tenor viola followup
Mar. 9th, 2026 10:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfish*mindblown.gif*
Okay, so, clefs. If you've seen piano music you know how it's got two staffs, one for the right hand / high notes and one for the left / low notes. The staffs have a squiggle on the left end of them: the high one has a sort of loopy thing and the low one has a sort of 7 or 2 with a couple of dots. These are clefs, specifically treble clef and bass clef. They tell you what pitch the notes on the staff represent.
Technically the symbols are a G clef and an F clef: the spiral at the centre of the treble squiggle is always on a note that's a G, and the two dots on the bass are always on a note that's an F. Technically if you put the symbols on other lines you'd indicate different pitches. In practice, these days nobody does that, and 'G clef' and 'treble clef' are synonymous, as are 'F clef' and 'bass clef.'
Violin music is written in treble clef. Cello music is (mostly) written in bass clef. The range of notes you can easily play on those instruments more or less coincides with what you can easily write in those clefs without egregious use of extra ledger lines for notes above/below the staff.
There's also another clef symbol. The C clef symbol looks like a capital B, and the middle of the two humps is always on a note that's a C. It's used to indicate two uncommon clefs. Alto clef gets used for viola music and nothing else as far as I know, and tenor clef gets used for cello music that's off in the upper registers of the cello. Alto clef is... honestly I don't know what its relation to treble clef is, other than "lower," I think it's a sixth lower? Maybe a seventh? I don't read treble clef very well so I don't really know.
Tenor clef is a fifth higher than bass clef. This makes it really convenient for cello music. The strings on a cello (or violin or viola) are a fifth apart, so if you're used to reading bass clef for cello then tenor is the same thing just one string up.
A viola is a fifth lower than a violin, and an octave higher than a cello. If you put 'octave strings' on a viola, it plays the same notes as a cello. A tenor viola is an octave lower than a violin, and a fifth higher than a cello.
Which means it can natively play music in tenor clef. Hence the names.
Here endeth the classical music neepery for the day.
Okay, so, clefs. If you've seen piano music you know how it's got two staffs, one for the right hand / high notes and one for the left / low notes. The staffs have a squiggle on the left end of them: the high one has a sort of loopy thing and the low one has a sort of 7 or 2 with a couple of dots. These are clefs, specifically treble clef and bass clef. They tell you what pitch the notes on the staff represent.
Technically the symbols are a G clef and an F clef: the spiral at the centre of the treble squiggle is always on a note that's a G, and the two dots on the bass are always on a note that's an F. Technically if you put the symbols on other lines you'd indicate different pitches. In practice, these days nobody does that, and 'G clef' and 'treble clef' are synonymous, as are 'F clef' and 'bass clef.'
Violin music is written in treble clef. Cello music is (mostly) written in bass clef. The range of notes you can easily play on those instruments more or less coincides with what you can easily write in those clefs without egregious use of extra ledger lines for notes above/below the staff.
There's also another clef symbol. The C clef symbol looks like a capital B, and the middle of the two humps is always on a note that's a C. It's used to indicate two uncommon clefs. Alto clef gets used for viola music and nothing else as far as I know, and tenor clef gets used for cello music that's off in the upper registers of the cello. Alto clef is... honestly I don't know what its relation to treble clef is, other than "lower," I think it's a sixth lower? Maybe a seventh? I don't read treble clef very well so I don't really know.
Tenor clef is a fifth higher than bass clef. This makes it really convenient for cello music. The strings on a cello (or violin or viola) are a fifth apart, so if you're used to reading bass clef for cello then tenor is the same thing just one string up.
A viola is a fifth lower than a violin, and an octave higher than a cello. If you put 'octave strings' on a viola, it plays the same notes as a cello. A tenor viola is an octave lower than a violin, and a fifth higher than a cello.
Which means it can natively play music in tenor clef. Hence the names.
Here endeth the classical music neepery for the day.
