Again with the Robot Orchestras

Score one for targeted Gmail marketing: I had to click through their link to the "Fauxharmonic Orchestra," which presents itself as a top-end synth-orchestra service, apparently with an eye to engaging would-be composers who can't get real orchestras to return their calls. (The Fauxharmonic, like other robot orchestras out there, trips up over unfortunate details like grace notes and starts to sound like a Final Fantasy soundtrack when the winds all have to play at once.)

I wouldn't have remarked on this if not for the damn Adagio Contest:


The deadline's April 26th, so you'd better settle into D minor pretty quick and start cranking. If you need inspiration, recall that right now, across planet Earth, there are thousands and thousands of lost kittens crying for their mothers.

I remember watching one of the evening TV news magazine shows a couple of years ago — this must have been back at home, since I don't ever watch these otherwise — spotlighting some camp where middle-aged people would go train to break into cabaret singing and so forth. The woman at the center of the story was pursuing a dream, evidently impossible (to everyone but her) because of her obvious inability to sing well. I don't think illusions like this are a bad thing, per se, except to the extent that they're facilitated by people making a wad of cash out of convincing someone it all might actually lead somewhere. This is, of course, Snake Oil.

The robot adagio contest looks like maybe more of a composer-oriented marketing gambit than a composer-oriented Snake Oil thing, but still. Would it kill them to do this in anything but the worst possible taste?

In any case, there was only one way in the classical realm to achieve "Master of Melancholy." That was to defeat Alfred Schnittke in a barehanded cage wrestling match, and he took the title with him to the grave in 1998.