Accelerando: Recent Episodes
Paula Tuttle
A twelve minute composition in seven movements has been dubbed “Very Little Night Music” and added to the catalogue of Mozart’s work, it is now KV 648. Scholars believe it was a work of Mozart’s youth, maybe as young as ten years old. There are very few chamber works from Mozart’s youth that survived, even READ MORE
The post S. 2. 10. Germany: Scholars Authenticate A Previously Unknown Mozart Serenade For Two Violins And Cello first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Live music is increasing in our post-covid world. Gen Z-ers are outpacing Millenials for the first time as ticket buyers. It’s an exciting time to be a professional musician, and Juan Jaramillo gives us a look at the Candlelight concerts featuring classical musicians. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
The post S. 2. 9. Live Music: Business is Good/Candlelight Concerts with Juan Jaramillo first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Beethoven became gravely ill in the Spring of 1825. When he recovered he continued writing his fifteenth String Quartet. This third movement gives us special insight into Beethoven’s belief that he dodged death for at least a few years. Sean Neukom finds Beethoven’s use of Renaissance and Baroque compositional styles another indication that Beethoven was READ MORE
The post S2. 8. With the Beo Quartet’s Sean Neukom: Beethoven’s op. 132- Song of Thanksgiving first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
The Germans had the word for centuries. In Ancient times, they even thought a bug ground up could treat ear diseases. Today it simply means the music that gets stuck in your head More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
The post S2. 7. Earworms (The Songs In Your Head) first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
People often get a repulsion to sounds. Chalk, dentist drills, even bagpipes. Is this the same as Misophonia? What about ASMR- is it a subset of Misophonia? Today we find out. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
The post S2. 6. Misophonia, ASMR and Bagpipes first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Over the course of your lifetime your auditory complex learns what your preferences in terms of what you want to focus on in environment and music. We can make a lot of technical comparisons like the way AI learns our likes and dislikes: Music, Shopping, Foods, and more. Every day our ears filter sounds. And READ MORE
The post S2. 5. The Auditory Complex; How We Hear first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Perhaps the most distinctive element of music is the one that gives nuance to our daily lives. Our ears never really sleep. They interpret the world, keep us safe, and give ongoing descriptions as we make our way through the day. When you ask yourself what your favorite song or singer or type of music READ MORE
The post S2. 4. Timbre and Texture first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
The Camera can’t be equated with the Phonograph if you consider artists were capturing images and likenesses for centuries. The phonograph is more like the first canvas that can hold a performance or a moment in perpetuity. It came sixty years after the camera. It’s been here for one hundred years. Now the camera and READ MORE
The post S2. 3. Music after Digital Recording first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
This week’s episode makes a wide arc from classical musicians and how they determine authenticity in an orchestral audition scenario, to how non musicians listen to music and determine which artists earn the badge of “authentic” in a variety of genres. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
The post S2.1. Authenticity first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Its for sale: our time and attention. And it’s time to turn off the doomscroll and get back to real culture. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
The post S2. 1. Taking Back Art And Culture first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
What better way to mark 100 episodes in the Accelerando Podcast than to feature Pittsburgh’s son Henry Mancini. I also talked to another great musician who hails from Aliquippa- George Perilli, when he performed for Chambersite’s Diamante Jazz Quartet this weekend. Joined by Kevin Clark, Lilly Abreu and Bob Insko, they played for the Roaring READ MORE
The post 100. Pittsburgh’s Own Henry Mancini Would Be 100 Years Old This Week first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
The Italian word, sprezzatura, was invented in the sixteenth century by Castiglione, a writer. His book: The Book of the Courtier describes the perfect courtier, and uses the word to define and group the qualities that exemplify him. The word is popular today in fashion, and is useful to musicians who also strive to please READ MORE
The post 99. Sprezzatura first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Daniel Kahnemann wrote about how we make decisions, and he won s Nobel Prize for his work on Behavioral Economics. With his passing last week we are thinking about his impact, and contribution to the world. When I began this podcast in April 2022 it was Kahneman who inspired this first episode. If his book READ MORE
