From R. P. Feynman, “The character of physical law”: If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it … Read more
Wagner is said to have described Mayerbeer’s operas as follows: (translated into English and originally written in German, probably.) “Meyerbeer … wanted a monstrous, piebald, historico-romantic, diabolico-religious, fanatica-libidinous, sacra-frivolous, mysterio-criminal, autolyco-sentimental dramatic hodgepodge …” I can never even guess what “autolyco-” means. I didn’t find any definition in any dictionary in any language. But this … Read more
First, I am not sure whether it would be ok to ask a question like this in this category. If it is inappropriate, I’ll erase it. I bumped into Aaron Copland’s saying, “… all American music could not possibly be confined to two dominant jazz models: the ‘blues’ and the snappy number.” I didn’t know … Read more
In quotations and other similar contexts, I often see [sic] included used to mean I am quoting this verbatim, they made a mistake here. I am not sure if there is a general category for this kind of a term so I can’t search for this but I’d be interested to know if there is. … Read more
Someone just asked me in chat what a missed note in music is called. Without hesitation, I replied, “A clam.” It’s what I’ve always heard in academic and professional settings since forever. Only now, having to explain its usage and origin, I went looking and found only informal origins and folk-etymology explanations. One such was … Read more
I know you have to write out numbers less than 10. However, if you’re quoting a source that doesn’t do so, do you need to write [sic] after each number less than 10 that isn’t written out? For example, should “nationwide, 25.4% of students got 8 or more hours of sleep on an average school … Read more
For some reason, I used to think that a 7″ version of a song was a 7-minute long version. Then, I started noticing that most 7″ versions I came across were in fact around 3:30 long. Upon further inspection (understand “I googled the question”), I found that 7″ version was another expression for the radio … Read more
There’s a linkin park song that uses this expression, what is the meaninig? Answer ‘Odds’ mean probability. “What are the odds” means ‘what is the probability’ some outcome will happen. This expression on its own means, “Let me tell you what the chances of various outcomes will be”, that is, the person saying this will … Read more
I am quoting a passage that uses the abbreviation etc. … except that the etc has no period after it. I read here that you can use [sic] to indicate a punctuation error, but should I bother using it to indicate a lack of punctuation that should be there? Answer Using a period/full point or … Read more
Which is correct: A flatted B note was added …, or A flattened B note was added …? Likewise, would “A sharpened [or sharped] C introduces chromatic passing note …” Thanks. Answer D, when sharpened becomes D# not Eb. D, when flattened, becomes Db not C#. Free Music Theory Furthermore, the verb flatten means to … Read more
