Simply Soniferous

music ed major (finally!) just trying to pass their degree. musicblr/studyblr (kind of) personal blog: senzasord

[important-animal-images]

singing lessons

[parkchanwoohoo]

[whatareaccountnames]

What do you call it when the Barber of Seville uses a metaphor? Figarotive language.

[aropride]

this was written 100 years ago but it reads like a post i would make on my tumblr blog in 2026

[vetchtibbles]

dead serious WHAT did they put into claire de lune to make it do all that

[caralarm-bicycles]

his whole debussy

[fuckyeahfightlock]

. . .I think OP was asking about BBC Sherlock (2010 - 2017)

[vetchtibbles]

I don’t think OP was doing that actually

[sgt-cookie-2]

Me (A time traveler visiting 20-year old Mozart): OK, so, this is called an electric guitar, basically instead of the body functioning as a resonance chamber, it produces music by harnessing the power of lightning. Do you have any other questions?

Mozart (Currently shredding Violin Concerto No. 1 on the guitar, having figured it out within 30 seconds): What other music can be made from harnessed lightning?

Me (Loading up some heavy dubstep): Oh, we're just getting started.

[one-time-i-dreamt]

The world is oftentimes such an ugly place, but sometimes it can be so beautiful.

Like, when two choirs, one from Croatia and the other from Zimbabwe, met on the opposite sides of a Lisbon subway station and both sang to each other.

I unfortunately do not know what the Zimbabwe children choir sang to them (although it was so beautiful), but the Croatian klapa Kastav sang 'Kuća puna naroda' (a house full of people).

And let my reward be a house full of people, my life, give me a voice, so I can embrace you with songs.

Video source: Irena Grdinić

[leliesblou]

The song the Zimbabwean choir sang is called Indodana!

[one-time-i-dreamt]

Thank you so much!!! <3 <3 <3

[kyidyl]

I need you guys to see the newest amusing music trend on tiktok.

Source

[beesmygod]

one of the most fascinating and legitimately wonderful things about the internet is that it has given humans the ability to spontaneously collaborate no matter their location for no reason other than the sheer joy of it and that concept is neatly captured in this little video where a bunch of strangers made a cohesive and complex piece of short music around a video of a cat drinking milk silly

[natalunasans]

the person before me basically described the video but I think it's important that the original sound is that MLEM MLEM MLEM from the cat. it's almost humming. and then gradually all the different musicians join in until it almost sounds like klezmer.

[deathtofun]

I told a guy his total was 13.21 and he said “wish it were that year, could actually get some good music on the radio”

[regularlesbian]

breaking news from the AP, our boys on the front have just sacked constantinople. take that, heretics. coming up next are the soothing lute dirges of bing crosby

[questionableaardvark]

I am reading a book I got at the library and I need to talk about it.

Its called Glitter Up The Dark, How Pop Music Broke The Binary. Its by Sasha Geffen

Its about trans, androgynous, gay, lesbian, gender nonconforming, genderfluid, queer voices changing how we see music today. In the introduction it says something to the effect of why did music become so intertwined with lgbtq voices, culture, expression, gender, etc, and breaks down the clear lesbian references in old blues.

Im loving this book so far. Im only through the introduction, I dont know what else to say about it, just needed to get it out.

[simplysoniferous]

Up to 12 minutes today, and had enough time after bowing warmups and basic exercises to try a study. Had a look at my old A Tune a Day book (Book 3, so very old!), and my whole left hand started seizing up.

Definitely moved way too fast - I’m going to have to go to the library and find some grade 1 or prelim tutors to build my left hand back up slowly. Writing it down here so I actually go and do it!

At least the right hand and arm are very much back up to scratch. Still getting the nuances of the technique back, but everything is mostly smooth and most importantly - pain free. I’m sure there’s going to be a period of adjustment when I finally get my regular bow rehaired (my spare that I’m currently using is a 3/4 lol), but it’s so good to have one side working properly now that I have to tackle the other.

Left shoulder increasingly sore, but I see my OT on Friday so I’ll speak to him about it then

[itsclydebitches]

Something I don't think we talk enough about in discussions surrounding AI is the loss of perseverance.

