jdh's blog

double trouble

Well, folks, this time it's 4 hands again but 2 pianos!  I have a friend with 2 pianos who suggested we do a piece together.  She is a truly fine pianist and I'm very excited to be playing with her.

My piano teacher helped me find a really fun piece by Wilhelm Friedrich Bach - one of the younger Bach sons.  This music is neat for a couple of reasons.  The interplay between the 2 pianos is really delightful.  It alternates between the pianos echoing the other -- working a little motif back and forth up to some climax, and the pianos playing hand in hand -- playing little runs and arpeggios up and down the keyboard a 3rd apart. The other neat thing about this piece is that the music bridges Baroque and Classical.  There are clean melodies and classical harmonies, but it is filled out with all of the trills and frills associated with the Baroque.  I've never played a piece with so many trills.  That will be the main challenge, to get our trills to play nicely with each other.

I look forward to performing this for my friends, but much of the pleasure is in the practicing together.  I feel lucky to have found yet another person to make music with.

Posted at 05:40PM Feb 12, 2007 by Julia Harper in Personal  |  Comments[0]

blogging

Reactions to my starting a blog:

I would shoot myself if I had to do that.  (a sibling)

I have a blog - it gives me a chance to show off my knowledge about the subjects I'm an expert at, which is a good way to enhance my future job prospects.  (a friend)

First there were mailing lists, then forums, now blogs.  They all continue the trend of talking to more and more people that you are less and less familiar with.  It gives folks the perception of a wider audience.  Why just post your rants to a mailing list when you can post to the world?  (a close relative)

My, what a thoughtful, analytical person you are!  You have an interesting view on the world, and are an excellent writer.  (a parent - could you tell?)

Blogs are the perfect medium for introverts.  There is no one to make eye contact with, and no requirement to respond to (or even allow) comments.  (an even closer relative)

I'd SHOOT myself if I had to write that crap every day/week!  (a sibling -- no, actually, a *different* sibling)

Posted at 11:58AM Jan 12, 2007 by Julia Harper in Personal  |  Comments[0]

nightmare

I awoke with a start from a nightmare I had after composing the previous blog entry about who the better programmer is.

My mother is gesticulating wildly.  Her eyes are flashing, she is speaking rapidly.  She suddenly understands -- it is all related!  She finally sees the big picture -- the really big, complete picture.  She needs to articulate this idea. She is desperate to make us understand the relationships and patterns she has discovered.  She cannot get the information out fast enough; she is about to expode with the urgency of it!

My father is mute.  He is staring straight ahead, eyes dry and red.  He has almost uncovered every possible path through the most complex problem in the world.  He has no time to sleep, even to blink.  His head is so full of understanding every single nuance of this problem that it has pushed out his capacity to speak.  And who has time for speech anyway -- that would interfere with the speed with which he is reaching the solution!

Thank God they are actually both retired, and have become rather more interested in hot tubbing than in soliloquies or solutions.

Posted at 10:40PM Nov 15, 2006 by Julia Harper in Personal  |  Comments[0]

my mother should have been a programmer

My father is very smart.  He was an electrical engineer.  He used calculus in normal worklife to explain and create.  He built things that measure things that measure (very small) things.  He can reduce a problem down to its component parts, solve it, then express the solution in its most elemental, elegant form, and implement it the smallest possible space.

My mother is very smart.  She was a history teacher and is a writer.  She sees the interaction between culture, technology, personalities and how it drives events.  She sees patterns in history - the ways it repeats.  She can present a thesis succinctly, then validate it by showing the contributing factors and logical conclusion.  She rapidly organizes information to make it understandable; she explains complex relationships through simple concepts that build on each other.

Which of these people would make a better programmer?

I have often thought it is my mother.  Good programming is very much about organizing information, and not so very much about using calculus or fitting into a small package.  It is also about providing a map for how to understand and approach both the problem and solution.

But of course that ability to understand and solve hard problems and strip down the solution to its most efficient and elemental form is so critical.  Maybe it is my father.

Maybe my mother was really intended to draw the boxes with lines and arrows between them, and my father to take that concept and apply it - to understand and address the ramifications it introduces.

Come to think of it, I guess that kind of sums up their marriage.  No wonder their combined lives have been so successful.

Posted at 01:31PM Nov 14, 2006 by Julia Harper in Personal  |  Comments[0]

not perfection, but

I performed that duet yesterday afternoon.   It was ok.  I give myself a B+.  Most importantly, it was music -- my duet partner and I echoed each other's phrases, and there was delicate feeling and elasticity in the right sections.  It was rousing in other right sections.  I didn't ever lose it (and neither did she).  I did lose one hand for a few measures (not literally, you understand), and played a few notes wrong here and there, but feedback was that it was fun to listen to.   Guess I'll trust the feedback.

It's hard to not be perfect.  Not that I ever am, but that doesn't make it any easier.  Hey, at least I delivered, on time, if  with some bugs. :-)

Posted at 07:12PM Nov 13, 2006 by Julia Harper in Personal  |  Comments[0]

just one more compile

Hi. This is my opening foray into blogging. As such I will start small. I am small, so I guess that kind of fits.

I was practicing the piano recently (I am going to play (half of) a Schubert duet at an upcoming recital) and was reminded again of the similarity between practicing piano and coding. I have a very bad case of the "just one more compile" syndrome these days. You know how you really mean to leave for dinner, you mean to get to bed and get some rest, but you're hot into fixing a bug, or making some section of code more elegant and understandable. You haven't quite got it right, but you can see it there waiting for you, if you just try one more time... and then suddenly you've missed dinner, or ended up staying up to ridiculous hours. Not that you mind, because your mind is still racing even when you finally do stop.

That's how it is with practicing. Can't quite play some section with the right timing. Need to try out a different fingering. Is there a better way to get that entire phrase hang together and make emotional sense? No that's not quite it, let me try something else -- or, yes, that's getting there, now can I get it to really work reliably?

But then, I think everything's the same as everything else. Or at least has aspects that can be found to be similar. When I first started working in computers, I had to develop a filter to translate from one protocol to another. It was a new idea to me. For a long time after that, it seemed to me that everything was a filter of some sort. It still often seems that way. Why, playing the piano is being a filter isn't it! You read the music that the composer wrote and then provide your interpretation of it.

And then there's jazz. Kind of blows that analogy out of the water, doesn't it.

Ok, time to retreat. Bye.

Posted at 01:30AM Oct 27, 2006 by Julia Harper in Personal  |  Comments[0]