Transparent Heart

That "pretty bug" earlier was actually supposed to display something like the above.

Faust answers Wagner

lost this below. Lets upload it again:



Sorry about that singing. I had to change the music.

I wash my hands of the whole damn situation

Verse 1:

I wash my hands of the whole damn situation
Don't tell me how never-more will be
Don't ask me to sit and watch the time go bye
Till my end.

Chorus:
        How can I wait any longer?
       Apart and all alone,
       no - no - no - 
       don't leave me here
       so far from home. 

       don't leave me here
       so far from home. 

Verse 2:
         I wish I believed in revelation
         had faith some god cared for me
         but over and over it's just family and friends
        that I see.

Prettiest Computer bug ever

I get to rotate and zoom in and out. But this was not the desired result of my program.[This was]

Did this with Joe long ago, it's on my wall

"I Cannot See"

The Assistant sings:

I cannot see why you are grieved
What more can honest people do
then be conscientious and pursue
with diligence the art they've received?

When you accept your father as a youth
You'll learn from him what you desire
And if as a man you add your share of scientific truth
Your son can still go higher.
[continues in German]

By the Pangs of Despised Love

This is from the part of Faust, not long after Margeret rejects the jewels the Devil and Faust planted in her cupboard, where the Devil is angry that she did not fall for the trap. Parenthetically, it is also one of many places where the Devil fails to keep his promise to Faust.

[Click here]

Faust's Answer to Wagner (try again)

In this installment, Faust is answering some of the jeering he is getting from his assistant Wagner.

[Click here]

FYI, the scene includes Faust, his assistant Wagner, and a group of peasants. The peasants have been dancing and drinking toasts to Faust for his past efforts to cure them of a "pest".

Since I am waiting for the video to upload, I might as well mention that this musical fragment is part of an experiment with "recitative". As you can read online, recitative is a musical form where the natural cadence of speaking takes precedence over a fixed rhythmic beat. You can also extract from the literature that recitative often includes a kind of alternation between a strummed chord on the instrument(s) and a spoken declamation. But these descriptions to not come close to describing the very very rigid form that is used from Handel and Bach (and earlier?) onward through Gluck, Rossini, and Mozart, and then into modern opera where it takes its final form as the bulk of the dialog. For what it is worth, Jazz poetry often takes the form of recitative and one could say that rap is another form of it. But to come back to the "rigid form" and something I cannot find reference to online, there is a very standard device where the voice ends on a dominant note followed by a dominant-tonic ending done only by the instrument(s). That, as much as anything, defines the format for me. Also in the literature you read how composers slowly refined the blending of recitative with "standard" rhythmic cadence phrasing and, for example in Rossini, you can enjoy how they switch back and forth smoothly between speaking and singing. So that is what I am up to here: blending between a voice-instrument alternation and a voice-instrument coordination. Also, I admit it, the kids were playing Leanord Cohen's "Hallelujah" non-stop in the basement.

Faust's Assistant

A character in Goethe's Faust called Wagner is praising Faust and criticizing the crowd:

[Click here if video not available]