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old hand
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of troy mentions: ..."Walkways" in malls and hotels have failed when a number of dancers, all moving to the same beat, caused sympathetic vibrations...
I suspect this has something to do with the sway that's built into such structures for stability in earthquakes. Ironic, eh?
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re Harmonic resonance on bridges: We were taught in CCF (uk = OTC in US I think, = toy soldiers at school, right?) to break step on bridges for that very reason.
And the recent problems with the "Millenium Bridge" in London bear witness to the phenomenon. Whereas the designers had thought to control vertical harmonics in this footbridge they discovered as soon as they opened it that a slight breeze caused a small sway (allowed for) and that this caused all the pedestrians to walk in a wider gait and in step, setting up a positive feedback, and making it very uncomfortable. It has been closed for about a year now, but I believe they have designed a solution and have started to fit it.
Rod
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CCF
It's ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps)
And not necessarily toy soldiers, although very many, maybe most, were. But on the other hand, as a friend of mine who was an ROTC officer in 'Nam has noted, in Vietnam the life expectancy of an ROTC 2nd or 1st Lieutenant was about 3 weeks from the time he first went into the field.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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MaxQ states: : he (Howard Goodall) had sold me a pup with his statement that J.S. Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier" was largely responsible for our "equal temperament" systemA pup, indeed. Yap, yap! Faldage commented: It certainly led the way.Well, yes and no. By the time Bach swung into action, the well-tempered tuning system had been largely developed - pretty much during the previous century, if my memory of musical history serves me correctly. Most of the work was actually done in Germany, I believe. Anyway, it was the development of the theory of the Pythagorean comma (largely playing it by ear?  ) which led to the well-tempered approach used by Bach (and which sounds a little out of key to our ears). Further refinement led to the equal-tempered system we use today.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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J.S.Bach
I ought to note in passing an innovation of Bach's which was, apparently, entirely his own. He was the first keyboard player to use all 10 fingers. Prior to him, the thumbs were almost never used unless needed to stretch to an interval you couldn't reach with the other fingers. One played with the fingers straight (the fault which piano teachers are constantly correcting since Bach's time) and there were many fingerings, like crossing 2 over 3, or 4 over 5, etc., which seem very wierd today, but were what you had to do if you only used the 8 fingers. Bach, according to contemporary witnesses, not only played with his thumbs but with his fingers curved and without lifting them very high off the keys. He taught his sons and his students this method and it has become standard. By way of contrast, try playing Buxtehude or Sweelinck or one of the older generation composers in the old manner, without the thumbs. Also, although old J.S. wrote some organ music which is playable only by virtuosi, he did not, like Rachmaninoff, write music requiring huge hands, making huge problems for musicians like me who have small hands; I know of only 2 places in the organ literature of Bach which stretch more than an octave.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I know of only 2 places in the organ literature of Bach which stretch more than an octave.No, he stretched the boundaries of his instruments instead!  In spite of the fact that both my parents were piano teachers, I never really learned the piano formally (classical guitar instead). But I taught myself to play a couple of the preludes from the Well-tempered Clavier. I would not have been able to do this had Bach been a contortionist like Rachmaninov!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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I'll make this short... Bach, as "finally agreed upon" (and geez do I use those terms loosely), was the most dexterously talented (he had an excellent ear as well) exploiter of this newly "repaired" tuning system, and based on the history that has unfolded since, has, unfortunately for all of "us", established a "standard" (and I use that term even looser ) of key centered composition that, to this day, we have yet to escape from the grips of their audible references. Granted, the definition of "music" includes a sense of organization and communication... but this is very simple math... and I'm sick of the same story... over and over and over and... the endless even rhythms... did that guy ever breathe? We knick-named him "Two-Fives to Hell" 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Bach, as "finally agreed upon" (and geez do I use those terms loosely), was the most dexterously talented (he had an excellent ear as well) exploiter of this newly "repaired" tuning system, and based on the history that has unfolded since, has, unfortunately for all of "us", established a "standard" (and I use that term even looser) of key centered composition that, to this day, we have yet to escape from the grips of their audible references.
Sorry I didn't put all the colours back in, K.
However, I do have to protest, just a little. I frankly don't give a damn about the academic discussions of the implications of Bach's work - I just like it. As I also like Liszt - and he did his damnedest to detune the piano, if only by the number of notes he insisted should be played together with the loud pedal to the metal! Blame Chopin if you wanna blame anyone. He'd have written you a nice nocturne in reply.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Bach and Liszt
Besides dear old Franz, who used a variety of dramatic devices and practices to get women swooning over him, even to the point of becoming an abbé, there was the monster Sergei Rachmaninoff, who had hands big enough to pick up a basketball with the fingers of one hand and wrote accordingly for stretches of 11 or more keys, and also hated to write in any key having less than 5 sharps.
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old hand
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was the monster Sergei Rachmaninoff, who had hands big enough to pick up a basketball with the fingers of one hand and wrote accordingly for stretches of 11 or more keys, and also hated to write in any key having less than 5 sharps.
Thelonious Monk was noted for his large hands as well. (I know, this is jazz, not classical.) He didn't write music for long stretches, but he frequently would over-reach when intending to play an octave. This is why some of his music sounds odd and choppy, (not to mention that he always had a cigarette in one hand).
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