Sunday, May 10, 2020

Great horned owl (Bubo virginianus): Swiss protests again Coronavirus lies? - "Hundreds of demonstrators are calling for the Corona lie to be clarified and are being fined in many places - they go unpunished in Zurich" * * * Siddartha - a very different mediascape in newspapers - and with regard to all the fear that I think the American newspaper press has generated * Some newspapers - https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/news.html#record - in non-English languages to try out Google Translate with ... and here are ones in French * Regarding our electric bicycle conversation, I also searched on "best electric bicycle 2020" * Having bicycle ridden with the ZAP Motor from around 1994-1999 in SF and if battery life improves dramatically, another ZAP motor could be more sensible than an improved Copenhagen wheel! * A week-long bike trip with an electric bicycle - if it made the heavy bicycling easy? :) (and stay in youth hostels * * * Teaching and learning bagpiping - Scottish small piping * Excellent and traditional March, Strathspey and Reel Stuart Liddell - Lunchtime Recital 2010: 2 of 8 * Would like to bring this radiance into my piping too, whether it be in the series of notes, or how I appear * * * Searched on "10 short stories you'd like the most" and found these GREAT resources



Swiss protests again coronavirus lies?

"Hundreds of demonstrators are calling for the Corona lie to be clarified and are being fined in many places - they go unpunished in Zurich:
The demonstrations against the Corona emergency law are small in number. What is worrying, however, is the mixture of political protest and absurd theories that are represented there. The reluctant intervention of the police in Zurich is causing criticism."


Glad protests are happening!



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Regarding Coronavirus pandemic further, see, the "5 Hypothetical News" items at bottom here - http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2020/04/himalyan-monal-how-are-harbin-hot.html, and the "genes" label posts in the past 2 months.



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Pin (Siddartha), 
(best friend from high school),


Very nice to talk with you! Thanks for your call. I find a very different mediascape in newspapers (for me when I read the German newspapers online, especially, without machine translation) from around the world - and with regard to all the fear that I think the American newspaper press has generated with regard to these memes ('an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation'). 

Here are some newspapers - https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/news.html#record - in non-English languages to try out Google Translate with ... and here are ones in French, (since you know French) I check out at times: 



Switzerland
I also check out this Bangladeshi newspaper in English - 



Regarding our electric bicycle conversation, I also searched on "best electric bicycle 2020" - and not one mentions the Copenhagen wheel 

would probably head for something like this 
Most Versatile Ebike
Yamaha Wabash E-Bike in some years, or the Copenhagen wheel for any bicycle

then found - with some information - 

This is helpful too and suggests waiting - 
DEKRA eBike Review Superpedestrian Copenhagen Wheel

Having bicycle ridden with the ZAP Motor from around 1994-1999 in SF as I mentioned, and if battery life improves dramatically, another ZAP motor could be more sensible than an improved Copenhagen wheel! : 


Am in waiting mode. 

Do you think you'd ever go on a week-long bike trip with an electric bicycle - if it made the heavy bicycling easy? :) (and stay in youth hostels along the way, if we could charge the batteries there! - in and around Bangalore for example - https://www.hihostels.com/hostels/youth-hostel-bangalore )

It was a treat to talk with you, Pin! Thanks!

Warm regards, 
Scott
English Country Dancing at home? 
like Dance Scottish at home #hashtag - 

-- 
- Scott MacLeod




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Teaching and learning bagpiping - Scottish small piping


Hi Taylor, 

Good lesson, and good piping. Glad the middle drone, a fifth, is coming along. (Let's consider working on 79th Farewell to Gibraltar as a four part march a bit further too before we move on to the CoP Blue Tutor Vol 3 in some weeks - if that might interest you. It may have gotten short shrift, - and 4 part marches are key to Scottish piping .... and the lyrical ones are a 'jaunt':) Just sent you an invoice. See you next week! 

