A Minute with Miles
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How did the piano get its name? Why can't you "reach" a crescendo? Who invented opera-and why-and how do you pronounce "Handel"? These and countless other classical music questions are answered on South Carolina Public Radio's A Minute with Miles. Hosted by longtime NPR commentator Miles Hoffman, the segments inform and entertain as they provide illuminating 60-second flights through..
A Minute with Miles
2h ago
Joseph Lanner was a hugely popular and important composer and orchestra leader in Vienna in the 1820's and 30's, one of the first composers to create a refined version of the Viennese waltz ..read more
A Minute with Miles
1d ago
For performers, just about everything the composer writes, with the exception of the notes themselves, is a matter of interpretation ..read more
A Minute with Miles
3d ago
The body length of a full-size violin is about 14 inches, give or take a very small fraction. This is a standard length, and an optimum length, arrived at by trial and error over many years by the great violin makers of history ..read more
A Minute with Miles
4d ago
If I told you about a letter from a famous composer to his employers, a letter in which the composer complained that he needed a higher salary because he’d been making less money freelancing playing the organ at funerals, because there hadn’t been nearly enough disease going around – could you guess who the composer was ..read more
A Minute with Miles
5d ago
The other day, a friend asked me if orchestral musicians really look at the conductor when they’re playing. It’s an interesting question, because after all, how can you look at your music and play all the right notes if you’re also looking up at the person waving the baton ..read more
A Minute with Miles
1w ago
I’m guessing you haven’t thought much about this, but one of the things we musicians have to put up with is calluses. Not feeling sympathetic? But what if the calluses are peeling, or bleeding, or have bruises under or around them, or make you look like you’ve been attacked by a vampire ..read more
A Minute with Miles
1w ago
In music, the terms “high” and “low,” as in “high notes” and “low notes,” “high pitched” and “low pitched,” are metaphors ..read more
A Minute with Miles
1w ago
It wasn’t until the late 1700s and early 1800s that the brilliant operatic tenor as we know him today came into his own ..read more
A Minute with Miles
1w ago
Under the heading “Real Musical Understanding,” here’s something that Sergei Rachmaninoff wrote in 1910 ..read more
A Minute with Miles
1w ago
If there are such things as “good pieces” or “great pieces,” then there must also be such things as bad pieces ..read more