XYplorer Beta Club

I think you might like this then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7VYomMxeiI
It's not 16th century but the mood comes close.

Interesting. I like the guitar, don't care so much for the vocal. But then, I'm rather selective in the vocal classical music I like.

Forgot to mention: I'm a long time fan of Sylvius Leopold Weiss. And, of course, anybody who dislikes Bach has lost the right to live.

I love playing Bach songs on classical guitar more than any other composer. So many of Bach's classics have been arranged and play beautifully on classical guitar.
...playing since 1965...I should be better!

I've got a set CD's of Weiss lute sonatas, only recently discovered his music. As for Bach - well, there aren't many of his works I haven't got recordings of. Organ, harpsichord (two of my favourite instruments), and the cantatas.
I've never heard the Toccata & fugue in D minor, BWV565 played on the guitar. Having said that, I've just listened to it on YouTube. Interesting, I think I'll stick with it played on the organ.

John Dowland also composed a lot for the lute, often played on the guitar.

I once attended a solo lute live performance of works of John Dowland in an rather unlikely place: The British Council in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Classical guitar... well, I cannot play a single note on guitar (although I can read notes and play piano) and never had a lesson. I learned it (i.e. Rock guitar) the traditional way: listening to records and trying to figure it out, and watching the hands of better players in concerts. (I'm not good, but good enough to keep me happy, and happy enough to keep on playing.)

Today's quarantine soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxamCyz5Yas

Certainly not where I would have expected to hear a Dowland lute recital. Mustapha Tettey Addy and The Obonu Drummers perhaps.

Only just seen this thread, so I thought I should post a little bit.

I'm in the UK, south coast, far enough from London that the crap hasn't really hit the fan yet but close enough that we're gearing up for a lot of incoming work.

We, yes. I work for the British NHS, so I'm automatically considered a key worker. I'm in my late 50s and have type 1 diabetes so I'm in an at risk group, but as the stuff I do is in the complicated area between IT and clinicians, they'd rather I didn't work from home.

So I've been moved to a quiet office in a quiet site where I don't see many people but where the majority of the clinicians I look after are within a short walk.

My wife's a senior pharmacy technician. So she doesn't get to work from home either.

Things that currently bother me:

Locked down as many of us are, there's still a lot of people that regard that as an imposition and don't see why they should stay home.

But when can the lockdown end? When the danger's passed.

When will the danger pass? When we can go back to something close to our old ways of life without being at risk of contracting COVID-19.

What will reduce the risk of contracting COVID-19? Well, if we get it and develop immunity -- assuming that it doesn't mutate very quickly. Or we find an effective treatment, or functional antiviral medication.

How long will it be before the risk is sufficiently reduced to be able to end the lockdown? ... now that's the question. The economic damage it's causing is a major driver to lifting it as soon as possible -- which is why the likes of Trump are talking about ending it by, well, whatever he said yesterday. But that requires that we accept that going back to work is going to kill people. On the other hand, if we leave the lockdown in place until we have a tested and effective vaccine or treatment, will we have printed so much money that worldwide economic damage causes serious survival problems from other quarters?

I hope I'm missing something important. I'm not naturally a pessimistic person but it's hard to see good outcomes.

So we're doing what we can do, to help others, to be as safe as we can be, and erecting the biggest Somebody Else's Problem field over all the places that a tiny bit of analysis takes us to.

And in the meantime, I'll just add this: keep well, stay safe, and don't go out if you don't have to. You might help save the life of a lot of the people who are currently standing between you and it.

It would be possible to handle it. China and South-Korea have shown it (I don't buy the never-ending Asia-bashing of the media -- I've been there often enough to know how those people/cultures tick; no surprise at all that they can deal with it).

I mentioned already earlier the weak performance of leaders and lead in my country (Germany), and it does not seem to be much different elsewhere in Europe.

