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This is good, standard advice (if you can play it slowly...)

Once this is done and the notes are under your fingers, though, most pianists would probably say you have about 80% of the work on a piece left. The next most important thing next is to train your ears to get yourself to the next level. I highly recommend recording yourself in small ~30 second chunks and identifying what you want to change. At this point most progress will be made from listening and analysis, not from fingers on keys.

Of course, this is hard work and requires proper motivation and training, for which a good teacher has no substitute.


Yes, thanks for this. The modulation to G-flat and then the respelling to f# is absolutely stunning. I debated quite a bit about what to say here. I often dislike program notes that give a harmonic play-by-play, for exactly the reasons you say, but I was hoping to help build an intuition for what a "distant key" might sound like. If they hear it and are told it at the same time, maybe it'll register that it does sound foreign.

But you're right that it's meaningful in the context of the earlier iteration -- I'll give some thought about what can be done here. Perhaps it's another layer or for another audience.


I think the main difficulty is the chasm between people who intuitively grasp that music can unfold over time like a novel can, and people who hear music as aesthetically pleasing sounds in no particular order.

If we could somehow flip a switch to make the latter group hear what musical drama is like it would be equivalent to gaining a new sense. Like millions of people sheltered-in-place suddenly realizing they now have free access to tens of thousands of Netflix series written in their native tongue over the past thousand years.


This is in my opinion one of the greatest piano pieces ever written, but it can be difficult to engage with for the first time, since it really needs careful listening. I wanted to help people unfamiliar with the music to find a way into it, because it's so easy for it to just become background music.

Originally I wrote this to accompany my own live performances, but I think it's perhaps even more useful for helping people stay present with the music when watching online. Would love feedback!


This is so successful. Great choice of piece + performance. IMO there are really cool things you could do with the UI. (Like being able to skip back to sections that you reference to remember what they sound like. Also, would be cool if all sections were displayed all the time instead of only showing the current movement.)

Props, I really enjoyed this!


Great idea. Adding optional links to videos with scores, when they're are available, would be a welcome addition.


You might be interested in https://www.tonebase.co/piano

Try one of the free lessons to see how is the player.

(disclaimer: I work there)


A few things:

- Thiel really hates that college puts undergraduates in serious debt. Stanford doesn't -- take a look at its financial aid.

- When someone decides to drop out to pursue a startup or stay in school, it's often not just about the "value" they think education has. Travis Kiefer is the entrepreneur's entrepreneur: he can survive on the adrenaline of his company until it succeeds. He lives for this. I considered senior year with my best friends a once in a lifetime opportunity and didn't drop out. I live for this.

- This startup class shouldn't surprise anyone from Stanford's perspective. It has encouraged entrepreneurship forever -- there will even be an entrepreneurship themed dorm next year -- and Thiel is as good as any to teach it.

- Zuckerberg routinely appears as a guest lecturer in CS106A, the introductory CS class.

- As an aside, Stanford can sell out a football game, and the stuff about Khosla's daughters is way exaggerated (I was quoted).


Mountain View, CA - Storytree.me

Those closest to you are ironically spread out all over the world, and technology is actually widening the gap between generations. StoryTree allows loved ones young and old to capture and share the stories that matter. Watch the video at storytree.me

We're looking for people that are excited about our idea but think they can do better. Full job posting at http://blog.storytree.me/storytreeme-get-excited-and-join


I don't know what college you're going to, but you probably won't be able to graduate without taking some sort of course in C. If for some reason your Comp Sci major leaves it out, do Stanford's CS107 course: http://see.stanford.edu/see/courseinfo.aspx?coll=2d712634-2b...


Seems to me like you should just be coding in a functional language. Coding in Scheme might be easier than turning C into Scheme.


I agree. By the few code that I write[1] outside of my day job is not in C. Also, I didn't meant C, but any language with garbage collection. I used C syntax mainly to reach mainstream imperative programers.

[1]: http://www.loup-vaillant.fr/projects/ussm/


I have a different perspective (though a few of the comments here have briefly touched on it). College is not for meeting like-minded peers, and it's not for learning about programming. Rather, it's for the opposite.

It's for meeting diverse people that will give you new and unexpected perspectives on life. It's for learning to work with humanities people, meeting international students, etc. It's for learning how you fit in to everything else.

I don't think it's too controversial anymore to say that most of the greatest innovations come from multidisciplinary pursuits. You won't get this if you sit at home and code.

IDEO, the Stanford d.school, and much of the Silicon Valley community looks for T-Shaped people. A light working (horizontal) knowledge of many subjects, and a deep knowledge of one subject.

You will inevitably get your depth of knowledge in coding whether or not you go to college. But will you really learn how everything fits together?

Oh, and college is FUN, even if UW is a Pac-10 rival :)


Writing an iPhone app / webapp for givingturtle.org to release before SXSW. For that matter, for anyone looking for something worthwhile to spend a few hours on, let me know...


For our goals and rationale: givingturtle.posterous.com I've gotten a great deal of positive feedback, yet I'm struggling to a) get donations, and b) get people to sign-in and vote.

I know this is a classic question of sorts, but I feel like there's something really important/interesting/innovative to be done with this site.


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