The post 98. Encore: The Trouble With Auditions first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Composers often use a single repeated note in a piece of music, and it usually tends to get the attention of the audience in a particular manner. Sometimes it’s soft, other times loud, but it’s always persistent. Today we talk about some well known pieces that use the One Note More in the show notes READ MORE
The post 97. One Note first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
It seems appropriate to post a podcast about the masterpieces Bach dedicated on the same date (March 24) a little over three hundred years ago, 1721 to be exact. They were first published in 1850, one hundred years after Bach’s death. The original scores were passed down haphazardly, we don’t know where they went after READ MORE
The post 96. The Brandenburg Concertos first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Muzio Clementi was respected and praised by most of his contemporaries, especially Beethoven. Mozart paid respects by quoting or borrowing some of his themes, as composers did often in the classical era. Mozart may have been envious of Clementi’s technique and the two were put side by side on a Christman Eve’s concert type competition READ MORE
The post 95. Muzio Clementi, The Composers’ Composer first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
The three violin makers that shaped the violin we know today lived in Cremona in the late seventeenth to the mid eighteenth century. Amati, Stradavari and Guarneri Del Gesu may have influenced each other and their influence reaches violin makers today. David L. Fulton collected twenty eight fine Cremonese instruments and published several documentaries about READ MORE
The post 94. A Guy Walks Into Three Violin Shops In Cremona first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
The seemingly easy and mundane task of turning another’s pages can be difficult at times or amusing. We look at a few comic skits where the page turner is the souce of jokes. We also take a deeper dive into those that take it seriously. Finally we see how technology assists in the effort, another READ MORE
The post 93. Page Turning first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
The music of Luigi Boccherini is some of the most elegant and refined of the era that emerged out of the Baroque and eventually arrives at the Classical Era. Boccherini lived in this in-between time. He began writing polyphonic music and switched to homophonic writing after he met Sammartini. Both Sammartini and Boccherini were composers READ MORE
The post 92. Boccherini: Our Hero Among Cellist Composers first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Some people say we live in a gig economy. And its certainly true for musicians who gig, and have always gigged. But its different now than fifty years ago when industries hired locally and everything was run like a factory, because today you can choose to be infungible, one of a kind. There are so READ MORE
The post 91. Leadership in the Twenty-First Century first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
The Beo String quartet is in its second decade and remains in Pittsburgh because they recognize the city’s artistic and logistic values. With Artist Residencies in several states, they maintain a vigorous schedule of concerts, recording, video production, music publication and educational programs. But there is so much more: they are dedicated to expanding their READ MORE
The post 70. The Beo String Quartet: Classical to Heavy Metal first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Does Classical Music carry a note of elitism, maybe even a mystique? Or is classical music just a bit confusing? Classical music shouldn’t be for just some of our society: it is intended for the masses. Most of the time. But there are a few decades where classical music went a bit high brow and READ MORE
The post 69. Demistifying Classical Music first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Gershwin and Ellington came from different corners of the musical world. They both started their careers in New York: Gershwin started in Tin Pan Alley where songwriters and “songpluggers”, worked in department stores to sell instruments and songs. Ellington was drawn to the poolrooms and the ragtime pianists. Both a product of their times, and READ MORE
The post 68. Gershwin and The Duke, Were They Rivals? first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Pythagoros was a polymath: He dabbled in so many subjects including the mathmatics behind the musical scale. Today’s scale is not that far off from what he proposed 2,500 years ago. His passion for harmony within the universe was a gift and a curse. At least he started things in the right direction. He just READ MORE
The post 67. Pitch: The Evolution Of a Scale -or- Why the Greeks Nearly Got it Right first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
The key to holding listeners’ attention is to keep them wondering what the composer will do next. Whether its a film score, rock band or a classical music concert hall, audiences want to have experiences ranging from astonishment and surprise to awe and amazement. The twentieth century saw a wave of shock and disruption in READ MORE
