Day: March 29, 2022

  • The infinite language.

    I am always amazed at what twelve sounds can produce. I am talking about the chromatic scale here. The whole of western music was written with exactly that number of notes. Now, the laws of harmony restrains the use of some of those sounds. For example, it is advised not to use minor seconds, or…

  • When you need your instrument.

    In winter 1838-1839, the composer Frédéric Chopin, and his partner back then, the writer George Sand, and her two small children, settled temporarily on the island of Majorca (Balearic Islands). They settled in Cartuja de Valldemossa, an old palace and later on a monastery situated in a paradisiacal and romantic place, where Chopin composed some…