KLEE Discussion
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KLEE Discussion
Please post your thoughts about the KLEE set in this thread. I'm especially interested to hear what people thought of the less mainstream portions of the distribution.
Ted Gioia - Harvard '12
Editor ACF, PACE
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Re: KLEE Discussion
I'm not a good fine arts player, but it was an enjoyable set to play, even though my body completely shut down for like the last two rounds.
The film questions were mostly good. The Third Man question got too easy way too fast (the ferris wheel scene that early?). Writing a question on Brazil is a good idea--while the lead-in was almost unforgettable if you've seen the film, I suppose that's a good thing. I really enjoyed the La Strada tossup, which is a film that needs to come up more, even though I stupidly negged it with Rossellini's Stromboli. Also, I was stunned to see the film Where is the Friend's House? asked about, as I saw that film and enjoyed it...yet I couldn't remember the director's name.
I really didn't enjoy the Renaissance building questions, but that could just be me. Opera questions were entertaining. Some common link ideas didn't turn out that well (if I remember right, there was on one _speaking_).
The film questions were mostly good. The Third Man question got too easy way too fast (the ferris wheel scene that early?). Writing a question on Brazil is a good idea--while the lead-in was almost unforgettable if you've seen the film, I suppose that's a good thing. I really enjoyed the La Strada tossup, which is a film that needs to come up more, even though I stupidly negged it with Rossellini's Stromboli. Also, I was stunned to see the film Where is the Friend's House? asked about, as I saw that film and enjoyed it...yet I couldn't remember the director's name.
I really didn't enjoy the Renaissance building questions, but that could just be me. Opera questions were entertaining. Some common link ideas didn't turn out that well (if I remember right, there was on one _speaking_).
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota
"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
Formerly U of Minnesota
"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
Re: KLEE Discussion
I enjoyed this tournament quite a bit; the questions were, on the whole, very well written, and I enjoyed hearing questions on important artists such as Claude and Anselm Kiefer that don't seem to come up much in quizbowl. I also liked the many solid musical clues for tossups such as Chopin's etudes and the symphonies of Shostakovich, to take two examples.
I think the one thing this tournament suffered from was excessive tossup length (and perhaps using a few too many criticism clues at the beginning of painting tossups). I wrote many very long tossups for Gaddis 2 on the belief that I needed that space to distinguish fine gradations in knowledge, but I've come to believe that for hard tournaments, tightly edited 7-8 line tossups are preferable to 10-12 line tossups because they provide a smoother pyramid. In my experience, 10-12 line tossups tend to have more leadin-type clues than good middle clues, which I don't think is either beneficial or really necessary to distinguish actual levels of knowledge.
In any case, most of the clues were interesting and non-vague, and I'd recommend that people writing arts questions strive to emulate the clue density and kinds of clues found in this tournament's questions.
I think the one thing this tournament suffered from was excessive tossup length (and perhaps using a few too many criticism clues at the beginning of painting tossups). I wrote many very long tossups for Gaddis 2 on the belief that I needed that space to distinguish fine gradations in knowledge, but I've come to believe that for hard tournaments, tightly edited 7-8 line tossups are preferable to 10-12 line tossups because they provide a smoother pyramid. In my experience, 10-12 line tossups tend to have more leadin-type clues than good middle clues, which I don't think is either beneficial or really necessary to distinguish actual levels of knowledge.
In any case, most of the clues were interesting and non-vague, and I'd recommend that people writing arts questions strive to emulate the clue density and kinds of clues found in this tournament's questions.
Jonathan Magin
Montgomery Blair HS '04, University of Maryland '08
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Re: KLEE Discussion
I was down.
Charlie Dees, North Kansas City HS '08
"I won't say more because I know some of you parse everything I say." - Jeremy Gibbs
"At one TJ tournament the neg prize was the Hampshire College ultimate frisbee team (nude) calender featuring one Evan Silberman. In retrospect that could have been a disaster." - Harry White
"I won't say more because I know some of you parse everything I say." - Jeremy Gibbs
"At one TJ tournament the neg prize was the Hampshire College ultimate frisbee team (nude) calender featuring one Evan Silberman. In retrospect that could have been a disaster." - Harry White
Re: KLEE Discussion
Some of the questions from this tournament seemed really, really transparent. Hmm, this is a song upon which many Renaissance masses were based, you say? I really dislike buzzing on things like that, but this tournament seemed to reward it pretty regularly. There were also quite a few difficulty cliffs where near-giveaway stuff came after pretty in-depth clues. I also had an extreme distaste for the tossup on "speaking," which seemed to beg you to with "tape loops" when it started talking about the Steve Reich clues; I negged on a clue that was describing a piece I had listened to earlier this week.