The post 66. Surprising the Audience: Composers’ Methods to Keep Audiences Emotionally Engaged first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
In the twentieth century music moves toward avant-garde or experimental and controversial. John Milton Cage (1912-1992) was an American composer who embraces all of these. A pioneer in chance music, he used non-standard instruments including pianos altered by putting objects in the piano strings to make unique sounds. Cage studied with Henry Cowell and Arnold READ MORE
The post 65. 4’33” (Four Minutes Thirty Three Seconds) The Music of John Cage first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
He’s been called the Father of American Music. Maybe we can learn a bit more about him and how he really viewed the African American roots found in much of his music. Scholar Dean Root proposes educating people about the meaning of the Statue that was removed due to public protest. Stephen Foster lived in READ MORE
The post 64. Stephen Foster’s Legacy first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Acoustic Engineering in music venues has a few basic rules that architects rely on: the size, the shape and the materials on the reflective surfaces. So planning ahead is crucial, but even after the hall is finished, acousticians can sometimes tweak the room by modifying the surfaces and even the shape. A proscenium may or READ MORE
The post 63. Sound Architecture first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Putting words to music is a skill composers and songwriters address in their Operas, Cantatas, and anything that has a script. What is the process for these artists? Some start with the words, others like David Byrne prefer to start with the music but have switched the order depending on the project. Elton John and READ MORE
The post 62. Librettists, Lyricists and Poets first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Concert pianist Nanette Kaplan Solomon has been including women composers in her programming and presenting lecture recitals on the works of women composers for thirty years. In this episode we talk about her recordings, composers she’s met, works she commissioned and her passionate dedication to the subject which has taken her to forums all around READ MORE
The post 61. Women in Music with Nanette Solomon first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
How will you take your art to the 10x? Linear is out of fashion. Can music scale to the degree it can compete in a world that expects only exponential growth? More in the show notes at accelerandocast.com
The post 60. ex·po·nen·cel·lo first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Galileo’s dad Vincenzo was a noted Lutenist and composer from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Both father and son made inventions and progress in mathematics and physics. The family business of lute playing was shared by Galileo and his brother Michelangelo. Read more in the show notes at accelerandocast.com
The post 59. Encore: Grab your Lute: Meet Galileo’s Dad first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
If you want to create a music writing program that out performs Sibelius and Finale, you might want to examine the AI already written into graphics and text. Graphics are way ahead of music notation in computer programs. What can we look forward to in the future of music reading apps like ForScore? More in READ MORE
The post 58. Encore: Music Notation and Some Vertical Knowledge first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
The Orion Quartet announced their retirement this Spring, playing their last concert of a 36 year run. New quartets are rising, including the Beo Quartet-another one with Pittsburgh roots and again started by two brothers. The business plan for a string quartet is an u usual one. It relies on four equal partners, and each READ MORE
The post 57. Anatomy of a String Quartet first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Every human voice is unique, and each singer has a range of notes that rings in their head strong like a bell. Pop stars and Opera divas/divos have made fortunes from these notes. In the classical recording industry while world class orchestras are doing less recording, Opera remains a consistant source of revenue. Singers change READ MORE
The post 56. Money Notes first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
With Google jumping into the AI music platform race, we can expect a lot of people will be signing up soon. Will it be disapointing? Or will people want the next plaything? Depends on whether you care about the tech or the music. If you just want to be in the know about everything new, READ MORE
The post 55. What can we expect from AI Music Apps first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Music gets a bad rap in curriculums and in the hierarchy of evolution. Do we need music to survive? Has music ever saved anyone’s life? When studied specifically for it’s use, music is found adjacent to our most important instincts for survival. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
