Author: Douglas McLennan

The Way Musicians Understand Beethoven Is Different From The Ways Listeners Do. Here’s How

Anne Midgette: “There’s a big gap between the way classical music is introduced to lay listeners and the way musicians experience it. We tend to offer classical music to audiences like a history lesson, in explanations studded with names and dates that are useful enough as context but that don’t really get to the heart of what you hear. Musicians, however, experience it differently. So I went in search of a new view of the Emperor Concerto by talking to some of the artists who have played it recently, and although I’ve heard it dozens of times, I learned more than I ever dreamed I was missing.” – Washington Post

Fakes Everywhere – It’s Just About Impossible Now To Figure Out What’s Real

Fakery is gushing in from everywhere and we’re drowning in it. “Deepfake” videos mash up one person’s body with someone else’s face. Easy-to-use software can generate audio or video of a person saying things they never actually uttered. Even easier? Fake clicks, fake social media followers, fake statistics, fake reviews. A gaggle of bots can create the impression that there’s a lot of interest in a topic, to sway public opinion or to drive purchases. It is even a breeze to create a fake newspaper online. – Wired

Stop For A Moment To Appreciate How Much We Depend On Standards

The basic irony of standards is the simple fact that there is no standard way to create a standard, nor is there even a standard definition of “standard.” There are, however, longstanding ways that industries and nations coordinate standardization efforts. In the United States, the system of voluntary consensus standards is coordinated by ANSI, the American National Standards Institute. – The New York Times

The “Most Bananas Artistic Undertaking Of This Century”?

Rachel Donadio: “To DAU’s producers and editors, and some of its celebrity-artist guests, the project has become a vibrant creative and intellectual community, even a way of life. To anyone outside it, the project can seem unwelcoming. I’ve spent many long hours visiting DAU since it opened here on January 24, and I’ve found the films at turns maddening, boring, and pornographic. I’ve never encountered a project whose monumental, megalomaniacal ambitions are so dramatically at odds with the uneven final product. Although maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s all a big metaphor for the Soviet Union.” – The Atlantic

Large Study Shows Students Do Better All Around If They Get Education In The Arts

It’s just the latest study to find that giving students more access to the arts offers measurable benefits. And adding time for dance, theater, or visual arts isn’t at odds with traditional measures of academic success, according to the research — which amounts to one of the largest gold-standard studies on arts education ever conducted. – Chalkbeat

The Former Dancer Who Brought The Joy (And Big Success) Back To Gymnastics

“I know what it’s like to have to go through puberty in a leotard,” said Kondos Field, a former professional ballerina who had little experience in gymnastics instruction when she joined the UCLA program nearly four decades ago. “I know what it’s like to have disordered eating. I know what it’s like to have to go out there by yourself.” – The New York Times

AI Researchers Made A Bot That Wrote Convincing News Stories. It Was So Good They Shut It Down

These excellent results have freaked the researchers out. One concern they have is that the technology would be used to turbo-charge fake news operations. The Guardian published a fake news article written by the software along with its coverage of the research. The article is readable and contains fake quotes that are on topic and realistic. The grammar is better than a lot what you’d see from fake news content mills. And according to The Guardian’s Alex Hern, it only took 15 seconds for the bot to write the article.  – Gizmodo