Sunday, July 13, 2008

What is...Verdi????

I very much like classical music. I didn't get into it in a big way until I was an adult, and even after quite a few years of listening to it and attending concerts, I am certainly no expert. Oh, sure, I have my occasional peak moments (the other day I turned on our local classical station, started brushing my teeth, and thought, upon hearing an unfamiliar piece, that sounds like Alan Hovhaness - as indeed it was), but I have done little study or serious examination of the field (I did enter much of the final movement of the Jupiter symphony into some music software once, and it was fascinating to see the structure unfold - Mozart was phenomenal).

I don't watch all of Jeopardy very often; the value-time relationship of slogging through the relatively easy answers and questions in the first two rounds doesn't come out positive for me. If I'm around, I will catch Final Jeopardy; if I happen to turn it on a little early, I may catch the end of Double Jeopardy.

So occasionally I'll catch a Classical Music or Opera category on Jeopardy. And, generally, people do pretty poorly. What I've noticed, though, is, even if the players get it right, they tend to answer truly as a question.

If you're not that familiar with the show, the contestants are given an answer, and formulate their response as a question. Usually, though, they confidently answer "Who was Churchill" or what have you as a statement.

But, in anything having to do with "highbrow" music, the answer/question comes tentatively, and sounds very much like a question. Just an observation on a summer Sunday.

1 comment:

Greg Glockner said...

This is why God created TiVo. Jeopardy takes about 15 minutes if you skip the junk.

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