Mozart enfant, son père et sa soeur (Child Mozart, his father, and his sister), painted by French painter Luis Carrogis from the Musée Condé, Chantilly France.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is perhaps the best known classical music composer. His music is still performed and studied even 221 years after his death in 1791.

Wolfgang was born in Salzburg,Austria—then part of the Roman Empire—Wolfgang came from a very musical family. His father, Leopold Mozart, was a sought after composer and musician.  Leopold published one of the first books on teaching and playing the violin entitled, “Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule (‘Essay on the Fundamentals of Violin Playing’) published in 1756, the same year Wolfgang was born.

Wolfgang, soon began to show signs of musicality as Leopold began to teach Wolfgang’s younger sister Maria, who showed a talent in music. As Leopold taught Wolfgang’s older sister Maria, music began to have a major impression on, then, three-year old Wolfgang.

“He perched himself at the clavier, and amused himself by finding out thirds, which e struck with much demonstration of delight; he also retained the more prominent passages in the pieces which he heard. In his fourth year, his father began, in play, to teach him minutes and other pieces on the clavier; in a very short time he could play them with perfect correctness and in exact time. The impulse to produce something next awoke in him and in his fifth year he composed and played little pieces which his father then wrote down (Jahn, 19-20).

Leopold continued to teach Maria in the talents of music, however he also began to teach young Wolfgang both piano and violin. Both children began intensive musical training. As a result, by the time Wolfgang was five he had already composed his own works.

Maria, a talented pianist in her own right, began to accompany her younger brother on violin as the family began touring throughout Europe on the “Mozart Family Grand Tour.”

The family—Leopold, Anne Maria, daughter Maria, and son Wolfgang—embarked on a tour across the European continent that spanned over three years, five months, and twenty days. The “Grand Tour” went across eighty-eight cities and towns, which included repeat visits by the family to various towns and cities.

The family toured between the June 9, 1762 and November 29, 1766.

The purpose of this assignment is to track the various locations visited by the Mozart family during the years 1762-1766. The family continued to tour even after these years. While the family continued to travel throughout Europe after these years, they were primarily traveled by Wolfgang and his father, not the rest of the family. For the purposes of this assessment, a small portion of the musical prodigy will be assessed. Using various online tools, research, graphs, and maps a picture of the Mozart Family Grand Tour will be illustrated.

1. This map overlay is a map from 1760. What is evident is that the borders are not as distinct as they are today. Aligning the map up with the “boot” of Italy, the map overlay clearly displays some problems with 18th century cartography. While the “boot” of Italy is properly aligned, looking at the border of France the alignment stops there.
   The map from the 18th century showing Western Europe as it was then thought to be. During this time Western Europe was still divided into Bavaria, as part of the Holy Roman Empire, and other regions that no longer exist. The map displays the contrast between Western Europe during young Wolfgang’s time and Western Europe now.
2. The Mozart Family Grand tour began in Salzburg,Austria not only the birth place of Wolfgang Mozart and his sister Maire-Anne (Nannerl), but also the start of the family’s grand tour around Western Europe.Traveling eastward, the family had to stop in Germany unexpectedly during the beginning of their tour when a wheel broke off of the carriage. However, the family soon reached Munich on June 12, 1763 where they stayed giving their first set of concerts throughout the city. The family began to dine with members of the royal family including Prince Frederick Michael.The family spent quite a lot of time in Germany when they then proceeded towards Brussels. They arrived on October 4, 1763. While the children continued to perform, Leopold Mozart began to see the bills pile up. Throughout Germany advertisements for the wunderkind children cropped up. At first advertising the children’s great talents sparked up. However, as expenses grew high and performances slumped, Leopold began to embellish his ads. Including remarks on little Wolfgang’s age and brilliance, he lowered the ages of his two children to give them an even younger age as to appeal to an intrigued audience. He began promising a variety of his sons talents, setting up expectations for his son. These embellishments continued throughout the tour, including Leopold Mozart’s concerns over money.

