• Neat text from Francois Chollet
• He highlights that the correct way to think of a transformer is as an architecture that attends to a set of tokens.
• This makes it more powerful than an RNN, since we do not "bias" in any direction.
• It does make for a wrinkle: how do we give it the positions of words in a sentence? Hence, positional encoding.
• But really, we can throw in any choice of encoding data we like, to give it "latent information"
• In this way, the spatial location is baked into the feature space!

§ Musical Ideas

• doctrine of the affections: Ornate and flowery writing, producing a specific emotional response. This manifests as long phrases, with fewer cadences (spots where the music rests).
• major and minor scales, moving to this tonal system / equal temparement.
• In WTC / well tempered clavier, bach showed that he can write in all keys.
• dissonant chords are allowed
• early baroque: homophonic
• late baroque: polyphonic.
• terraced dynamics: forte/piano contrasts. Music would be either loud or soft, no inbetween, due to instrumental limitations.
• Contrapuntal texture: Lots of little melodies running in and out of each other.
• Mostly composed for harpsichord!
• music notation has been standardized (since the middle ages)
• basso continuo: bassline. improvisation.
• polyphonic imitation: another voice enters, singing the same song, overlapping the same melody.
• stradivarius made string instruments. Around 1000 were made, 600 exist.

§ orchestra starts to take shape

• technical improvements:
• woodwinds: wooden flutes, oboe
• brass: horn, trumpet (no valves yet)
• percussion: timpani
• 10-25 musicians are in the baroque orchestra
• Handel: music for the royal fireworks

§ Piano

• bartolomeo cristofori: inventor of piano
• piano was a modification of the harpsichord
• harpsichord was the main keyboard instrument, baroque era, strings plucked by quills
• Bach: harpsichord No 1 in D minor (beautiful harpsichord piece)
• Bach's primary instrument was the organ, and would also compose for the harpsichord.

§ Opera and its components

• Monody: solo song with instrumental accompaniment.
• Camerata: Florentine writers, artists and musicians who invented opera.
• Aria, Henry purcell, dido and aeneas, dido's lament .

§ Opera Parts

• the recitatve helps move the action forward. Spoken like dialogue.
• overture: part that occurs as the intro.
• concreto delle donne: rise of the professional female singer.

§ Great figures of the time

• Handel: Messaiah, hallelujah chorus
• Bach: Brandenburg Concerto #5 movement 1
• Vivaldi: 4 seasons

§ Handel (1680-1760)

• Video
• Late baroque
• Born the same year as bach, but they never met.
• Became a naturalized british subject.
• Went blind in later life.
• Quick temper, liked to eat!

§ Bach (1680-1750)

• Video
• Spent latter part of life working for church.

§ Major Works

• Sacred Music
• Concreto Grosso: 2-4 soloists, 8-20 musicians. Ritornello form, alternation between tutti and solo sessions.
• Fugue: polyphonic composition with imitation voices. Main melody in a fugue is called the subject. Melodic lines are called voices, and are layered.
• Fugue has Inversion, Retrograde, Retrograde Inversion, Augmentation, Diminuition.
• Bach, Little fugue in G minor.
• Mnemonic to remember that bach came first: "Bach laid the track, Beethoven brought it back". Also,
• "Mozart’s melodies moved after Bach’s Baroque brilliance bloomed"

§ Classical Era

• Video
• French Revolution
• Advances in Science
• Industrial Revolution
• Age of Reason

§ Viennese School

• Haydn (1730-1800)
• Mozart (1760-1800)
• Beethoven (1770-1830)

§ Elements of Classical Style

• Regular Rhymthm and meter
• Homophonic texture (i.e., NON contrapunctal, singular voice).
• Call and reponse style phrasing.
• Piano!
• "folk elements"
• Lyrical melody.

§ Musical Forms: Symphony and string quartet

• I: Fast. II: Slow. III: Triple meter dance, IV: Fast.

§ Musical Forms: Sonata & Concerto

• I: Fast, II: Slow, III: Fast

§ Haydn

• Austrain Composer.
• Inspired by folk, song, and dance.

§ Mozart

• Perfect Pitch
• Photographic memory: Wrote down a piece that was never released by the sistine chapel by just hearing it.
• Child prodigy: touring as a child.

§ Beethoven

• Mnemonic to remember that bach came first: "Bach laid the track, Beethoven brought it back".
• Unhappy childhood. Father was alcoholic, had to support his mother by performing.
• Played piano for mozart, was invited to vienna at age 17. He was helped by the aristocracy.
• Perfect pitch, lost hearing later in life.
• Bridge to the romantics.
• Moonlight sonata.

§ Beethoven versus mozart

• Video
• Mozart "sweet", beethoven "fiery".
• Mozart had "beauty" and "perfection" in his composition. (functional programmer!)
• Mozart composed for the harpsichord, beethoven for piano.
• In the sonata, mozart in the development section (after the exposition section), is much more controlled than beethoven. Beethoven goes farther texturally.
• My personal take: mozart has a "stacatto" feel, while beethoven has a "legato" feel.

§ Ravel and Music Boxes

• He was fascinated by music boxes and clocks.
• Bolero: features a simple, repetitive theme that is introduced by a snare drum and gradually layered with different instruments, creating an ever-increasing intensity.