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Siderea, Sibylla Bostoniensis

@siderea.bsky.social

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Psychotherapist-programmer musician-historian outsider-anthropologist healthcare-blogger science-explainer social critic essay-essayer and soothsayer. Professional wisewoman and amateur wiseass.

Screenshot of the linked document showing that the date stamp is published September 16th 2025, updated May 2026.

"We will not convey the sense of the music if we are in perfect technical control, so in a sense a very good player has to try harder in these passages than someone for whom they would be a strain, technically. Stravinsky, a composer whom we tend to think of as rather objective and "cool," once turned down a bassoon player because he was *too* good to render the perilous opening to The Rite of Spring. This heart-stopping moment, conveying the first crack in the cold grip of the Russian winter, can only be truly represented if the player has to strain very fiber of his technical resources to accomplish it. A bassoon player for whom it was easy would miss the expressive point. An when told by a violinist that a difficult passage in the violin concerto was virtually unplayable, Stravinsky is supposed to have said: "I don't want the sound of someone playing this passage, I want the sound of someone TRYING to play it!"

Screenshot of the intro of the report popped into a reading level checker, which scores the text as at a collegiate reading level.

Screenshot from the authors list of the paper, showing Eric Vallabh Minikel and Sonia M Vallabh, both of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.