   In November of 1763, the Mozart’s arrived in Paris,France. Ultimately for Leopold, having the children perform at the Palace of Versailles was the ultimate goal for the grand tour. The family stayed in France, particularly the surrounding Paris area for months. However, upon their arrival the family had to wait 16 days until they could perform of Versailles as the sister of the King got ill with smallpox. Therefore, all entertainment was cancelled, including the Mozart performances.

   However, the family was soon able to perform for Louis XV. They stayed at Versailles for 16 days, The Mozart family was finally able to perform at Versailles, where they stayed for 16 days. The family made an immense impression on Louis XV who was impatient during the first stay of the family asked for young Wolfgang to play something on the organ. Taking all the guests to watch the child perform, he was instantly floored by young Wolfgang’s performance.

   The family moved eastward to London England where they performed for King George III and Queen Charlotte. This was the farthest that the Mozart family went. They stayed in London from April 23 1765 to July 30 1765 performing all across the city and staying at Buckingham palace several times.

   However, the family soon traveled to the Netherlands, or Holland. Leopold Mozart intended to go to Italy after the family’s trip to London. However, the Dutch envoy to London extended an invitation to have the family visit Prince William V. Leopold was hesitant to accept the offer because of the bitter winters. However on November 5 1765 the family arrived in Holland.

   Having had both of the Mozart family “wunderkinds” get sick, it wasn’t until January of 1766 that Nannerl, Mozart’s older sister, finally was able to perform for the Dutch audience. This perhaps where the first Mozart symphonies were premiered at the OUde Doelen.

   From there, the family went to Switzerland and then traveled back through Holland,France, and Germany back to Austria to conclude the Mozart Family Grand tour.

   What is not evident in this map is all the experiences young Wolfgang experienced on his trips. It also does not include where he first composed each of his early symphonies, nor the return visits to various locations. The map also does not include the various places that the Mozart family was stricken with illness. And lastly, this map does  not trace the journey back to Salzburg, Austria where they took return visits to former stopping grounds.

3. This word analysis looks at letter written by Wolfgang’s father Leopold as they stayed in the Hague during their Family Grand tour. What is evident by the size of the word, is that Leopold’s daughter played an important role in this correspondence. At the time, the eldest Mozart, Anne-Marie (however she was called Nannerl) was stricken with illness.Prior to their trip to Holland, Leopold was very hesitant on taking his two children to Holland. The harsh winters did not suit the Mozart family. However, after a personal invitation to play for the Duth, Leopold could not turn such an opportunity down. Leopold Mozart, evident through earlier letters, was deeply concerned with finances, therefore he and his two children headed to Holland.Through this analysis, it at first wouldn’t seem as though the letter came from a musical family. In the top middle right the word “music” is almost unable to be seen. What is emphasized is the word “time” appearing several times in this correspondents. Leopold not only feared the potential time passing on his child, but also feared that the time of his wunderkind show was potentially over. He begs in the letter for God to look over his two children who both had gotten sick during the course of the Family Grand Tour.

   It took until September for the daughter to recover from her illness and perform with Wolfgang to the joy of the Dutch.

   Writing from Paris,France Leopold Mozart once again regretfully writes of his children’s illness nothing, “The illness of my children is the only reason why I have not yet sent you and my friends as exact a description of Holland…”

   However, what is evident are the various synonyms or the word “compose” or “to write music.” What is known about the Family Grand Tour is that some of Wolfgang Mozart’s earliest works came from his travels across Western Europe. On his travels, as highlighted in this text analysis, he wrote many sonatas. While Mozart only wrote 5 symphonies during the course of his travels, he did write a number of symphonies and simple pieces for both the violin and the clavier, which was a stringed keyboard instrument from Germany during the Mozart’s time. It later began to be used to replace the keyboard, or piano.

   Another note of interest is the large word “little” to the far right. In some occasions, Leopold would call Wolfgang his “little” man or “little Wolfgang” (not the largeness of this word within the text analysis  whom he showcased around various cities and towns. In fact, Wolfgang for all that he had accomplished, was still considered little and at the time was only 10. Musical words such as “arias, violin, sonatas, accompanied, festival, organ, play” appear throughout this text analysis.

   Famous cities such as Amsterdam and Salzburg are mentioned, including the Hague and Holland. Salzburg was the home of the Mozarts and the unexpected tour around Holland kept Leopold Mozart busy to catch is friend up on what the family was doing.