A Conrad Veidt Community
Mar. 7th, 2026 08:36 amscifirenegade posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_community_promo
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
conradveidtA community dedicated to Conrad Veidt. Whether you are a seasoned fan, a casual fan, someone who has seen everything there is to be seen or who's just starting their journey, this community is for you!
You can post about anything related to Herr Veidt here. Discussions, film reviews, fanworks (fic, art, icons, vids, anything!), recs, meta, picspams, gifs, etc. Discussion of film/culture and society of the 1910s-1940s is also acceptable.
Every month, we shall highlight one film.
Right now, we're hosting a movie tournament.
Photos: House Yard
Mar. 6th, 2026 09:28 pmysabetwordsmith posting in common_natureToday was unseasonably warm and sunny, so I took pictures around the yard. The first few are from indoors, then the rest are the house yard. (See the savanna.)
( Walk with me ... )
( Walk with me ... )
Star Sunset and Flare + Ducks
Mar. 5th, 2026 08:16 pmyourlibrarian posting in common_nature
Perhaps because we were seeing it at a rippling distance, when I looked out at the lake the other night, the ball of fire that was the setting sun seemed to be reflected as a five pointed star. Don't know how clearly that came out here but I liked the photo regardless.
( Read more... )
current stitching, and
Mar. 5th, 2026 10:43 amthistleingreyI've learned what I can from the heavily modified slipover that I knitted and re-knitted all through the past two months. Because the recent absence of a subcutaneous pain-mesh layer has coincided with thermoregulation's partial return to service, I no longer want a personally sized blanket layer in sport-weight wool/alpaca. I've bound it off, both to keep as a measurement reference and because the yarn wouldn't survive further reuse.
( non-knitting digression )
Thinking through some incidents has been aided considerably by working with yarn bought when my skin first felt oddly cold. I've used it recently as a memory prop, then undone the deliberately false start and restarted the project with different yarn. As part of the process, I've finally recovered the skeins that were reused to become about half of a Little Wave cardigan, then abandoned when I realized that the pattern's proportions and mine would never agree. Instead, I'm meditating upon Capsa.
Thanks, long-ago clearance-discounted yarn, oddly too heavy for past me to crochet, for taking good care of me.
I've tried the first few rows of a swatch for New Terrain in Lavold Hempathy yarn---old, if not as old as the yarn meant first for the blanket I couldn't crochet. Perhaps my 2019 hands could've managed it, but my current hands will need a bit of wool in the yarn blend to keep those slipped stitches even. Hempathy is cotton/hemp/rayon, with no bounce/spring to it.
Yamagara's New Terrain interests me because its shoulder-yoke is constructed similarly to that of the Sundial tee, except that Yamagara is actually competent at designing patterns with carefully considered details---all the finishing touches that Sundial's designer (Wool and Pine) tends to skip. As a fallback, I could make a version of New Terrain without the terrain, plain across the torso, if the slipped stitches and my hands can't agree at all.
( non-knitting digression )
Thinking through some incidents has been aided considerably by working with yarn bought when my skin first felt oddly cold. I've used it recently as a memory prop, then undone the deliberately false start and restarted the project with different yarn. As part of the process, I've finally recovered the skeins that were reused to become about half of a Little Wave cardigan, then abandoned when I realized that the pattern's proportions and mine would never agree. Instead, I'm meditating upon Capsa.
Thanks, long-ago clearance-discounted yarn, oddly too heavy for past me to crochet, for taking good care of me.
I've tried the first few rows of a swatch for New Terrain in Lavold Hempathy yarn---old, if not as old as the yarn meant first for the blanket I couldn't crochet. Perhaps my 2019 hands could've managed it, but my current hands will need a bit of wool in the yarn blend to keep those slipped stitches even. Hempathy is cotton/hemp/rayon, with no bounce/spring to it.