The post 54. Music for Survival first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
The Scientist enjoyed making musical instruments more than doing his duties as an inventor for the Soviet Union, but he is remembered as an innovator and a genius for both. It was his tinkering with the musical instruments that lead to his sophisticated devices used to spy on the US Ambassador and others in Moscow READ MORE
The post 53. Leon Theremin: Part Two-Return to Russia first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Leon Theremin was a creative and curious soul who lived his life as a Russian Scientist but was a musician and entrepreneur. Had he left Russia like his biographer’s father before the outbreak of World War One maybe he would have enjoyed a peaceful and productive life- we’ll never know. His story is still compelling, READ MORE
The post 52. Theremin: The Cellist, The Scientist, The Instrument first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
The Opera America Conference comes to Pittsburgh next month and Pittsburgh Opera is gearing up with two very special Operas to be performed at the August Wilson Center and the Bitz Opera Factory. This episode about the marketing insight of creating an Opera season was written last summer. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
The post 51. Encore: Madame Moneyball first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Charles and Rachel Stegeman team teach violin and viola in their Boot Camp, but they also possess sightreading skills that make them extremely desireable players in some of the most competitive corners of the music industry. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
The post 50. Revisiting The Sightreader’s Survival Kit with Charles and Rachel Stegeman first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
No other idiom more than Bebop invites performers to invent and create while an audience watches and listens. Its a style that evolved during a hiatus in the recording industry when union musicians were concerned their livelihoods were disappearing. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
The post 49. Unions, Jazz and Fairytales first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Some people want a complete map when they do things including listening to music, and others are content to wander through enjoying the musical scenery while journeying through the pieces. Either way is fine, but even the wanderer can enjoy a little mapping time to time. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
The post 48. Analysis: Mapping Musical Forms first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
The League of American Orchestras meets in Pittsburgh this June and they’ll give their Golden Baton Award to Deborah Borda, the New York Philharmonic’s President and CEO who steps down from the post just a few weeks after the conference. Borda brought vision and energy to the top orchestra(s) she led. Orchestras from around the READ MORE
The post 47. Audience Experience and Engagement: Orchestra League Conference to be Hosted in Pittsburgh first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
Musicians can make cutting edge art, but is it going to hurt anyone if it goes badly? Cognative Scientists deconstructed the decision making process- we’ll take a deep look at what they found. More in the Show Notes at Accelerandocast.com
The post 46. Risky Business in Music and Math first appeared on Accelerando Podcast.
This month Verdi’s Il Trovatore returns to the Benedum, and its been almost a quarter century since we’ve seen this Grand Opera here in Pittsburgh. Mark talks about the work the Pittsburgh Opera Chorus is doing in the weeks and months ahead of opening night. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
Pop music has nearly abused the cadence formula that stems from our western roots in Gregorian Chant. Entire songs are comprised of the four chords (somethimes even less) that were used in Authentic and Plagal cadences. Developing good ears isn’t a quality unique to musicians. Other careers need the ability to focus and filter sounds. READ MORE
Twitter and YouTube are both open platforms- where users can reinvent the purpose by uploading content from various sources. Its what makes them so vibrant and popular: The users do the creating. So think of an orchestra as an environment for creation and change beyond the parameters it was intended. The musicians bring expertise and READ MORE
Edgewood Symphony Music Director Walter Morales brings a lifetime insight to the music of Spain and Latin America when he conducts the orchestra in March at the Katz Auditorium in Squirrel Hill. the concert features music of Piazzolla, Ginastera, De Falla and others with guests Amanda Russo Stante and Alejandro Pinzon. More in the show READ MORE
When we search for answers about the Six Bach Cello Suites we get more questions than answers. Its a rabbit hole cellist Steven Isserlis dives into with his latest book The Bach Cello Suites; A Companion. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