   What is evident in this text is Leopold’s affection for his “little Wolfgang” who was in many respects was clearly the star of the family grand tour.

Conclusion: Through this, by no means comprehensive research, it is clear that young Wolfgang was a hit with Europe. In today’s age, being on tour for three years is unheard of. Young Mozart didn’t return back to Salzburg until he was in the double digits, having left the area when he was a mere youngster. Evident through the textual and graphical analysis, the Mozart family covered a wide array of ground throughout Europe despite the lack of modern technologies available to those of us today. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the first true prodigy that was showcased around Europe.

Not only did this early experience at such a young age change Wolfgang as a person, but it increasingly affected his music While was touring, the youngster wrote three symphonies. Writing one alone at such a young age is incredible, yet three is unimaginable. In short, Mozart’s first experience to the outside world of Salzburg proved to be an influence on his music through the many areas he visited in the instruments he touched, whom he performed, composers he met, and the constant teaching of his father, Leopold affected young Wolfgang. Perhaps, had it not been for this family grand tour, young Wolfgang may not have been the prized musician many classical music fans adore.

[Preservation: The work that is presented here is saved in a variety of places in order to maintain its preservation. Most of the research in this book is from tangible books, which were then being notated throughout the research  The geographical maps are saved in Google and are also saved on the researcher’s hard drive and external hard drive.]

Sources:
Online: Gutman, Robert W. Mozart: A Cultural Biography. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999. Print.

Jahn, Otto, Pauline D. Townsend, and George Grove. Life of Mozart,. London: Novello, Ewer &, 1882. Print.

Melograni, Piero, and Lydia G. Cochrane. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A Biography. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2007. Print.

Solomon, Maynard. Mozart: A Life. New York, NY: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1995. Print.

Online: http://en.chateauversailles.fr/history/the-significant-dates/chronology/1763-1764-visit-of-the-child-mozart
http://www.salzburg.info/en/sights/museums/mozarts_birthplace
http://archive.org/stream/lettersofmozarth000861mbp/lettersofmozarth000861mbp_djvu.txt
http://www.musee-conde.fr/

The MIT program Scratch is designed to make programming user friendly as exemplified in the video below:

While Scratch is user friendly and great for any non-programmer to use I think it does lack a few flaws. First off, the interface appears to be straight out of a 1998 Microsoft Paint document. I found it not appealing in the slightest. Perhaps, this is due to the sophisticated interfaces I’ve slowly grown-up. However, I would expect more from MIT.

That being said, perhaps the interface is just that: simple for a reason. In order to give people the ability to program on their own, you have to make it simple and remove all the sophistication from it. Yes, it is possible to program items with fancy decorations. However, I’m pretty sure for the ordinary non-programmer among us (aka. you and me) would be too overwhelmed to do any programming done.

Scratch is a new form of programming that allows kids to delve into programming. Scratch brings programming to everyone, as it notes on their website. That is what is most remarkable about Scratch, aside from the 1998 looking interface. To create your program you simply move block together to create movement, illustrations, or simple video games. Introducing kids to the programming is the main purpose of MIT.

Scratch allows for collaboration between individuals, which not only allows for the sharing of ideas but further understanding of programming skills.

When I was growing up in Charlottesville, Va I went to the computer lab once a week where we had Apple computers donated to our lab. We learned to type and learned the basics of computers by the time I was in the fourth grade. Using a program such as Scratch would have certainly been something my classmates and I would have easily been able to both enjoy and understand. For introducing individuals to programming Scratch gets my seal of approval despite my initial dislike of its interface.

In Roy Rosenzweig’s essay Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era brings up a variety of dilemmas modern day historians and archivists are facing. At first the lack of history and information posed a problem to historians. Now, the problem faced by archivists and historians lies in the abundance of information, rather than the lack of it.

Still, the astonishingly rapid accumulation of digital data–obvious to anyone who uses the Google search engine and gets 300,000 hits–should make us consider that future historians may face information overload…Thus historians need to be thinking simultaneously about how to research, write, and teach in a world of unheard-of historical abundance and how to avoid a future of record scarcity.