Yamagara's New Terrain interests me because its shoulder-yoke is constructed similarly to that of the Sundial tee, except that Yamagara is actually competent at designing patterns with carefully considered details---all the finishing touches that Sundial's designer (Wool and Pine) tends to skip. As a fallback, I could make a version of New Terrain without the terrain, plain across the torso, if the slipped stitches and my hands can't agree at all.
more about the New Orleans trip
Mar. 4th, 2026 10:56 pmredbirdThe trip to New Orleans was very good for cattitude, who had an easier tiee finding food he could eat and enjoy than Adrian and I, but the few days of warm weather did us good as well. (And then the trip home was physically difficult and painful for Adrian, unfortunately.)
I did more walking each day, including but not only the travel days, than I expected or planned, and found it less difficult than I would have predicted.
Saturday afternoon we met my brother at House of Blues, because they had outdoor music and a performer he liked. That was fun, and Adrian enjoyed dancing with an enthusiastic stranger. I think that was the day we took a streetcar downtown in search of lunch, only to find lines for the relatively small number of places with outdoor seating. But I'd wanted to ride a streetcar--streetcars are part of the New Orleans transit network, not just a tourist attraction, so we could get one a couple of blocks from our hotel.
Our hotel had a courtyard, which was part of why Cattitude chose it. The courtyard had an unexpected, charming cat. The drum circle I mentioned in the previous post was in the park across the street from our hotel, which is part of why Mark recommended it.
Also, the New Orleans airport terminal plays music, not very loudly, over the PA system, which is entirely fitting for an airport named after Louis Armstrong, and much better than what comes over the PA at most airports.
cattitude, who had an easier tiee finding food he could eat and enjoy than Adrian and I, but the few days of warm weather did us good as well. (And then the trip home was physically difficult and painful for Adrian, unfortunately.)I did more walking each day, including but not only the travel days, than I expected or planned, and found it less difficult than I would have predicted.
Saturday afternoon we met my brother at House of Blues, because they had outdoor music and a performer he liked. That was fun, and Adrian enjoyed dancing with an enthusiastic stranger. I think that was the day we took a streetcar downtown in search of lunch, only to find lines for the relatively small number of places with outdoor seating. But I'd wanted to ride a streetcar--streetcars are part of the New Orleans transit network, not just a tourist attraction, so we could get one a couple of blocks from our hotel.
Our hotel had a courtyard, which was part of why Cattitude chose it. The courtyard had an unexpected, charming cat. The drum circle I mentioned in the previous post was in the park across the street from our hotel, which is part of why Mark recommended it.
Also, the New Orleans airport terminal plays music, not very loudly, over the PA system, which is entirely fitting for an airport named after Louis Armstrong, and much better than what comes over the PA at most airports.
bad news about @minoanmiss
Mar. 3rd, 2026 01:05 pmredbird[Ny is gravely ill, unconscious, and unlikely to recover:]
Update: Ny is gone. As of a couple of hours ago, she no longer has brain function, and will be moved off life support after evaluation for organ transplant, and allowed to die peacefully, not necessarily immediately.
[my earlier info was via princessofgeeks, who linked togoss's post]
Update: Ny is gone. As of a couple of hours ago, she no longer has brain function, and will be moved off life support after evaluation for organ transplant, and allowed to die peacefully, not necessarily immediately.
[my earlier info was via princessofgeeks, who linked to
goss's post]The Utrecht Fish Doorbell is back up for the season!
Mar. 2nd, 2026 07:14 amfull_metal_ox posting in common_naturehttps://visdeurbel.nl/en/
The Fish Doorbell in Utrecht in the Netherlands is an interactive online Citizen Science tool, explained in this post from last year: https://common-nature.dreamwidth.org/281642.html
The Fish Doorbell in Utrecht in the Netherlands is an interactive online Citizen Science tool, explained in this post from last year: https://common-nature.dreamwidth.org/281642.html
New Orleans
Mar. 1st, 2026 08:48 pmredbirdWe’ve been in New Orleans for a few days, enjoying warm weather and eating outdoors— cattitude in particular needed to get away from winter. Not as much interesting food as we’d hoped, but lunch today was at a lebanese restaurant, where we tried Lebanese iced tea, made with rosewater— the server apologized because she thought we had asked for it instead of ordinary sweet tea. My grilled shrimp and rice were also excellent.
