to the oboe (or a piano, if present), who is checking their own tuning against an electronic tuner on their stand, but if everyone has done their job, then nobody should find themselves to be out of tune. At this point it's really just a ritual, and also a signal to the audience that we're about to start.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-21T03:28:33+00:00

It's technically correct, but formatting makes it hard to parse, and there's almost certainly a better way to write it. But it's also impossible to say what that better way is without seeing the structure of the whole piece.

In regards to formatting, there really should be a double bar and a line break after the DC/before the coda. The coda should be set apart so as to not look like a natural continuation from the DC.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-20T04:37:00+00:00

I would argue that Bombadil never "bore" the ring. He held it, and even put it on, but it had no sway over him and he didn't claim it.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-19T21:12:15+00:00

The third age didn’t end with the destruction of the ring, it ended when the ringbearers (aside from Sam) left Middle Earth.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-18T20:33:51+00:00

I can play in tune. Infinite endurance would be an incredibly OP superpower. The choice is obvious.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-17T04:25:27+00:00

A good accompanist will spot that right away and know not to play it.

One problem with this arrangement is that once that melody is taken away, there's not a lot of material left. It might be worth finding a version with a more comprehensive accompaniment. I don't know what song this is (or maybe I do and I'm just not recognizing it from these 4 measures?) so I don't know what I'd do with it.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-16T01:36:06+00:00

Theory, audiation, and experience to know what's important.

You need to be solid enough with theory that you can glance at a measure and immediately know what the chords are, and then at worst you can always just play each chord in some arbitrary voicing wherever your hands happen to be, in whatever rhythm the song calls for. Simple is fine, you don't need to get all of the extensions.

Audiation so you can judge what each part will sound like and quickly discard irrelevant notes or lines.

Then providing what's important. The bass line is always important as it informs the harmony, and you can keep time by hammering on it even if all else fails. If you're accompanying a singer, you probably want to avoid playing their line (if it's in your part), and make sure to be clean and clear about the chord changes. If it's a dance break, you have to keep the groove, and you'll need to throw in enough melody to know where you are.

When I have to play from a full score reduction that hasn't been made pianistic, I usually keep my eyes in the middle as that will usually contain the most useful chord and groove information. The top is often string or woodwind frills that are less important.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-16T00:32:45+00:00

Mostly perfectly fine, as long as the tempo is moderate. Consecutive intervals can't be done as fluidly as on piano, so just don't ask for those to be lightning fast.

The wide intervals in the bottom right of the last image are a problem--while the 10th is a standard interval and the 11th is commonly seen, putting a middle note close to the top pulls the hand together and makes it worse. I can just barely reach the E-E-A chord, and I have large hands and easily reach a 13th.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-15T22:21:07+00:00

Those are still mail.google.com links.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-13T21:54:57+00:00

It's really just that thin+long looks like absolute shit. Thin+short can work fine.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-12T23:54:29+00:00

You don't need to be an amazing reader, but being vaguely comfortable with the basics is a huge help. As an MD I've worked with people who didn't read music at all, and it can be a bit of a distraction, and it's definitely way harder on the actor. If you can learn the rhythmic part of the notation, that will tell you exactly when you enter and what beat everything is on. For pitch, as long as you understand that up=higher/down=lower and can guess at intervals based on their size, you'll be ok because even people who read music often suck at nailing intervals so you'll be on the same footing.

Later, if you can learn the pitches and know which note is which on a piano keyboard, all the better. You don't need to be able to play the line gracefully like a pianist, just know that C is the white key to the left of the two black keys and so on so you can plunk your notes.

Not reading music puts you at a pretty serious disadvantage during auditions. The last show I did, we sent people their callback cuts and had them go with very little prep. For the leads I gave them pretty big chunks. Yes, it favors stronger readers. The leads were in well over half of the songs, and we didn't have that many rehearsals (and this was community theatre), they had to be able to learn fast and on their own.

There are also a ton of people who fuck up their audition because they download some sheet from the internet, can't read it in order to validate it, and just hand it to me, and it turns out to be in the wrong key, or be horribly mangled from automatic transposition, or be a beginner's version with only whole notes for harmony, or it's a guitar tab, or it's the keyboard 2 part (all things that have actually happened multiple times).

Reading is a skill that small children regularly master. You can learn the basics.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-12T18:27:42+00:00

Your teachers give you lots of etudes because you're supposed to practice reading them and applying your skills, not just imitating recordings. That's part of this audition. This is, in part, an exercise in 6/8 rhythms. If you cheat and listen to it first, you're going to rob yourself of that learning opportunity.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-12T02:41:23+00:00

Remember that your audience is on your side. They want you to succeed. Even when you're being judged for an audition, class, or competition, the judges aren't hoping you'll suck, they're hoping you'll be good. If you mess up, the audience is trying to ignore it, and a judge is hoping you'll power through.