Regards, Scott
-- 
- Scott MacLeod



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Hi Taylor, 

Making the series of notes in any given bar distinct per the sheet music notation is kind of what I mean by "bumper car" approach, as a metaphor for playing differently, that is creating quite distinct rhythms in each bar, in each sets of notes. For great and inspiring piping rhythms, I come back to Stuart Liddell's 2010 - 

You'll find here both of the following - https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Bagpipe_Tutorials (one of the Highland Laddie's now has a broken link) - 

Highland Laddie World pipe band championship 2008

79th's Farewell to Gibraltar - Loch Norman Highland Games 2009
https://youtu.be/ynf_Qk_tJIc

I was listening to these for the "bumper car" idea, and could hear it a bit too in these. Playfully, the bumper car idea of 'gliding' while playing Highland Laddie, using 1-e-and-a would the '1-e' for a long glide, and the bumping would be 2 notes in the 'and-a' ... fun to exaggerate the gliding, and also to explore other 'bumping" with the doublings. And play wise, could you give the first notes here where relevant, '1-e-and' and the last two notes the '-a' - and riffing-wise even with a metronome? :) What do you think? 

And by contrast, this "79th ..." is more rounded 

79th's Farewell to Gibraltar - USNA/RMC Kunta Kinte Memorial Performance 2013
https://youtu.be/F8VuGIa4vCs
- and much less what I have in mind (and echoes a little what I hear in your piping as well). These may both be a bit fast too for learning, but worth listening to for sure.

Also, here are the strathspey and reel, on practice chanter and a bit slower than the above

The Inverness Rant (For Jo)
https://youtu.be/ZyFLgYNvb1Y

Piper of Drummond - 6 Scots
https://youtu.be/3SHgt7BuWIg

Check out other Youtubes for all of these :)


(Also, eventually, a fuller bag makes sense for steadiness of drones and chanter sounds tuning-wise, but exploring soft bag can be useful too regarding not over-blowing).

Cheers, Scott


-- 
- Scott MacLeod



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Taylor,

I updated this with the tunes below: 


Cheers, Scott



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Taylor, 

Here's Stuart again playing excellently (and traditionally) a March, Strathspey and Reel

Stuart Liddell - Lunchtime Recital 2010: 2 of 8

Good for getting the 'differential programing' of strathspeys and reels re our Inverness Rant and Piper of Drummond,

Try Beats Per Minute Tap - aka BPM Tap -  to explore the tempo of these tunes as examples. I newly get 123 for the strathspey and 84 for the reel :)


Scott
-- 
- Scott MacLeod





* *

Hi Ma, 

Am glad Christine is doing fine, after her injury recently. 

I finished listening to my March 10, 2020 lesson (video recording) with Connor Sinclair last night, the last 15 minutes - it took a while - and these recorded lessons are so helpful and informative in many, many ways. I was playing the tune Calum Beag - and am glad he said afterward 1) that's 'really great' about my playing this (and I thought I played it pretty well too), 2) and that he also played Calum Beag at very end of this lesson which gives me further confidence re playing with this (on my B flat chanter), and his modeling re my playing, - and I also learn confidence in our conversation (I have high standards internalized, perfectionism-wise, so I try not to be too hard on myself per Guidelines for Practicing a Musical Instrument - http://scottmacleod.com/GuidelinesPracticingMusicalInstrument.htm). While he's won all these highest achieving piping prizes, - he's a great piper (in my lessons too) - we also have a connection re what I'll call 'confidence' - and this comes through in the video recordings too. And I also heard further how my pipes sound in recording, and also heard how I play ... re what comes across (I want to keep my mouth closed, for ex., and I also, I like it when I'm kind of beaming, and appreciative and supportive of him, in our conversation ... and would like to bring this radiance into my piping too, whether it be in the series of notes, or how I appear) ... all as a basis for further learning and growing. Now how to change the sound of my pipes significantly for recordings, for learning and innovation (e.g. I hear a kind of cello like sound, metaphorically, when I play, but I don't hear this in this Calum Beag recording) - whether that be through using a different microphone, different recording software (eg so experimenting not using Skype video ... or changing something else, blowing, adjusting reeds etc? ) 

And oh to create recordings for all students in my big WUaS project with individual tutorials with my big project's eventual faculty - for later learning for students ... could be invaluable). I could see how having recordings of all the school situations / classes / tutorials / music lessons I've had in my life could be invaluable. ... and which would be a brand new modality for learning ... there's so much detail in these lessons. Time to lesson to the remaining 3 video recordings in full. 