If information is not chronicled adequately, then finding the information itself becomes difficult. What historians, archivists, and ordinary people are facing is information being lost in the abundance of it. Access to information is enormous. An ordinary American high school student, as Rosenzweig expresses, can access endless amounts of both primary and secondary research through a quick online search.

While this is an advantage, it’s difficult to tell what is factually correct. Information can be categorized based on personal preferences and ideologies. Individuals can pick and choose their own version of “truth.” Rosenzweig also address this issue, particularly with historical artifacts.

How, for example, do we ensure the “authenticity” of preserved digital information and “trust” in the repository? Paper documents and records also face questions about authenticity, and forgeries are hardly unknown in traditional archives. The science of “diplomatics,” in fact, emerged in the seventeenth century as a way to authenticate documents when scholars confronted rampant forgeries in medieval documents. But digital information–because it is so easily altered and copied, lacks physical marks of its origins, and, indeed, even the clear notion of an “original”–cannot be authenticated as physical documents and objects can.

Information can easily be altered online, in a digital age. How can you then prove if something is authentic if you are unable to compare it to something else? With primary, physical sources one is easily able to distinguish which artifact is true or not. You can look at the ink that was used, you can look at the paint that was used, or you can look at the parchment that was used. In a digital age, you cannot see that. Are we becoming to reliant on the benefits of a digital past recorded, without realizing what we are loosing?

For this practicum, I decided to analyze some of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s letters. His correspondence with this wife, sister, and father. I used three letter sets, not from one time frame.

Using a quick Ctrl+F internet search finder I decided to find how many times music was mentioned in his letters. I want to pick apart the letters that I knew had “music” in them. For this I only chose three letters: Bologna, August 4 1770; Milan, August 31 1771; and Salzburg, Sept 4 1776. I should have focused on one time frame in a shorter span of time. However, some of these letters were written in Italian and German found on the Gutenberg project’s website.

For my final project, I am hoping to use maps and charts to course the tour that Mozart took with his father during his younger years. Mozart went and played for various people in various locations when he was younger. His father had a heavy influence on his childhood and made him play violin in front of crowds to be known as the prodigy he was.

In the three letters I looked at, I used the a Wordle, to highlight some of the words most often used in these three letters. I have already identified flaws in this process, particularly with having no set time frame. However, since some letters were written in German and Italian I skipped those correspondences. Also, some context describing words were not included in this Wordle because it the software only looks at the number of times one word is used, not the description of the word. Below is the Wordle for the three letters I looked at:

As you can see, music is probably the most common word used in his letters. As is write, and violin. What I think was missed in my analysis is that I was looking for the word music, so naturally I found letters that used it a lot. It did not encompass a wide variety of letters nor any other words that would be used to describe music or a type of music.

As such, this Wordle is flawed, but shows how often Mozart thought about his music as well as how many times he spoke about writing letters within letters he was writing.

The Corpus by Brigham Young University, with all of its data is a bit overwhelming. First off, its interface makes it difficult for users to find what they are looking for. In a simple search, one word out of context can add to ones total search results, instead of narrowing them down.

The challenge with the internet and the data mining applications is that to find exactly what one is looking for is difficult. There is a vast amount of information available for people to search for and discover. However, there is a lot of “noise” that gets in the way of finding just exactly what one is looking for. The problem with research is that one either gets too little information or there is an overflow of information.

When I typed in “Mozart” into the Corpus Time Magazine search engine 168 results came up. The interface was too difficult to navigate. What could be a useful too ended up being too bland and overwhelming to use. Unlike the Pro-Quest interface and search engine, I had to dig through all the results to find what I was looking for. In fact, I wasn’t even looking for anything specific. If someone is blindly going to this search engine, they will get lost and find not direction in their knowledge discoveries.

Academic and curiosity research aside, data mining isn’t just occurring when students are scrambling to find sources for a research papers. No, data mining has reached a whole knew level where during the 2012 election, both candidates (Mitt Romney and Barack Obama) spent millions of data in sophisticated data mining.