Then we wandered through the French Market, and bought hats, a shoulder bag, and a smaller cros-body bag.
We rounded the afternoon off by listening to the drum circle in Congo Square, which has been weekly for more than 300 years. My brother suggested than because our hotel is across thethe street street from the park.
More when I get home ; we’re flying back tomorrow
More frog
Mar. 2nd, 2026 07:45 ammerrileemakes posting in common_natureIn my last posts I described the start and progression of my tadpole adventures. Here's the next instalment.
As soon as the tadpoles started growing legs they changed rapidly. Within days the kinda dopey goldfish behaviour, like nibbling around the surface of the water, disappeared, they became very elusive and shy. Almost like as soon as they started thinking about being predators they realised they were also prey. It was a bit sad, because I really enjoyed watching them, but also necessary for them to become wild frogs. I was glad that I hadn't spoiled them for life on their own.
( Read more... )
As soon as the tadpoles started growing legs they changed rapidly. Within days the kinda dopey goldfish behaviour, like nibbling around the surface of the water, disappeared, they became very elusive and shy. Almost like as soon as they started thinking about being predators they realised they were also prey. It was a bit sad, because I really enjoyed watching them, but also necessary for them to become wild frogs. I was glad that I hadn't spoiled them for life on their own.
( Read more... )
Small Fandoms!
Mar. 1st, 2026 04:16 amkalloway posting in dw_community_promosmall_fandoms has finished up its annual Drabblethon, with more than 140 drabbles posted. The community is open all year for any sort of creations for small, tiny, and dead fandoms. Post your stories, art, icons, meta, and everything else.
not stitching
Feb. 28th, 2026 12:53 pmthistleingreyRandom art: Svetlana Gordon's Tiffany slipover, as in the lamps, I think. I have no plans to knit it! but it's pretty.
Youtuberecs
Feb. 28th, 2026 12:00 pmtally posting in dw_community_promo
youtuberecs is a simple, casual community for posting Youtube recommendations! It's meant to be easy peasy—you can leave reviews or commentary about your recs or just drop the embed and go!We also now also have a nice backlog of video recs to browse, all organized within our tag system. ♥
Snowdrop Day
Feb. 27th, 2026 02:29 pmbookscorpion posting in common_nature
I went to the cemetery today and it was the first warm day of spring - even the wind was warm, and all the birds were going absolutely nuts, they were so loud. The snowdrops are in full bloom everywhere and they look so incredibly lovely against the leaf litter.
( Read more... )
Photos: House Yard
Feb. 26th, 2026 11:06 pmysabetwordsmith posting in common_natureToday I took some pictures around the yard and did a couple of garden crafts. These are from the house yard and savanna. (See the Worm Bin and the Water Garden.)
( Walk with me ... )
( Walk with me ... )
plan for the best and hope for the worst
Feb. 25th, 2026 02:54 pmjazzfishCreakily snoring cat is the best cat.
Got my crown done today, for a mere $250 thanks to the NDP's championing of dental insurance for indigents. My left jaw aches; this is a state of affairs that will likely persist until morning. It's nice to not have a bit of a hole where a tooth should be, though. (I had a temporary crown. It came off a month ago and the dentist said "eh, probably not worth putting it back on again.")
Things in boxes, empty shelves. There's more of the last lousy ten percent of stuff I can pack but it's running into the problem of deciding -what- to pack. That in turn would be easier if I had a better sense of what the apartment will look like without bookcases, which I won't get until after the movers come. Oh well. I can always take later boxes over to the storage unit myself.
