A synthesized synthesizer

Some Google Doodles are better than others, but today’s is my favorite so far. It is a synthesizer in honor of what would have been Robert Moog‘s 78th birthday (he died in 2005). I’m sure it’s quite simplified in comparison with real synthesizers (doesn’t that sound a bit like an oxymoron?) today, but it’s certainly good enough to have fun playing around.

An article at the Christian Science Monitor explains how to play the Moog Doodle. I was very frustrated when I tried to play it earlier in the day, on a computer where I use Internet Explorer as my browser. I don’t know if the problem was IE, or the settings on my computer, but I couldn’t play a single note. All that happened when I clicked anywhere on the graphic was that it performed a search on “Bob Moog.”

Now I am using Firefox, and it works just fine. (It did take me a few moments to find the link to do the search on Bob Moog, which is to the right of the picture of the synthesizer.) Using the computer keyboard, rather than using the mouse to click on the synthesizer keyboard, makes it possible to play the notes more quickly. But it does require remembering what letters and numbers play what – or (as I do) just playing notes kind of at random.

It’s been a very long time (almost forty years) since I played around with a synthesizer. One of the choices in music class in sixth or seventh grade (I forget which) was a brief course in electronic music. We learned how the synthesizer worked, and got to try using it. I wasn’t interested enough in the subject to try to really understand what I was doing, but I liked being able to produce weird electronic noises.

Today I have a slightly better understanding of what the oscillator controls, filters, and envelope controls do. But I still am more inclined to just play around and enjoy the strange sounds I can make than try to methodically produce any particular kind of sound. If I had lots of time on my hands, maybe I’d try out some of the examples given in the CSM article.

But at heart I like words even better than music. So instead I’m writing a blog post.

If I ran a museum…

After my sons’ enthusiastic response to National Chocolate Chip Day on Tuesday, I decided to look for s0me more “days” to celebrate. But before I even got started, I opened an email from APTE (a provider of educational resources) and found out that today is International Museum Day.

I started thinking about what museum to visit this weekend. Then I realized that my son has a Boy Scout campout this weekend, so the museums will have to wait for another weekend. But in the meantime, I got thinking about the idea of museums.

The APTE email informed me that “the word museum literally means a seat or shrine to the muses. In Greek mythology the nine muses were brought to life to rid the world of evil and sorrow. Their job was to protect art and knowledge.”

My winning photo

I was pleased, but not all that surprised that one of my photos won our department’s photo contest in the Nature category. Not that I’m such a great photographer, but this one shot did come out remarkably well. What surprised me was the title given to it by the contest coordinator: Storm. The Sunday afternoon when I took it was cloudy, but the rain had been over for several hours, and the skies were clearing as I stood in the park looking for a good place to point my camera.

The scene was not nearly as dark as it appears in the photograph. The trees in the background were various shades of green, and occasionally I could see people cross the bridge (lost in darkness here, but it formed the horizon in my view). If my camera had had manual controls over exposure, and I had known how to use them, I would have tried to lighten up the scene. And perhaps I would have gotten a washed-out picture with no chance of winning a contest. (The contest rules prohibited enhancing the photos.)

I looked up some information on taking good nature photographs, It recommends waiting for “dramatic skies.” And ”to capture drama, you need to look for the sun peeping out of the clouds and backlighting them.” I had taken another photo at the same time, facing in the opposite direction. It has all the color and detail that the first photo lacks – but none of its drama. The bottom half looks pretty good, in my opinion, but the top is washed-out and dull. I didn’t bother even submitting it for the contest.

I was a bit disappointed that my entry in the “Other” category didn’t win. When I first saw the array of smiling pink Abuelita Rosa dolls at Walmart, I decided the scene was just crying out for a bit of contrast. I would have settled for any dark, sinister character in a box the right size, but I was lucky – after a few minutes of searching up and down aisles in the toy department, I found just the sort of plush Darth Vader I had in mind.

But my “Toy Shelves” lost to a co-worker’s “Tea Kettle.”

When would you want to travel to?

I nearly missed getting to vote on this year’s crop of Doodles 4 Google created by students around the country. As I was last year, I am impressed with the creativity and talent of these young artists.

I also find it interesting to see the variety of answers they give to this year’s them: “If I could travel in time, I’d visit…” Prehistoric times and frontier America are popular and unsurprising destinations, as are visits to the future. Specific cultures such as ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt, and the Middle Ages are also well represented.

I wonder about the student who would like to visit the Titanic as it sank. What would ten-year-old Grace B think if she actually saw it happening?

I like the reasons Elizabeth C gives for wanting to see the construction of Stonehenge. “I would witness the will to do something thought impossible, something great, the drive to go above and beyond the expected.” I hope she does get to see such will and drive exhibited by people – without having to travel through time to see it.

Barbara M would like to visit the beginning of the French Revolution. That’s one time and place I’d want to steer clear of! But she offers an intriguing reason – “to see if Marie Antoinette was truly as blind to the troubles outside the palace as she is portrayed.”

