In the Loop: May 2024
Keyboard Warriors
Look. We all need a break sometimes. Honestly, I think we all need a break right now. So why not take a break with this newsletter?
This month, while we talk style and grammar we'll also be celebrating the piano for no reason other than we feel like it. We have all our regular features—Q&A, What's the Diff?, What a Weird Word, and a guest blog by fledgling pianist Greg Beckett.
"The piano ain't got no wrong notes."—Thelonious Monk
Editing Q & A: How to Style Fancy Music
Lots of piano (and other) instrumental works are known by generic names—sonata, quartet, nocturne, etc.—and often a number or key (or both). Such names are capitalized but NOT italicized. But a descriptive title is usually italicized if referring to a full work, set in roman and in quotation marks if referring to a just section of a work. The abbreviations no. (for number) and op. (for opus) are set in roman and lowercased.
Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 7
Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody no. 12
Für Elise, or Bagatelle No. 25[a] in A minor, WoO 59
“Rondo alla Turca” from Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K. 331 / 300i
Playlist: Play it, Sam (click the image)
What's the Diff?
There are a lot of sneaky words out there—words with similar spellings, similar sounds, or just similar vibes. Here’s the lowdown on some of those commonly swapped-by-accident words.
Pedal (n.): A pedal is a foot lever or treadle by which a part is activated in a mechanism (like on a bike or a sewing machine); it can also refer to a lever pressed by the foot in the playing of a musical instrument (such as an organ or piano) or an electronic device to alter a guitar. There are also verb and adjective forms, but you get the idea.
Peddle (v.): To peddle is to sell goods to people by traveling from place to place, to hawk items, or to sell illegal, harmful, or low-quality goods to people (like snake oils or miracle creams).
Cool Guide: Music Is Some Good Stuff
Stuff We Like
There’s a Simpsons episode for everything. Even piano. I mean, piannie!
Enjoy a sneak peek inside Steinway factory.
The Angry Grammarian is a musical for and about grammar sticklers. We deserve it.
Pianist João Carlos Martins and his bionic gloves, y’all.
Gross. It’s an organ made of cats.
Pianos fell from the sky!
Check out MIA’s “Paper Planes” on piano.
Sorry about all the bops.
Fake it ‘til you make it: Jonny Greenwood only pretended to play keyboard when he first joined Radiohead.
Piano stairs!
No piano? No problem. Learn to play anyway!
Awkwafina and Lizzo play the piano together.
Sixteen levels of piano composition difficulty.
A toy piano virtuoso.
Imperfections make the world go round.
What a Weird Word!
Pay It Forward!
Greg Beckett is back!
Greg Beckett is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Western Ontario, where he teaches, among other things, a course on zombies in Haiti and the United States. He is the author of There Is No More Haiti: Between Life and Death in Port-au-Prince and the co-editor of Trouillot Remixed: The Michel-Rolph Trouillot Reader. He lives in London (not that one), Ontario, and he is trying his best to learn to play piano.
He talks about making music over on the blog. Don't take our word for it. Read it yourself.
