full transcript

From the Ted Talk by José Bowen: Beethoven the businessman

Unscramble the Blue Letters


(Laughter)

That's a piece of hardware. That's a device that you can use if you have my piece of paper. If you have sehet music, does it sound good? No, it's a piece of ppear. It's like those floppy disks; they weren't very useful. You can use them as coasters, I guess. But they're not very useful on their own. So both beethoevn and Bill Gates are srofatwe designers.

What's interesting is that they also both live at a time where the hardware is chnaigng very quickly. Those of you who are old enough to rmemeber, go back to the '90s, go back to Windows whatever, and remember your joy and your love of Bill Gates, as every time a new software package came out, you had to get a new computer. So, guess what? When Beethoven started writing muisc, he had this instrument up on top, with five octaves. This one's bigger, it's got more pedals, it's louder, it can do more stuff. When Beethoven starts off, he doesn't have a pniao that can do this. He actually just cannot do this. He can't go — (Musical chords) Can't do that. So in 1803, a French piano maker — alright, think about how sarmt this is: If you're a piano maker, into whose hands do you want to get that piano? Composers. Artists who will use the tlcgnoeohy and make everybody else have to adopt your technology. It's like sending Bill Gates your fastest, latest computer, because you know he'll use up all the memory.

Open Cloze


(Laughter)

That's a piece of hardware. That's a device that you can use if you have my piece of paper. If you have _____ music, does it sound good? No, it's a piece of _____. It's like those floppy disks; they weren't very useful. You can use them as coasters, I guess. But they're not very useful on their own. So both _________ and Bill Gates are ________ designers.

What's interesting is that they also both live at a time where the hardware is ________ very quickly. Those of you who are old enough to ________, go back to the '90s, go back to Windows whatever, and remember your joy and your love of Bill Gates, as every time a new software package came out, you had to get a new computer. So, guess what? When Beethoven started writing _____, he had this instrument up on top, with five octaves. This one's bigger, it's got more pedals, it's louder, it can do more stuff. When Beethoven starts off, he doesn't have a _____ that can do this. He actually just cannot do this. He can't go — (Musical chords) Can't do that. So in 1803, a French piano maker — alright, think about how _____ this is: If you're a piano maker, into whose hands do you want to get that piano? Composers. Artists who will use the __________ and make everybody else have to adopt your technology. It's like sending Bill Gates your fastest, latest computer, because you know he'll use up all the memory.

Solution


  1. remember
  2. software
  3. sheet
  4. piano
  5. music
  6. paper
  7. changing
  8. technology
  9. beethoven
  10. smart

Original Text


(Laughter)

That's a piece of hardware. That's a device that you can use if you have my piece of paper. If you have sheet music, does it sound good? No, it's a piece of paper. It's like those floppy disks; they weren't very useful. You can use them as coasters, I guess. But they're not very useful on their own. So both Beethoven and Bill Gates are software designers.

What's interesting is that they also both live at a time where the hardware is changing very quickly. Those of you who are old enough to remember, go back to the '90s, go back to Windows whatever, and remember your joy and your love of Bill Gates, as every time a new software package came out, you had to get a new computer. So, guess what? When Beethoven started writing music, he had this instrument up on top, with five octaves. This one's bigger, it's got more pedals, it's louder, it can do more stuff. When Beethoven starts off, he doesn't have a piano that can do this. He actually just cannot do this. He can't go — (Musical chords) Can't do that. So in 1803, a French piano maker — alright, think about how smart this is: If you're a piano maker, into whose hands do you want to get that piano? Composers. Artists who will use the technology and make everybody else have to adopt your technology. It's like sending Bill Gates your fastest, latest computer, because you know he'll use up all the memory.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
bill gates 5
social interaction 3
extra notes 3
piano sonatas 3
pounding rocks 2
hear mozart 2
player piano 2
count basie 2
benny goodman 2
software designers 2
beethoven piano 2
publishes piano 2
clever entrepreneur 2
play beethoven 2
fake chopin 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
publishes piano sonatas 2

Important Words


  1. adopt
  2. alright
  3. artists
  4. beethoven
  5. bigger
  6. bill
  7. changing
  8. chords
  9. coasters
  10. composers
  11. computer
  12. designers
  13. device
  14. fastest
  15. floppy
  16. french
  17. gates
  18. good
  19. guess
  20. hands
  21. hardware
  22. instrument
  23. interesting
  24. joy
  25. latest
  26. laughter
  27. live
  28. louder
  29. love
  30. maker
  31. memory
  32. music
  33. musical
  34. octaves
  35. package
  36. paper
  37. pedals
  38. piano
  39. piece
  40. quickly
  41. remember
  42. sending
  43. sheet
  44. smart
  45. software
  46. sound
  47. started
  48. starts
  49. stuff
  50. technology
  51. time
  52. top
  53. windows
  54. writing