Now in the last 2 weeks the media became a major problem, too. They started undermining the public morale by demanding an end to the measurements. Well, that's media mechanics. "Let's continue to stay home" sells less units than "When will this unjustified punishment end?". And more and more good-looking "virus experts" pop up in TV shows and come to industry-friendly conclusions. Etc etc. After a few weeks of reality shock, we are now already in the "staking the claims" phase. And the number of proven infections is still rising...

So we have weak leaders, careless people, and idiotic media. That's a bad hand. But at least we have one trump here in Europe: No Trump.

Take care!

oblivion wrote: ↑07 Apr 2020 17:01 Locked down as many of us are, there's still a lot of people that regard that as an imposition and don't see why they should stay home.

But when can the lockdown end? When the danger's passed.

When will the danger pass? When we can go back to something close to our old ways of life without being at risk of contracting COVID-19.

What will reduce the risk of contracting COVID-19? Well, if we get it and develop immunity -- assuming that it doesn't mutate very quickly. Or we find an effective treatment, or functional antiviral medication.

How long will it be before the risk is sufficiently reduced to be able to end the lockdown? ... now that's the question. The economic damage it's causing is a major driver to lifting it as soon as possible -- which is why the likes of Trump are talking about ending it by, well, whatever he said yesterday. But that requires that we accept that going back to work is going to kill people. On the other hand, if we leave the lockdown in place until we have a tested and effective vaccine or treatment, will we have printed so much money that worldwide economic damage causes serious survival problems from other quarters?

Beautifully written. The major economic damage should be a driver to quicken the vaccine development and testing, unfortunately I can see with my own eyes that things are moving differently... I'm working in a non-essential field, upon which other essential fields depend tho. So guess who's back at work tomorrow, even if official lockdown here should be enforced till the 13th. And even though remote working could be a possibility for me, the trump-like employer has a different idea and the pig-ignorant subordinates don't even want to wear a mask unless forced, and even then... Yeah I'm spitting acid poison right now!

With strict measurements we could be back in containment phase within 3 weeks, and then with the help of tracking apps we could keep it contained while most of normal life (no parties, no football, and everybody masked) flows again and until a vaccine is produced in large quantities. Well, if this is done globally. That must be understood globally. Ok, just dreaming...

admin wrote: ↑07 Apr 2020 19:14 (no parties, no football, and everybody masked)

That's the challenge, isn't it? I hadn't really picked up the significance of masks for non-medical personnel, but after a little research... problem's going to be getting the necessary cultural shift made.

I think someone needs to manufacture cheap, easy to wear, easy to wash and reuse, and most importantly cool masks. Give them away at supermarket doors. Make them easy to buy, good to gift... and print slogans on them that will appeal to people, or pictures, or animals, or cartoons, any and all possibilities so people won't feel strange or weird or out of sync. Get them normalised in days not months.

Cultural shift: For a start, politicians, celebrities, TV news people, youtubers, etc should wear them all the time. That would make them much more acceptable. Or even cool.

Availablilty: Even a scarf or a simple cloth would be functionally much better than nothing. Hipper designs are not hard to make, and for those that cannot make them themselves they have to be provided.

Cleaning them: Dry ironing them at 70° is enough to kill everything.

That would certainly be a huge step.

I think the game changer, though, is the education side.

Medics wear masks to protect themselves. So not wearing one is an act of stupidity or bravado, from that viewpoint.

But the general public should be wearing masks to protect each other. So your mask is a statement that, whether or not you're infected, you're not a threat to others. And that's not linked to bravado, it's linked to whether or not you want to be viewed as an arsehole. (Sorry for the use of a technical term in common use in psychology.) And that's a game-changer, right there.

Well, I know a few people that don't mind to be viewed as an arsehole. One of them is pretty powerful...

Yes, the bravado attitude (of younger men mainly probably) will be a problem. The idea that you wear a mask to protect others will not sink in quicky in the Western culture. Maybe that's the time when some football heroes should come out as mask wearers...

AIDS teached us condoms, COVID now masks. There's a pattern, and it's fascinating how primitive the solutions are. Building walls between us and the enemy, that's paleo tech.