Naturally I start wondering what time I would want to travel to, if I could. The first thought that comes to mind is the time of Jesus. I know the Bible says “Blessed are those who have not seen [Jesus] but believe.” But I would really like to see him, to hear his teaching from his own mouth and see how he interacted with people.

Of course, it could be that even if time travel existed, it would be very imprecise. Perhaps I would only be able to travel to somewhere in the Middle East, within fifty years of the time of Jesus. The chance of actually encountering him would be very low. Would I still choose that time and place to visit?

Even if I could be assured that my presence in the past or future would not affect the course of history – either the grand scheme of things or my personal history – I don’t think I would want to visit a time of great suffering. With modern communication systems, it is just about impossible to avoid awareness of suffering in other places while being unable to do much of anything about it. But it seems psychologically unhealthy to intentionally visit a time/place of suffering knowing that one cannot do a thing about it.

Certain practical matters might affect my choice. I am sure I could manage without modern plumbing. But I don’t think I would like to spend any length of time on a visit to a period prior to the invention of toilet paper.

And I doubt I would learn much without spending a significant amount of time there. I remember learning, when preparing to go study in Spain the first time, about the stages of adjustment to a new culture. First there is a period when everything seems exciting. Things that seem strange to us are seen as “quaint” rather than “idiotic.” Next there is a period of hostility to this strange, incomprehensible culture.

I’m not sure how long it takes to reach the stage of integration into the culture, but I wonder if it would take even longer in a different era. The differences between the U.S. and Spain today are probably pretty minor compared to the differences between modern U.S. culture and that of Renaissance Italy or ancient Greece. I enjoyed the year I spent in Spain very much, but I suspect that it has improved somewhat in my memories over what I actually experienced.

I think it would probably be difficult for most of us modern Americans to adjust to the slower tempo of life in most times and places in the past. I would be wanting to get out and see things and do things, and instead I would probably need to help with the (backbreaking) chores that have to get done every day, wait for very slow transportation, and avoid asking all kinds of questions that would only arouse suspicion.

At least I think I would get plenty of sleep. And plenty of exercise.

Books: Hergé, Son of Tintin

I came across this book in the library’s electronic catalog while looking for Tintin books for my son to read. I have never cared much for reading biographies (and I was more than a little dismayed when my high school guidance counselor suggested biographer as a good career choice for me), but the title intrigued me. In what sense was Hergé, who created the character, Tintin’s son?

I also wondered what made the Tintin books so popular in the Europe but much less so here in the U.S. Where they part of a larger cultural difference? There are plenty of popular comic books in the U.S., but they are actually periodicals, not books. The Adventures of Tintin, and other popular series such as Asterix, are published as books. I also saw the periodical-type comic book when I was in Europe, but I have trouble thinking of examples of U.S. equivalents of Tintin or Asterix.

There were other questions I wondered about as well. Where did Hergé get some of the names of his characters? I read recently that the name Tintin refers to the character’s prominent tuft of hair. But what about Professor Calculus? Why in the world is he named Tournesol, which means sunflower, in French? And where did Hergé dream up some of the outlandish adventures in which Tintin finds himself?

Hergé, Son of Tintin didn’t give me any answers regarding the differences between comics in Europe and the U.S., or much about the characters’ names, but I did learn a lot about where the ideas for the adventures came from. What had struck me as extraordinarily imaginative and highly unlikely adventures were in fact generally based on current events at the time they were written. As most of them were written before I was born, naturally I had no reason to connect them to real-world events. But for Hergé, basing comics on current news was a way to get children interested in what was going on in the world.

Awake, my soul

There are many things I like about Easter, but one of the best has to be the glorious music. When I was little, the older children’s choir at our church always sang “In Joseph’s Lovely Garden,” and I always found both the music and words very moving. (Unfortunately, by the time I was old enough for that choir, the music program had changed and that choir no longer existed, so I never got to sing it.)

Once I was old enough to join the adult choir, I got to sing the Hallelujah Chorus for Easter. As the lone high schooler in the group, I struggled to learn the alto part while the adults easily sang through it from many years of practice. Once I had learned it, though, I was disappointed to discover, over the next several years, that most churches do not perform it every Easter, as did the church I grew up in. (Adults in most church choirs seem to consider it too difficult, and I have to admit that in some cases they may be right.)

Even so, there are several wonderful Easter hymns to sing. There are “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” and “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today,” two hymns by Charles Wesley that are so similar that unless I have a hymnal in front of me I tend to intermix the words and music of both hymns. I never heard “Low in the Grave He Lay” until I was a teenager at a fundamentalist church, and I have to admit that it has never become one of my favorites, but it provides an effective contrast between the disciples’ grief, and the joy of the resurrection, that few other hymns do.

Today, at the early service (I am reluctant to call anything at 7 AM a sunrise service) at the Methodist church, we finished with “Crown Him with Many Crowns.” Like the Hallelujah Chorus, it speaks more to me of Christ’s Lordship over all than specifically of the Resurrection, but if one is fit for Easter then certainly the other is also. What struck me as we sang it this morning, though, was the first half of the third line: “Awake, my soul, and sing.”

