Gershom (Jan M.L.) Martin The Lady Thatcher Professorial Chair in Chemistry Dept. of Organic Chemistry | Faculty of Chemistry | Weizmann Institute of Science | Rehovot | Israel

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Gershom's avocations and secret vices

Link to my "Science of Music" lecture notes (intranet only)

Music: "Apollonian" (right-brain)

• My J. S. Bach page.
• Pages dedicated to some other favorite classical composers of mine: Ludwig van Beethoven (my second classical love after JSB), Franz Liszt, Frydryk (Frederic) Chopin, Gustav Mahler, Claude Debussy, Dimitri Shostakovitch (another Shostakovitch site).
• And yes, you noticed correctly: no Haydn, no Mozart (except late works), and emphatically no "light classical"

Music: "Dionysian" (left-brain)

• progressive rock archives
• My Rush page
• The kings of progressive metal: Dream Theater
• Some other favorite rock bands: Genesis (esp. their old stuff), Spock's Beard, Steely Dan (another site including Donald Fagen solo projects), Led Zeppelin, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Living Colour, and of course my favorite caffein substitutes Metallica (older albums) and Tool. And yes, you noticed correctly that (1) this spans the gamut from smooth jazz to harsh heavy metal; (2) all of this has either a "progressive" or a "jazz fusion" streak in common :-)
• I'm also quite fond of 1940s-1950s jazz (Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane,...), as well as some ECM-type stuff (John Abercrombie, Pat Metheny,...).
• Some pioneers of "electronic" music (what's nowadays known as "new age" if slow, and "trance" if fast): Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. Nice sonic wallpaper, and sometimes a lot more than that.
• more to follow!

Science of music

• Illustration of different tuning systems (requires Java and a pretty recent browser). Guide for the impatient: Pick an Ab major chord (click Ab, then shift-click C and Eb), click "true pitch", and then switch back and forth between tuning systems. You'll notice ugly beating in Pythagorean tuning, REALLY ugly beating in quarter-comma meantone, mildly off but tolerable sounds in the well-tempered systems (Kirnberger, Vallotti, Werckmeister), and a fairly clean sound in equal temperament. You can also click "major" (which will play a simple major cadence in the selected tuning system). Now repeat the same exercise, but with a C major chord (click C, then shift-click E and G). You'll hear something completely different....
• Much more to follow!

Reading

• Lots of nonfiction (books and essays), especially history, biographies, political science, and Judaica.
• "Western canon" literature, in the original language if possible.
• For chilling out: quality science fiction. I get my "fixes" at:
  • Baen Webscription service (includes the Baen Free library)
  • Webscription.net

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