It's Monday, and I'm having my typical post-concert weekend down day. I was extremely happy with the concerts this past weekend. The orchestra, as always, played their hearts out. Last night, after a lovely dinner reconnecting with an old college friend and his family, I couldn't sleep, because I had the second movement of Brahms' Fourth Symphony coursing through my brain. I suppose if I am to have insomnia, there are much worse things to be haunted by.

I am so pleased to be receiving comments on the concert and on the podcasts. I thought it might be nice to address some of the issues, and answer some of the questions I have been posed.

First, as far as sound quality is concerned, I plead "guilty as charged". I basically use the built-in microphone on my iMac G5, and play on the Yamaha upright piano in my office at home. I have just today downloaded some freeware software, called "The Levelator", which supposedly will help even out the levels of my voice and the piano. I will also look into purchasing a higher quality mike to record into. The podcasts are very much a work in progress, and I promise to continue to try improving the sound quality, and the content.

A glossary of terms is an interesting idea, but I think others have already done it better than I could. What probably would make more sense is an accompanying list of applicable terms that could be looked up using either one of the online music dictionaries or a book of musical terms. I will list some suggestion below, with links to the web pages:

Online:
Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary: http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/ (special thanks to Sean Schultz!)
Music Dictionary: http://library.thinkquest.org/2791/MDOPNSCR.htm
Dolmetsch Online: http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheorydefs.htm (this one also includes many links to other more specific music dictionary websites)

Books:
The Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music (the best small volume)
Belwin Pocket Dictionary of Music (there are actually many such volumes, any of which will give you very short definitions of common music terms)

I'll be back soon with another posting to address some of the questions you have posed.