In Steven Johnson’s book Where Good Ideas Come From, he points out how ideas collide and connect. Today’s show compares Darwin’s organizational methods with the set up of orchestras, and buildings that reconfigure to suit their needs. Also in this episode we take Steven Johnson’s assessment of a 9-11 memo that could have, or should READ MORE
Humans learn in linear or progressive patterns. And culture sparks trends in a linear fashion too. What’s getting the most popularity these days? Where is it coming from? More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
If you like the guitar, you’ll want to hear this expanded lute with its bass strings that play an octave below the bass clef staff. Fun fact: theorbos often do the duty of a harpsichord – and it’s more portable. Scott gives us a history of the instrument and a glimpse of what its like READ MORE
Nick navigates the minefields of protecting your rights as a composer, recording artist and creator, as well as avoiding infringement on other artists’ work. As a partner at Phillips, Erlewine, Given & Carlin, Nick tells us about cases his firm litigated for artists and recording labels. This episode outlines composition, sound recording, master, synchronization, theatrical READ MORE
Spotify and Tik Tok want us to shorten our expectations. They want listeners to pay for seconds, not minutes. Will they get their way? Who benefits from longer musical selections, longer articles and longer books? There’s no shortage of shelf space on the internet. So… it’s about our attention, and everyone wants a piece of READ MORE
Artificial Intellegence, is it an extension of humanity? Does it help mankind get to the next thing? Why would the music industry want to develop bots that can play musical instruments? Will it lead to better art and creativity? These are the questions many are asking in a decade where the power of a computer READ MORE
Today’s social media seems to push people to put themselves out in the world. And most of us musicians seek some level of fame. But just how much fame does one need to have a successful career as a classical musician? More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
The Bach cello suites are one of the gifts Pablo gave the world. This week as we celebrate philanthropy in every form, Accelerando gives a nod to the cellist that defined cello playing in the twentieth century. Listen to your favorite artist playing these works on any platform or mode.. and consider how you wish READ MORE
As Music educators we navigate the question of talent all the time. In this episode Seth Godin gives a perspective on education and the arts for his listeners at Akimbo. Borrowed here with his blessing are two segments from his podcast. More in the show notes at https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
If you want to create a music writing program that out performs Sibelius and Finale, you might want to examine the AI already written into graphics and text. Graphics are way ahead of music notation in computer programs. What can we look forward to in the future of music reading apps like ForScore? More in READ MORE
The Memory Palace is a remnant of the way people preserved knowledge before literacy. Today we explore the techniques of memorization, the memory Palace and… swimming. Quite the mix. Read more on https://accelerandocast.com/show_notes/
Juan Jaramillo joins Accelerando for an insightful interview on El Sistema, the program that introduced him to violin study. Juan is a successful musician and a vibrant purveyor of education that follows the El Sistema legacy. Working through the Non Profit Sound Impact he passionately takes music to schools and organizations in Latin America that READ MORE
Handel wrote music that delighted the crowds and the crowns. Water Music was written for King George I and was so popular the event it was created for: floating on the river Thames, was repeated a couple times. Today we talk about what it must have been like hearing Handel’s music out on the water, READ MORE
Leonard Bernstein made a TV show in the 50’s called Omnibus. Its about the inside workings of classical music , and it began airing almost a decade before his great broadway hit West Side Story. Today I’m adding Hamilton and other Rap Operas to the Maestro’s discussion of recitative, perhaps the timeline is due for READ MORE
Galileo’s dad Vincenzo was a noted Lutenist and composer from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Both father and son made inventions and progress in mathematics and physics. The family business of lute playing was shared by Galileo and his brother Michelangelo.
Quantum Theatre has been producing groundbreaking and innovative theater works for 30 years. This month the unveiling of a baroque opera written for the the famed castrato Farinelli is another exceptional undertaking. The score was completed and in some parts rewritten by the musicians in Chatham Baroque and director Claire van Kampen. Karla Boos talks READ MORE
Composers have always found inspiration in nature for their works. Some composers turn this idea around and say the forest has a symphony built in. The crickets and the birds are music enough for composer Bernie Krause who creates sound scapes for nature installations around the world, but also writes for symphony orchestras.
