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Hi, I'm Andrew, founder of Sidechain Security. We are a small team of cybersecurity engineers that focus on data security: encryption, key management, cryptography, etc.

We help client achieve their data protection needs, implement encryption in public / hybrid environments to meet compliance, and help define data protection goals and strategy.

We're a technical bunch, capable of implementing solutions (Thales) as well as custom projects in Java, Python, C#, etc and interfacing with public cloud API's in Azure, Amazon, and GCP.

If your org has data security needs, let's chat!

Email: andrew@sidechainsecurity.com

Website: https://sidechainsecurity.com

As a classical pianist, I’m wondering about the queues between the conductor and the soloist.

I’ve always wondered whether the pianist queues up tempos and entries by gesturing the conductor or the other way around?

Depends completely on the context. In an ideal world the pianist leads the tempo.

However, sometimes the composition makes this near impossible (i.e. there is a large section of the orchestra that has to start playing in the new tempo, such that a conductor couldn't both react to the tempo of the soloist and show it clearly to the orchestra). If it's impossible for the conductor to get the tempo from the soloist, then usually there is time before the first rehearsal to discussing those spots, and discuss ideal tempos for the soloist. As you can guess, there is usually the possibility of negotiation, either verbal during this meeting, or during performance rehearsal both finding a more ideal tempo for the hall, orchestra, and days sensibilities.

Schumann piano concerto is a decent example. Second movement tempo is totally decided by the pianist, no discussion is necessary prior to rehearsal (unless they want some particularly abnormal). The second theme of the second movement is with solo piano in accompaniment position. So while we want to accommodate their musical needs, ultimately the musical burden is on the orchestra (in this case the cellos), as a result the tempo will be mostly decided (contextually of course, it has to fit with the first theme) by the conductor. Third movement beginning in theory is lead into by the conductor, however after the downbeat the soloist can show their tempo and the conductor responds.

Thank you for your take on it. I too was hoping for more insights here, having followed the Linear A / Linear B developments from my armchair for many years.

Very cool. As a fan of metal with “extreme” vocals, I was blown away one night at a karaoke place when a guy went up and screamed the vocals to an Arch Enemy song!

At the time, I was thinking “Only in Portland…”

Piecing together a key management solution from open source is possible, but if you're trying to encrypt data and are open to commercial products, we do a lot of support of Vormetric.

All of the key management is "built-in" and managed, so there really isn't much overhead. All software-based, with FIPS certified key management. It's very easy to encrypt data this way. It is expensive though.

Disclaimer: while I used to work for Vormetric / Thales, I no longer do.

I spent several years studying and playing the piano works of Schoenberg. I loved it, so much so that I got the barcode from a CD of his piano concerto tattooed on myself (Emanual Ax was the pianist).

I remember thinking early on, how can anybody possibly memorize this? But the more I listened to it, the more the "melodies" stuck, and this was a break through for me. There is beauty in his music, and the more time spent with it, the more it really shines. Still to this day I can hum along to Op. 25 (the Suite for piano) -- something I never thought possible upon first listening.

I believe this is what distinguishes Schoenberg from later "atonal" composers.

As a pianist, my recommendations for approachable Schoenberg are the Piano Concerto (the first movement is a waltz!), Op 19, and Op 25, the two latter works being digestible in small pieces. Op. 33 is magical, and Op 11 is just plain difficult.