Comment Re:Licensing (Score 1) 136
And if I remember rightly, that change didn't go down too well in Australia.
And if I remember rightly, that change didn't go down too well in Australia.
Tracking the baton movement could be fairly difficult though. Even squeezing out a beat while concentrating on singing might be more difficult than it appears. I mean, just following the conductor rather than the musicians around you can be a challenge even for experienced musicians. I've done a fair bit of conducting, and I know how hard it can be to get a band to realise you actually want them to go a bit faster! Getting someone to do that and communicate it in two dimensions in real time while actually singing properly... that would be a special singer indeed!
Actually, that could be a rather interesting exercise. Getting members of the choir to track the conductor's movement on someone else's hand (who then have to concentrate on the hand signals rather than what other people are singing) could be a good way to reinforce the importance of paying attention to the dude/dudette with the stick!
I've been sitting at my desk for the last couple of minutes studying my own conducting style. I've always tried to maintain a very clear beat (a lot of my conducting over the years has involved beginner bands, so communicating where the beat is is far more important than it might be in more professional outfits.)
Anyway, I've noticed that my style is very three dimensional. My upbeat, for example, starts near my sternum, goes out from my body and follows a roughly circular path back to near my forehead. The other beats seem to do similar things. Now that I'm looking at it, that back-and-forward axis is quite pronounced, and may explain why my tuba players (who sit on my immediate right) never complain that they can't read my conducting.
Which goes to your original point---depending on the conductor, a side mounted camera might actually work, so long as it can still read two directions.
The problem I have now is that I'm going to be very, VERY conscious of my style come Thursday night!
The reason (I'm spitballing here) that I think the beat come at the point of highest acceleration is that that is the point when the conductor applies the most force to his or her arm. It's been years since I studied physics (or physiology) but I imagine that would be very close to the point of highest acceleration.
All that said, I've had conductors that seem to anticipate their own beat. For them, the beat actually comes just after they hit the bottom. In fact, it probably come at the moment of highest acceleration of the little 'bounce' that follows the beat (which is probably the curve upwards you mention).
You're certainly right about the other cues. They're probably not so important though, so long as the song goes more or less as it does in rehearsal. A blind person will have some idea of what is about to happen (although I'll grant that it's not ideal.) Guessing the exact moment when the first note is meant to be sung to within a very small fraction of a second isn't something I'd enjoy.
Dunno about kittenman, but we still call them that in Australia. I do speak (and prefer) the 1/(power of two) system though. If my daughter's education is anything to go by, it seems the systems are used interchangeably in schools.
No more delayed than your own singing will be. If you can't squeeze in time to the conductor, I doubt you can sing in time.
I suspect that the 'beat' is probably at the point of quickest acceleration, rather than the end point of the motion.
There are also other cues that come in handy---for example, if the conductor's also singing the same rhythm as you, you automatically follow that instead.
Motion tracking may or may not be a good idea, but if you're to try it, don't do it from the side. The side-to-side movement is just as important to a musician as the up and down, especially at the start of a piece. (For example, if a conductor wants to bring the group in on a fourth beat anacrusis by beating beats two and three, the important movement will only be sideways, or away-from/towards the sensor.)
This is a big problem for me---I play to the conductor's side in a band I'm in and it's very easy to confuse florid sideways movement with up- and downbeats.
Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever sung in a choir in which the conductor uses a baton. It's standard in bands, but it doesn't seem to be so much in choral work, at least in my circles.
Now that I think about it more, the few times I've conducted choirs I don't think I've used a stick, even when one was available. It seems wrong putting an instrument in my hand when the musicians don't have one.
The University of Melbourne has crunched the numbers, and you're right, the world probably isn't about to end:
http://www.scc.ms.unimelb.edu.au/whatisstatistics/coins.html
No. With cash transactions the common practice in Australia is to round to the nearest 5 cent increment, whether up or down. It's not that difficult to do though because the rounding's done by the cash register anyway.
Will this armed paramilitary wear brown shirts and make sure that any "abnormal" citizens are detained and interrogated?
She had 2 handguns, completely reasonable for self defense. A standard
You do realise that to most people in most parts of the civilized/first world, this sounds completely insane, right?
Two handguns for self defence? Insane. Guess what I have for self-defence in the first world country where I live? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a bat or knife. Times I have been violently murdered or robbed so far: 0.
A "standard"
A shotgun, "pretty typical for hunting small game". Insane.
Even more insane, though, is this idea that your hobby/paranoia (which are the two reasons you implicitly think people should have guns) outweighs other people's safety.
Where I live, you actually don't see guns, other than small handguns, in holsters, carried by the police. That's it.
Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Guns just make people way more effective at killing each other. That's what they are for. Take up archery, buy a can of mace, and stop being so completely ridiculous about your weapon-infested society.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/index.html
1) The other one being Brisbane and Gold Coast at 100km apart, I would say we're just concentrated on the coast line, not at all huge.
I'm probably an ignorant southerner, but isn't "Gold Coast" just a fancy name for "the outer suburbs of Brisbane"?
People managed to navigate without all this garbage.
And if their maps wrongly placed their destination in completely the wrong place, they'd be equally screwed.
What's your point?
"Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like `Psychic Wins Lottery.'" -- Comedian Jay Leno