Soon I'll get to see what life is like with Less Stuff, at least for a little while.
My great-great-great- (+/- one great) -grandfather or uncle Joseph G. Taylor had a violin that was discovered among my grandmother's things when she died in 2014. Turns out to be a fairly decent instrument: not amazing quality but certainly a few steps above my cello. ("Wilhelm Duerer fecit anno 1900.") Her kids got it refurbished and then had no idea what to do with it, so my dad gave it to me as the only person in the family who plays a stringed instrument at all. It's mostly sat in its case for years; for awhile I loaned it to someone who wanted to learn to play violin, and I'm not sure whether it got any use there or not.
I took it out yesterday just to see what it was like. It's tiny. Tuning is obnoxious; I'd forgotten how much I hate wooden pegs. (I'm spoiled by the amazing mechanical pegs on my viola.) Notes aren't where my fingers think they ought to be, and everything is cramped. I'd expected all that. What I hadn't expected was for it to feel like cheating. I'm accustomed to a certain amount of resistance in bowing, I expect from the thicker/larger strings on the viola (and more so on the cello, though that's a whole different thing). On the violin the bow just ... glides. Faster notes and slurs come so much easier and more clearly, string crossings are trivial. Hmpf.
Other than that... I'm still here. Mr Tuppert has stopped creaking but is still sprawled on his heating pad with his chin on his front paws, and that's pretty cute. Life goes on.
Got my crown done today, for a mere $250 thanks to the NDP's championing of dental insurance for indigents. My left jaw aches; this is a state of affairs that will likely persist until morning. It's nice to not have a bit of a hole where a tooth should be, though. (I had a temporary crown. It came off a month ago and the dentist said "eh, probably not worth putting it back on again.")
Things in boxes, empty shelves. There's more of the last lousy ten percent of stuff I can pack but it's running into the problem of deciding -what- to pack. That in turn would be easier if I had a better sense of what the apartment will look like without bookcases, which I won't get until after the movers come. Oh well. I can always take later boxes over to the storage unit myself.
Soon I'll get to see what life is like with Less Stuff, at least for a little while.
My great-great-great- (+/- one great) -grandfather or uncle Joseph G. Taylor had a violin that was discovered among my grandmother's things when she died in 2014. Turns out to be a fairly decent instrument: not amazing quality but certainly a few steps above my cello. ("Wilhelm Duerer fecit anno 1900.") Her kids got it refurbished and then had no idea what to do with it, so my dad gave it to me as the only person in the family who plays a stringed instrument at all. It's mostly sat in its case for years; for awhile I loaned it to someone who wanted to learn to play violin, and I'm not sure whether it got any use there or not.
I took it out yesterday just to see what it was like. It's tiny. Tuning is obnoxious; I'd forgotten how much I hate wooden pegs. (I'm spoiled by the amazing mechanical pegs on my viola.) Notes aren't where my fingers think they ought to be, and everything is cramped. I'd expected all that. What I hadn't expected was for it to feel like cheating. I'm accustomed to a certain amount of resistance in bowing, I expect from the thicker/larger strings on the viola (and more so on the cello, though that's a whole different thing). On the violin the bow just ... glides. Faster notes and slurs come so much easier and more clearly, string crossings are trivial. Hmpf.
Other than that... I'm still here. Mr Tuppert has stopped creaking but is still sprawled on his heating pad with his chin on his front paws, and that's pretty cute. Life goes on.
a nice walk, a day after the blizzard
Feb. 24th, 2026 03:24 pmredbirdI have just been out for a walk, a day after the blizzard: bright blue sky, temperature around freezing, and most but not all of the sidewalks have been cleared, so I walked down the middle of the street for a bit. The turkey flock that hangs out on Egremont Road is now up to at least 12 birds, two of which were sitting on a railing. [We got 16-18 inches of snow, I think--the official number from the airport is 16.5, which is significant, but a lot less than this storm dumped on some places.]