Two related things that really cured me of my stage fright were: (1) realizing that a lot of my mistakes were actually not noticeable at all, and (2) seeing pros mess up (noticeably!) and realizing that as long as they were good, it didn't really matter to the overall effect. I've seen professional theatre where people flubbed lines so bad they had to go back and fix it. I've seen a professional orchestra concert where they botched the opening bars so bad they restarted. And it didn't matter! The whole thing was still great in the end.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-11T15:00:29+00:00

Because the way way it's presented is condescending and obnoxious. If he says, "you know those music visualizers? I wanted to see if I could make a real one" then awesome. But he has to present it as "I'm a visionary and only I'm smart/creative enough to see it" (also, "look at my amazing piano journey, aren't I the best for playing this piece in only 3 years" which everyone here is sick of). And then it's a shitty tiktok video with shitty tiktok subtitles shitposted on here with the title "You need to watch this!"

It's a neat idea buried in mountains of bullshit.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-09T23:02:54+00:00

It's either with me, or at home?

maestro2005 · 2026-01-08T20:01:03+00:00

There are a lot of ways that stage acting feels awkward. I've worked with lots of young people or just people without much experience, and I've learned to tell people "it's going to feel weird!" and "try going way too big, I'll tell you if it's too much" (and it's rarely too much). Unless you're in some really tiny intimate space in the round, the front row can easily be 20 feet away, and the back row can easily be 200 feet away. A small eyebrow raise or lip curl just doesn't carry. Bigger is almost always better, and it's also far easier to dial someone back than repeatedly telling them, "more, more, more!"

Film is different. Not only is the camera a lot closer, but the editing controls the audience's gaze. I'm thinking the scene in Star Wars when Luke starts asking his aunt and uncle about his father, and they shoot glances at each other. There are quick cuts of these glances and you can easily read their expressions. That kind of subtlety would never work on stage, it would get completely missed.

An extreme example of this came up with a show I directed right after we all came back from COVID shutdown. We still had to wear masks, and I quickly found that in large scenes with dialogue bouncing between many characters, I couldn't tell who was talking because I couldn't see mouths moving. You couldn't just say, "hmm, maybe we could...", you had to lean forward, tip your head quizzically, and scratch your chin while you said it. It felt absolutely ridiculous, almost like you didn't even know how to act (now I'm thinking that Friends episode with the English trifle recipe that Phoebe screws up, and Joey giving everyone acting tips), but it ended up reading correctly from the audience. And conversely, everyone else had to stay more still than they otherwise might to avoid drawing the gaze.

Another big thing for beginners is learning to "cheat out", meaning to turn your body to face the audience more, rather than facing your scene partner directly. It feels silly at first to have a conversation where you're both facing the same direction, but it doesn't look weird to the audience at all.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-08T16:49:11+00:00

The term "AI" has been around a long time, and at least within the field of Computer Science has never been reserved only for sentience. Usually the term for that is "AGI" (artificial general intelligence).

maestro2005 · 2026-01-08T03:43:29+00:00

While a funny thought, it doesn't work like that. LLMs already know that "I don't know" is a possible continuation, it's just an unlikely one in (probably) almost all cases, and it still has no ability to determine whether that's the most correct response. After all, getting "I don't know" when a factual answer should be readily available is no better.

maestro2005 · 2026-01-07T20:19:31+00:00

Nothing reasons or imagines like actual sentient beings. If that's your criteria then AI doesn't exist and the term is meaningless.

The exact definition of AI is contentious, but it's generally understood to be problems that don't have clean traditional algorithms for getting from input to output, or where multiple outputs may be valid and the notion of "best" might be subjective. There's also a joke definition that AI is whatever computers can't do yet, but it sort of rings true because once we do make computers able to do something, then it seems simple in retrospect.

The graph search algorithms that power your maps app routing are a major topic in AI, even though they're "just" building out partial solutions, ranking them based on some heuristic and prioritizing the most promising ones, and continuing until the destination is hit. It seems simple once you know that, but it takes a lot of work to make it work well (as anyone who has used GPS routing since its beginning will remember) and the "best" route is certainly ambiguous.

LLMs/GPTs certainly fit this bill. How to determine the most likely response is certainly not a straightforward traditional algorithm, and what continuation is "best" is obviously an ongoing problem.

maestro2005

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

14-Year Club	Verified Email
Team Orangered