Cellists are excited to see a cellist rise to the throne: When he was Prince of Wales he enjoyed playing in orchestras, seeing ballets and other classical performing arts productions. In June this year he became the Patron of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and we hope to see more of this kind of appreciation from READ MORE
The great Physicist who gave us E=mc2 says that his love of Mozart played a key role in his cognitive development. Some people say he was playing Mozart in his head while scribbling formulas that lead to the theory of relativity. So proof that music is relevant in a world of STEM. Today Accelerando explores READ MORE
Promoting yourself has become a requirement in today’s market, no matter what you do. We all have social media accounts , but as a musician seeking to get noticed by promoters and arts organizations we need to have a following-people willing to pay to see you play. This episode will help you get started down READ MORE
The Campus of Carnegie Mellon University was designed by Henry Hornbostel- his lavish Beaux Arts architecture gives the university a setting worthy of ivy league status, even though it started as a vocational or technical institution, Carnegie Tech. Andrew Carnegie built free libraries with concert halls throughout the county, and of course Carnegie Hall in READ MORE
Using data to track and analyze business in some unusual places- that’s what the book and movie Moneyball are about. In this episode we look at some numbers at the Pittsburgh Opera by sorting out the traditional “hits” and the newer programs that make opera relevant in today’s world. Or maybe it’s just a numbers READ MORE
Symphonies get one thing right: they’re organized. Maybe they’re the most synchronized organizations on the planet. Maybe they can show the planet how to get organized around the subject of climate change. We have to try everything. This month The Carbon Almanac was released; a project and a book organized by Seth Godin. This episode READ MORE
Rodrigo Ojeda is a Venezualian born pianist who moved to Pittsburgh to study at CMU. When Patricia Jennings retired from the Pittsburgh Symphony as the orchestral pianist, Rodrigo stepped into the piano position. He was one of three pianists that helped choose the brand new concerto Steinway this year. Rodrigo joined Yefim Bronfim in New READ MORE
Musicians, actors and athletes, or anyone who performs knows about the struggle to overcome nerves. We can learn from athletes how to get focus and flow.
Restricting use of music has been around probably since music was first invented or composed. A visit to the Music Archives in the Library of Congress inspired this episode.
Savvy musicians can market themselves like tech start-ups: marketing with low costs while harnessing all the years of practice as an investment. In this episode we look at various ways classical musicians make a living, and some creative ways to make your mark.
Practice is what musicians learned to do at the beginning. It turns out practice works for anyone that wants to live a productive life. We’ll look at what other professionals say about practice, but mostly bask in the knowledge that we already know what needs to be done.
How does a symphony find a 9 foot concert grand piano befitting the worlds’ greatest piano concerto soloists? Peter Stumpf, piano technician and curator of the finest pianos in Pittsburgh, walks us through the process a major symphony orchestra like Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra goes through when its time to find a new concert grand.
Ralph Farris is an American Violist who studied classical music and graduated from Julliard, but then decided to make his mark in the music world by creating an electric string quartet that follows the Kronos Quartet’s style. ETHEL takes the notion that a string quartet can do …anything. His artistic vision was shaped by his READ MORE
Ask a bunch of kindergarteners if they are artists and they will mostly say yes. But then people lose their belief in their creative abilities the older they get. What is it about creativity that makes humans doubt themselves? Lots of people in design, marketing and psychology have examined the creative nature of mankind. This READ MORE
Pittsburgh Saxophonist, Eric Defade has sheperded many jazz students on the road to learning improvisation. His performance and recording career and teaching seem to go hand-in-hand. Eric shares insight to the legacy of Pittsburgh Jazz, and tells us about the multi-generational milestone recording he and his family recently released.