what is php?
And is it worth trying to speed read? I spent couple hours at Barnes & Nobles (Love it! full of endless interesting books) and saw a book,
Breakthrough Rapid Reading , read the "introduction" and looked great, but I checked out other books at the time, so...
Read a bit of
Alfred's Essentials of Music Theory and was bit hooked. Was wondering how you hum "Baa Baa Black Sheep". "Baa Baa" has a same pitch and "Black Sheep" has a bit higher pitch, which would be a "standard" tuning method for your instruments to have the exact "pitch" jump between notes. And in a musical group, all instruments have to be playing the same notes, otherwise it would sound messy (...like I would know! :roll
.
Anyone tried learning into music theory or something? I swear I read an section for one late deafened musician in this one book. He could still make music for anyone to listen to as he understood how it works and memorized it when making music according to his
mind. Think the book was
How Music Works.
Great trip to Barnes & Noble today for sure!
Speed-reading is a great help if you need to get through a lot of material for information. I read a bit more slowly if I'm also reading for style, but generally I'm a very fast reader.
Re: music theory: I studied that a bit when I was a teenager, and enjoyed it a lot, and liked composing music. I was actually better at theory and composition than I was at playing piano, since I have double-jointed finger tips and my fingers would sometimes "lock up" on a run. (Those of you with double joints know what I'm talking about.) It's fascinating studying chord progressions and transitions and learning how to weave melodies through the music in different ways.
What I learned then still helps me appreciate the elements in music to this day. One of my criteria for how much I like a given pair of HAs is how good they are in helping me to hear music correctly.
Beethoven was certainly no shabby theorist; he was stone deaf when he wrote some of his greatest masterpieces. His knowledge of theory certainly was a large part of his ability.
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What I've been reading (on my new, handy-dandy, Nook): "Come Back, Como: Winning the Heart of a Reluctant Dog"
Come Back, Como - Winning the Heart of a Reluctant Dog
Charming book and eventually had some good insights into canine psychology, but man, there were points when I wanted to slap him silly for being such an idiotic pet owner, early on (partly with the dog, but also with other pets before he got this dog). The center section of the book was intense and heart-breaking. It read to me like he took a long break after writing that part and coming back to write the final few chapters.
and "Baby, We were meant for each other: In praise of adoption" by Scott Simon. Really sweet book and very interesting insights into adoption.
Finished those on a long car trip. Now I'm moving on to "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival," which is excellent. Next will be "The Americans: The Democratic Experience," by Daniel Boorstin, and then "Churchill" by Paul Johnson. I love Johnson's writing; certainly one of the best historians writing today.
Sort of a strange reading list, but that's what happened when I was browing the library's list of books available in epub format (for Nook) that were available for check-out.
Also want to read "Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed and Corruption Led to Economic Armaggedon." Probably will have to read on paper; it's not out in epub format yet.
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To those reading "Water for Elephants" - how are you liking it? I just finished reading it (in the old-fashioned, books on paper way) and liked it a lot. The writer clearly did a lot of research about circuses of the era before writing it.
