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Lemmings and students of history. What is your main subject that your good great at? Or what is your area of expertise and why? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to c/askhistorians@lemmy.world

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[–] barneypiccolo@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I have a degree in Music History, so music is my area of trained expertise, specifically classical, but I was into ALL music - jazz, world, rock, bluegrass/folk, rock, etc. I graduated in 1982 (and made a living in the classical/jazz music biz for 30 years), and kept studying other areas of history, particularly American History, and specifically American war history, especially the Revolution, the Civil War, and WWII, and also Politics.

Today, I consider myself a general historian, with a personal love of music.

[–] Patnou@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Can I ask you a question about Mozart or Bethoven?

[–] barneypiccolo@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sure, my two favorites. What do you want to know?

[–] Patnou@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ok I forget which one but one of them was deaf and had to hold his head to the ground to feel the vibrations off the piano. Did he just saw off the legs of the piano or if not how could he write such masterpieces while deaf?

[–] barneypiccolo@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

That was Beethoven, and it's 100% true. Nobody is certain what caused his hearing loss, but it started in early adulthood, and got progressively worse, until he was effectively deaf. He had a series of trumpets that he would hold to his ear to try to hear as much as he could, but they weren't too successful. He left behind "Conversation Books," in which people would write stuff they wanted to tell him. Wouldn't it be cool to read Beethoven's personal responses? Well, you can't because he didn't write them down, he'd just yell them at the other person.

Obviously, any composer losing his hearing would have a serious existential crisis, and it is probably at least partially responsible for his legendary bad temper.

He did saw the legs off of a piano so he could use the floor as a large sounding board, but that can't have worked too well. High-level musicians don't have to actually hear the music out loud, they can look at a music score, and hear the music in their head. So Beethoven could compose his music he heard in his imagination, and then write it all down, without actually playing it on the piano. Many believe that's why his later music was so forward thinking - because he wasn't composing at the piano, he was composing in a more abstract fashion.

Bach's unfinished final masterwork, The Art of the Fugue, was dictated to one of his sons, as Bach was blind by then.

Mozart was famous for composing nearly everything in his head, and then writing them out, with manuscripts that are nearly perfect, with no mistakes.