caretaker @ConversingWith

Discovered when asking the question, "What is the easiest Bach piece to play on violin?" redd.it/1wl4jz Two nights ago while listening to a local musician, I felt a glimmer of desire to attempt playing the violin. I realize that Bach may not be the place to begin…

"On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece … [the] earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind." Johannes Brahms

Quoted on his @MfPImprov biography page: "Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument." —Rumi musicforpeople.org/bios.html

"Every activity that didn’t involve a screen was linked to more happiness, and every activity that involved a screen was linked to less happiness." theconversation.com/what-might-exp… Now dark your screen!

Reading more about Art of the Fugue today, I learned of something called the BACH motif: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BACH_motif This influenced the music of Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, and many others I don't recognize. #1000lives

Writing about Zhu Xiao-Mei: "Of all Bach’s keyboard works it’s the Goldberg Variations that draws her back again and again … dazzling in its symmetry and complexity … many pianists are mesmerised by this mathematical virtuosity. But for Zhu, it’s all about emotion." #1000lives

This version, arranged by August Wilhelmj, transposed the music from Bach's original key (D major) to C major. Then the part of the first violins is transposed down a further octave and given to a solo violin that can play the entire melody on its lowest string, the G string.

Douglas Hofstadter (born February 15, 1945) is an American professor of cognitive science. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_H… Doug wrote in GEB: "Perhaps the most concise summary of enlightenment would be: transcending dualism." 7 of #1000lives

"What German composer Bach has in common with the Indian dhrupad genre" scroll.in/magazine/84064…

Butterfly in the Quantum World: The Story of the Most Fascinating Quantum Fractal by Indubala I. Satija with contributions by Douglas Hofstadter youtu.be/rfjIA0aERoE #1000lives

Perhaps Not Such a Brief Autobiographical Statement After All by Douglas Hofstadter anchoragechambermusicfestival.org/concerts/new-m… "I have a lifelong love for languages (their sounds, their symbols, their grammars, and their idioms, as well as their poems and their songs)…" December 2014 #1000lives

Path of 7 in #1000lives H. Prather - his 1st book touched me A. Huang - also published by Real People Press D. Darling - collaborated with Huang A. Watts - inspired Darling M. L'Engle - my beloved childhood author B. Pascal - quoted by L'Engle D. Hofstadter - math & quoted Pascal

Did Alejandra or Magdalena refer to someone Hofstadter knew personally? I'll try to find out.

Douglas Hofstadter, next of my #1000lives Pascal's adage is also quoted in Hofstadter's "Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern".

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) was a French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, inventor, and theologian. iep.utm.edu/pascal-b/ "What a chimera is man! What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy!" (Pascal's words; he personified himself.) 6 of #1000lives