Now, data mining can become even more consumer specialized. Candidates can now see what television shows you watch, where you shop, what you eat, your volunteerism, your donations, etc to figure out ones “political identity.” However, what is the line drawn between just “research” and “privacy”?

That being said, data mining has become even more sophisticated since the interface use of the corpus from Brigham Young.

For my practicum I decided to pick a topic that I am very passionate about: ending the violence of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa. A war that has been going on for more than 25 years is hardly known by most individuals. In March of 2012, the film Kony2012 broke and brought this crisis to people’s attention. Despite the praise, criticism, and the like the crisis still continues.

As discussed earlier, I strongly dislike the use of PowerPoint. While it can be an effective tool for a presentation, it is often not used properly. In fact, individuals are usually numbed/bored by a PowerPoint experience. Instead, since my sophomore year of college, I have started using Prezi!

For this Prezi I wanted to make the background dark to reflect the topic. Joseph Kony’s army has been kidnapping and abducting children in the region of Central Africa (Northern Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and South Sudan). I then decided to formulate the Prezi to reflect the Ugandan flag which is red, yellow, and black.

I wanted to include video and images. What is easy about Prezi is that it allows you to easily add video and images into the presentation. Also, within the presentation there is movement which engages the audiences.

If I was actually presenting this Prezi, I would include commentary to the presentation. I like  presentations that are more about words spoken, not words read. An image will tell me something that the speaker hasn’t told me, but an image or video allows for an audience to get an understanding of what to expect from the speaker or an introduction to a speaker’s point of view/message. Therefore, this Prezi lacks any substantive information that I would normally include in a presentation if I were to be present it. However, below is the Prezi that I made.

As a senior in college I have seen my fair share of PowerPoint presentations. In fact, much like Wired writer Edward Tufte, I too dislike PowerPoint. In his 2003 article, “PowerPoint is Evil.” Often times students see PowerPoint as a way to get their information up in big fancy letters and colors without giving much information. In fact, I would argue it’s the lazy form of presenting. PowerPoint doesn’t allow for an audience to interact with the speaker. Students in many of my classes  have often read directly off of a PowerPoint filled with large paragraphs.

What doesn’t seem to be clear to some presenters is that I am capable of reading.

Tufte concludes his piece by saying,

At a minimum, a presentation format should do no harm. Yet the PowerPoint style routinely disrupts, dominates, and trivializes content. Thus PowerPoint presentations too often resemble a school play -very loud, very slow, and very simple.

The practical conclusions are clear. PowerPoint is a competent slide manager and projector. But rather than supplementing a presentation, it has become a substitute for it. Such misuse ignores the most important rule of speaking: Respect your audience.

I full heartily agree with this. Presentations have become boring where presenters do not seem to respect their audience. When presenters read to me directly off their PowerPoint or not include video or engaging images, I immediately zone out and start checking my phone or the latest Facebook statuses.

Commedian Don McMillan seems to agree with Tufte and myself on highlighting the problems with PowerPoint.

However the internet has started to save the presentation medium.

Free, online presentation sites allow for a more engaging presentation experience for both the presenter and the audience. Since my sophomore year of college, I have used Prezi. Prezi is an online, interactive presentation tool. It allows individuals to embed their own videos and images directly into the presentation. Words stand out by zooming in and out of the content and allows for the audience to move with you as you speak.

In short, I am anti-PowerPoint and Pro Prezi.

Having played the violin since the fifth grade, music is something very important to me. The violins had deep roots in colonial American music. Based on the “Probing the Past” data I decided to search for the number of violins that were owned by each location that appeared when I typed in “violins” into the search bar.  21 results appeared as follows that ranged from the year 1744 to the year 1802.

• 8 in Charles, MD
• 3 in Richmond, VA
• 1 in Lancaster, VA
• 6 in Prince Georges, MD
• 2 in Lancaster, VA
• 1 in Fairfax, VA

According to this data, based on the years the database covered, Maryland appears to have been a much better location for those instrumental players. In particular, Charles, MD had the highest number of violins owned within one location. Upon further research, one could distinguish between locations and instruments owned. Perhaps, one location may be more woodwind friendly. Or, other instruments that were not searched would appear. The violin, even though it’s my favorite instrument, may not have been that popular during this time frame.