I have a friend who works in education and he told me about how he was working with a small group of HS students to develop a new school sports chant. This was a very daunting task for the group, in large part because many had learning disabilities related to reading and writing, so coming up with a catchy, hard-hitting, probably rhyming, poetry-esque piece of collaborative writing felt like something outside of their skill range. But it wasn't! I knew that, he knew that, and he worked damn hard to convince the kids of that too. Even if the end result was terrible (by someone else's standards), we knew they had it in them to complete the piece and feel super proud of their creation.

Fast-forward a few days and he reports back that yes they have a chant now... but it's 99% AI. It was made by Chat-GPT. Once the kids realized they could just ask the bot to do the hard thing for them - and do it "better" than they (supposedly) ever could - that's the only route they were willing to take. It was either use Chat-GPT or don't do it at all. And I was just so devastated to hear this because Jesus Christ, struggling is important. Of course most 14-18 year olds aren't going to see the merit of that, let alone understand why that process (attempting something new and challenging) is more valuable than the end result (a "good" chant), but as adults we all have a responsibility to coach them through that messy process. Except that's become damn near impossible with an Instantly Do The Thing app in everyone's pocket. Yes, AI is fucking awful because of plagiarism and misinformation and the environmental impact, but it's also keeping people - particularly young people - from developing perseverance. It's not just important that you learn to write your own stuff because of intellectual agency, but because writing is hard and it's crucial that you learn how to persevere through doing hard things.

Write a shitty poem. Write an essay where half the textual 'evidence' doesn't track. Write an awkward as fuck email with an equally embarrassing typo. Every time you do you're not just developing that particular skill, you're also learning that you did something badly and the world didn't end. You can get through things! You can get through challenging things! Not everything in life has to be perfect but you know what? You'll only improve at the challenging stuff if you do a whole lot of it badly first. The ability to say, "I didn't think I could do that but I did it anyway. It's not great, but I did it," is SO IMPORTANT for developing confidence across the board, not just in these specific tasks.

Idk I'm just really worried about kids having to grow up in a world where (for a variety of reasons beyond just AI) they're not given the chance to struggle through new and challenging things like we used to.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

I think this is an incredibly important post for a lot of reasons. You have to write a bad book in order to learn how to do something. You have to suck at playing an instrument before you can improve.

Struggling is part of the process, and I've had a lot of people argue with me that it shouldn't be who fail to see the point. When you replace an composer with an AI music generator, an artist with an AI-generated image, or an author with an AI-generated fanfic, you are missing out on the critical, fundamental experiences humans need to learn and grow. You are robbing yourself of essential skills you need as a person.

AI is not like a calculator, or a synthesizer, or a prompt generator. It's not a tool to aid in your process of understanding or creating something. It is replacing your ability to learn things, and that is going to do so much damage if you let it.

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[simplysoniferous]

Practice update because it's been a while, and I think immediately coming back from a cold is the best time to take stock of progress (I'm joking!):

Up to 10 minutes on the violin. Played briefly with some fingering, which has been giving me trouble since I started reintroducing it - lots of tension and pain left over from old habits from before the hiatus. Well, no pain in left hand or elbow today! Did get some shoulder tension/pain, but we're making progress! I still cheated a little to get around it by pressing my back against my chair. Next step will be to stay loose and relaxed when sitting forward

Piano continues to vex me, mainly because I continue to practice with brain fog. I try to be lenient with myself on piano because it's not my main instrument and I'm self taught, but I lose so much progress every time I get sick or have a flare, and it's just incredibly frustrating. Have been rotating which piece to work on in the second half of practice, since nothing has been really grabbing my attention, but I think I'm going to finish learning Moon River. Re-learning the start has been pretty quick, and it's relaxing to work on. ALSO, do pianists not fucking stretch ever!?! I'm trying to find pianist-specific stretches so they're varied from my violin ones, and literally have so far found multiple posts of pianists saying they don't stretch! Insane!

Today was probably not the best day to rebuild my singing practice, since I'm still recovering from my cold (second one in three months! Not Fair!), but it made me really go back to my beginning exercises from when I was trying to un-train vocal tension, so it gave me an excuse to do that. I still haven't finished reaching out to my teacher to return to lessons, but I made contact a few weeks ago, so baby steps

That's it! Now the trick is to maintain the habit, which has been vexing me since my first cold in February! Booooooo!

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[tiktoks-for-dead-pope]

[simplysoniferous]

I know I’ve said this before, but I fucking love performing and singing in a choir!!!!!!!! <3