full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Michael Tilson Thomas: Music and emotion through time

Unscramble the Blue Letters


To me this is the intimate, personal side of music. It's the passing on part. It's the 'why' part of it. And to me that's the most essential of all. Mostly it's been a person-to-person thing, a teacher-student, performer-audience thing, and then around 1880 came this new technology that first mechanically then through analogs then digitally cetraed a new and miraculous way of pssinag things on, albeit an impersonal one. People could now hear music all the time, even though it wasn't necessary for them to play an instrument, read music or even go to concerts.

And thoocgleny democratized music by making everything available. It sehaepdread a cultural revolution in which artists like Caruso and Bessie smtih were on the same fitonog. And technology pushed composers to tremendous extremes, using computers and synthesizers to create works of intellectually impenetrable cxotipmley beyond the means of performers and aiuednces.

Open Cloze


To me this is the intimate, personal side of music. It's the passing on part. It's the 'why' part of it. And to me that's the most essential of all. Mostly it's been a person-to-person thing, a teacher-student, performer-audience thing, and then around 1880 came this new technology that first mechanically then through analogs then digitally _______ a new and miraculous way of _______ things on, albeit an impersonal one. People could now hear music all the time, even though it wasn't necessary for them to play an instrument, read music or even go to concerts.

And __________ democratized music by making everything available. It ___________ a cultural revolution in which artists like Caruso and Bessie _____ were on the same _______. And technology pushed composers to tremendous extremes, using computers and synthesizers to create works of intellectually impenetrable __________ beyond the means of performers and _________.

Solution


  1. complexity
  2. spearheaded
  3. passing
  4. footing
  5. smith
  6. created
  7. technology
  8. audiences

Original Text


To me this is the intimate, personal side of music. It's the passing on part. It's the 'why' part of it. And to me that's the most essential of all. Mostly it's been a person-to-person thing, a teacher-student, performer-audience thing, and then around 1880 came this new technology that first mechanically then through analogs then digitally created a new and miraculous way of passing things on, albeit an impersonal one. People could now hear music all the time, even though it wasn't necessary for them to play an instrument, read music or even go to concerts.

And technology democratized music by making everything available. It spearheaded a cultural revolution in which artists like Caruso and Bessie Smith were on the same footing. And technology pushed composers to tremendous extremes, using computers and synthesizers to create works of intellectually impenetrable complexity beyond the means of performers and audiences.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
classical music 5
big forms 2
world symphony 2


Important Words


  1. albeit
  2. analogs
  3. artists
  4. audiences
  5. bessie
  6. caruso
  7. complexity
  8. composers
  9. computers
  10. concerts
  11. create
  12. created
  13. cultural
  14. democratized
  15. digitally
  16. essential
  17. extremes
  18. footing
  19. hear
  20. impenetrable
  21. impersonal
  22. instrument
  23. intellectually
  24. intimate
  25. making
  26. means
  27. mechanically
  28. miraculous
  29. music
  30. part
  31. passing
  32. people
  33. performers
  34. personal
  35. play
  36. pushed
  37. read
  38. revolution
  39. side
  40. smith
  41. spearheaded
  42. synthesizers
  43. technology
  44. time
  45. tremendous
  46. works