As such, the data below is a graph to outline the data entered into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and put into a bar graph. 

Nicholas Felton began recording data from his everyday life. From his interactions online, between individuals, how much of a particular food he ate and the list goes on. What is remarkable about Felton’s reports, or the Feltron reports, is just how much data is visible in each of these data books.

In his 2009 Annual Report, Felton asked individuals to asses his interactions with them. When studying the data, it was increasingly difficult to navigate and understand. At times the font was small and I didn’t even know what each factor he was analyzing meant. There was no legend, nor was there a key to let individuals know exactly what they were looking at.

However, looking over these Feltron reports. Some questions began to crop up. With each encounter that Felton had with someone he asked them to evaluate their interaction with him. Couldn’t this have skewed his data? When people feel as though they are being observed they act differently. Similar to how someone acts differently when they know they are being videotaped, people don’t act themselves when they are being monitored.

Second, how valuable is all of the Feltron data? Yes each interaction he has with an individual is important, but often times individuals put meaning behind statistics that are just that: statistics and nothing else. It is inherent for individuals to try and find meaning behind everything. Simply by cataloging his data, are observers simply giving meaning behind the numbers that isn’t there? Are the data collected in the Feltron reports actually meaningful? I’m not sure I have an answer to that. Perhaps in the future we can find some meaning for this. As of now, I think trying to find meaning behind every action in a numeric fashion isn’t worthwhile.

Third, each individual that had an interaction with Felton recorded their encounter. When people are self-reporting they are more likely to hold back information to make themselves appear in the best light. Perhaps all of the data collected wasn’t accurate. Knowing that Felton was going to be viewing this data, individuals may have held back information in order to not hurt his feelings or make themselves appear as more sophisticated individuals. This most likely had some influence on the data collected.

Overall, I think the notion of collected data for every point in your life is very interesting to observe. Often times individuals go about their day not realizing how many cups of coffee they actually drink or how much food they consume. Recording data in this manner can really highlight important factors in someone’s everyday life. However, in other cases there are many factors that could have skewed the data. Either way, I think an analysis of the Feltron data was an interesting exercise.

This week’s exercise included getting a historical map and overlaying it on top of Google Earth. As I am prone to do, I ended up making my life a lot more complicated than it should be.

Having grown up in Charlottesville, Va before I moved to Manassas, Va I wanted to overlay a historical map of Charlottesville Historic Downtown Mall. I went in search of historical maps dating back to the 1900s and later. I came up short. I was lead to the University of Virginia’s website which then proved unhelpful as they did not provide me with the .JPEG images of the maps that were large enough for me to zoom in and out of.

I went to the the United States Geological Society to see if I could find some historical maps there. While there were plenty of KML files, the website proved unsuccessful in allowing me to overlay the image ontop of a current map by myself.

I went to the Charlottesville Historical Society’s website. Which ALSO proved unhelpful. What I later learned was that the Sanborn Map Company, which back in the 1900s made maps for just about any city in the United States, had made an insurance map of downtown Charlottesville. Having narrowed it down to a company that had obviously created maps for just what I was looking for, I went and did more searching around. I even went to the University Library Database to see if there was a database of historical websites. I ended up getting more frustrated and lost.

After about a 30 minute search, I came upon a Pinterest of all things. Which had EXACTLY what I was looking for including a link to more maps. 

I copied the .JPEG file and went into Google Earth.

This only proved to be part of my continuous frustration. As I went to overlay the .JPEG of the map of downtown Charlottesville from 1907, I came upon a problem. Not only was the file too big, (in fact too large for me to upload to this blog posting), but I couldn’t resize the image without zooming in and out of the original space. I spent a good hour and a half trying to size and resize my map, only to become even more frustrated in the process. Once I had found fourth street, I didn’t know where exactly I needed to place my map along the street for it to align perfectly with the current street locations and names. Everytime I went to move my map to align with the current view, my map would revert back to where it had stood, making me need to do the whole process over again.

In the end, I admit I gave up. As you see below, I failed miserably in aligning this historical map with the current view. For that I apologize. However, please understand that my frustration was all for a good cause and that I did in fact try.