Music: Trans-Siberian Orchestra

I had never heard of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra until my husband mentioned, a few months ago, how much he would like to go to one of their concerts. When I found out that they would be performing in our area, and that my company offered a discount on the tickets, I made arrangements for Jon and me to attend.

When I read that their style combines elements as disparate as classical music (which I like) and heavy metal (which I dislike), I wasn’t sure how well I would like it. Someone told me that the mix leans more toward classical than heavy metal, which sounded promising.

Yesterday evening we went to the group’s production of “Beethoven’s Last Night“. I don’t know enough about rock music to say what parts of it were heavy metal, but classical was definitely not the dominant style. Some of the earlier numbers had quite a bit of classical sound, but as the concert progressed there seemed to be less and less. (And the encore numbers, presumably chosen to best exhibit the band’s virtuosity, were all rock.)

From what I read today, the band’s style would be considered progressive metal (which according to wikipedia is a subgenre of heavy metal), and their productions are rock operas. What I can say from my own experience last night is that it is way too loud for my taste. Even classical music isn’t appealing to me if the decibel level is too high.

Playing with food

Along with keeping up with major news stories, I like checking out the “weird news” category. Today one of the stories that caught my eye was about two Chinese brothers who make musical instruments out of vegetables.

Intrigued, I did a search to see what else – if anything – I could find on the topic. Somewhat to my surprise, what those brothers do is not as unique as one might think. There is a Vegetable Orchestra in Vienna. According to their website they are the only vegetable orchestra, but the World Carrot Museum website provides links to others.

They also provide instructions on how to make a carrot kazoo. And if you don’t want to limit yourself to carrots, here is a site that tells how to make some other vegetable instruments.

Music: Old-time music

Until this evening, I had no idea that “old-time music” was a distinct style of music. I really didn’t know what label to give the music I listened to while eating supper this evening. But when I did a Google search on it, I quickly found it described as old-time — or even “old-timey.”

There’s an old-time music jam session every Monday evening at the local Pizza Ranch. Since two of our friends are among the musicians who sometimes play there, once in a while we go there to listen – and maybe eat some pizza.

One of our friends plays a hammered dulcimer, an instrument I had never heard of before. This evening I sat near someone else also playing a hammered dulcimer, and noticed the name Songbird on his instrument. My Google search also revealed that Songbird hammered dulcimers are made right here in Muscatine!

As another friend (she is one of the organists at church) whom we were sitting with  commented, several of the songs seem very familiar, even if we had no idea what they were called. One of the few that I might be able to name (if my memory were being cooperative) is “Turkey in the Straw” (I overheard one of the musicians say the name just before they started playing.)

I don’t know any of the other titles, but it’s all fun music to listen to. (At least I think so, though I also enjoy Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi, and I know there are some people who would consider them boring.) It’s so upbeat and lively — even if it does get stuck in my head for the next few hours.

At one point, one of the fiddle players took a break from playing, and she and the man with her actually started dancing in the open area near the cash register. My parents used to go square dancing regularly, and while the extent of my knowledge of square dancing is from one family night at my son’s elementary school a few years ago, I’m guessing that’s the sort of dancing they were doing.

I’m sure there are lots of places you can listen to live music while you eat. But I don’t know too many I’d enjoy as much as listening to old-time music at Pizza Ranch.

Ditch the workout?

This is the seventh consecutive Saturday I have gone to the Y to work out, but today I didn’t start with the elliptical machine. When I made up my mind on my birthday (seven weeks ago) to work out regularly, I had missed the deadline to sign up for the current session of classes at the Y. I wanted to be sure that this time (sessions start Monday) I found a class to join.

I’ve always found it works better to have someone else to exercise with. Besides having someone to talk to (before and after exercise if not during), I have a much stronger motivation to show up because I know someone else is expecting me. When I was younger I ran regularly with a few other people, but I kept getting shin splints and having to take a break from running while my legs got better. I decided running was not the ideal exercise.

I like walking, and for a long time have wished for someone to walk with regularly. (My husband does not like walking for exercise; he much prefers racquetball, which I tried to learn but did not really care for.) For a while there was a group of women, from the church I was attending, who would walk together at the park (in warm weather) or at the mall (in cold weather). But too often no one would show up besides me.

I walk every day with my dog, but she is a far from ideal companion. She is totally unresponsive to my attempts at conversation, and she is constantly wanting to stop and sniff at something. Plus she poops in people’s yards, requiring me to stop and collect her poop into a bag to take home. Walking with a bag of poop is not my preferred way to get exercise.

The Y offers a variety of classes, but most of them are during times that do not fit in my schedule. After looking through all the possibilities (which were not very many once I ruled out anything before 6 PM), I decided Zumba looked like the best one to try. I had no idea what Zumba was, but the fact that the Saturday morning class was for the whole family seemed promising.