Seeking to play more today ... and as I navigate my own feelings and experiences with practicing, daily playing and learning, etc ... and even to explore further learning with flourishing, innovative (not rote) approaches ... am a little isolated here (and even more so with coronavirus pandemic) ... and practicing has long had an isolating aspect to it for me too ... so it could be great to connect with a friend, and for her to come out here?  

What are you up to today? And how are you? 

Love, Scott
-- 
- Scott MacLeod



* * *

Ma, Nice to talk, and happy Mother's day here too!

Thanks for suggesting: 

Annals of Medicine May 11, 2020 Issue
"Why Weren’t We Ready for the Coronavirus?
The U.S. has fared worse than other countries not because it lacked information or funding but because it failed to learn the lessons of the last outbreaks."
By David Quammen
May 4, 2020

It looks like I'll be able to read this! 

Interesting that you grew across the street from David Quammen in Cincinnati! 

"Natural Acts" by Quammen is the name of the book you gave me decades ago - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Quammen - and you'll find his others mentioned here too, including Song of the Dodo. 

HIs web site highlights others - https://www.davidquammen.com .

I looked up his very first book (1970), with half an eye to see in what ways he might have been influenced by the 1960s and early 70s (or if he was a hippy somehow), and indeed - https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/david-quammen-3/to-walk-the-line/ - its focus in on race relations. This was during the height of the Vietnam War, and Gary Trudeau, also a student at Yale around this time, was publishing his Doonesbury comic strip). Quammen's protagonist, a Yale student named John Scully (and Quammen, again, wrote this when he was a Yale student too) goes to Chicago for the summer and lives in a Black neighborhood, and writes a novel about this. Interesting :) ... which I learned in this Kirkus Book Review - https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/david-quammen-3/to-walk-the-line/ - and I wonder if the 'vague grey outfit' here could even be somehow the Religious Society of Friends/ Quakers :) Good to have published a first novel as one graduates from Yale as an undergraduate! :)

Short Stories

Then I searched on "10 short stories you'd like the most" and found these GREAT resources - 


Best Short Stories and Collections Everyone Should Read
https://reedsy.com/discovery/blog/best-short-stories


50 great short stories everyone should read
With the age of the 'viral short story' upon us, here are fifty groundbreaking pieces - classic and modern - that also deserve to be liked and shared by all.
https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2019/short-stories-everyone-should-read/


National short story prize
Top 10 contemporary short stories
Ahead of 2017’s National short story prize, Jon McGregor reluctantly chooses ‘swoony’ work from recent years showing some of the ways to write them well
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/13/top-10-contemporary-short-stories


30 of the Best Short Stories You Can Read for Free
https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/30-the-best-short-stories-you-can-read-for-free.html


Also found "German Idealist Philosophy" (1997) - which I may check out - 

Thanks for mentioning Quammen, his New Yorker article, as well as short stories! Want to share these lists with your short story class tomorrow? :)

Love, Scott




-- 
- Scott MacLeod 




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Harvard University
@Harvard
A great horned owl took up residence in a man-made nest at the
@ArnoldArboretum, providing ornithologists with a rare window into a season’s nesting process, from egg-laying in early February to fledging in late April: https://arboretum.harvard.edu/life-in-the-landscape-great-horned-owls/



https://twitter.com/Harvard/status/1259211929962283008?s=20





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