I was pretty excited by a lot of the opera that came up, and most of the music that I liked that came up was well-written. Overall, I had a good time, and the tournament was well worth playing. Thanks for writing.
I was pretty excited by a lot of the opera that came up, and most of the music that I liked that came up was well-written. Overall, I had a good time, and the tournament was well worth playing. Thanks for writing.
Andrew Hart
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Re: KLEE Discussion
Is this a known thing? I'm genuinely ignorant because Renaissance masses mean nothing to me so I'm curious if this is really that famous.theMoMA wrote:Some of the questions from this tournament seemed really, really transparent. Hmm, this is a song upon which many Renaissance masses were based, you say?
Jerry Vinokurov
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Re: KLEE Discussion
I think that question was probably OK on balance because I don't think a TON of non-music people know what L'Homme Arme is. The way Renaissance masses would sometimes work is that they would pick a "cantus firmus" line to derive musical material from, which was usually something from a popular tune or a chant or another composition. I got in a small argument with our opponent about this, but as far as I have been able to tell, L'Homme Arme is the only melody that ever truly caught on in droves for this practice. The masses I have encountered that use a cantus firmus either use L'homme arme or else they use a work that never got used as cantus firmus again (although there are lots of non-L'Homme Arme based masses in this genre). If there are other examples of a cantus firmus that was popularly used in more than 1 or 2 masses I would like to know what they are, but as is all I can think of is L'Homme Arme.
Charlie Dees, North Kansas City HS '08
"I won't say more because I know some of you parse everything I say." - Jeremy Gibbs
"At one TJ tournament the neg prize was the Hampshire College ultimate frisbee team (nude) calender featuring one Evan Silberman. In retrospect that could have been a disaster." - Harry White
"I won't say more because I know some of you parse everything I say." - Jeremy Gibbs
"At one TJ tournament the neg prize was the Hampshire College ultimate frisbee team (nude) calender featuring one Evan Silberman. In retrospect that could have been a disaster." - Harry White
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Re: KLEE Discussion
But how many "non-music people" were playing this arts-specialty tournament?Jeremy Gibbs Free Energy wrote:I think that question was probably OK on balance because I don't think a TON of non-music people know what L'Homme Arme is.
The clue density of these questions was spot-on, and the vast majority of them were delightfully comprehensible and easy to parse. I question, though, why so many of the choreography questions were so much less accessible than anything else.
Hannah Kirsch
Brandeis University 2010
NYU School of Medicine 2014
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Re: KLEE Discussion
Well, I'd hazard a guess that over 60% of the field was not people who know an awful lot about music. Perhaps this is still too many people who do to justify that tossup, but I don't know.
Charlie Dees, North Kansas City HS '08
"I won't say more because I know some of you parse everything I say." - Jeremy Gibbs
"At one TJ tournament the neg prize was the Hampshire College ultimate frisbee team (nude) calender featuring one Evan Silberman. In retrospect that could have been a disaster." - Harry White
"I won't say more because I know some of you parse everything I say." - Jeremy Gibbs
"At one TJ tournament the neg prize was the Hampshire College ultimate frisbee team (nude) calender featuring one Evan Silberman. In retrospect that could have been a disaster." - Harry White
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Re: KLEE Discussion
i know that Ave Maris Stella was used by Josquin, Palestrina, and Victoria, and Google seems to reveal a couple of others to me. ("Francisco Courcelle" and "Marc-Antoine Charpentier" are two of the first results.) I'm no expert, of course, so I could be missing something here.
Andrew Watkins
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Re: KLEE Discussion
Yeah, this one was my bad. If I had thought about it more fully, I would have put something like (accept "tape loop" or equivalent) basically through the power. Instead, I just didn't think about it, and left it out.theMoMA wrote:I also had an extreme distaste for the tossup on "speaking," which seemed to beg you to with "tape loops" when it started talking about the Steve Reich clues; I negged on a clue that was describing a piece I had listened to earlier this week.
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Re: KLEE Discussion
What was the final distribution for this tournament? As a reader, it seemed like Music + Opera made up more than everything else, but it could be possible that this was not actually true.
Also, I thought the question length in this tournament was all sorts of ridiculous. It wasn't even easy things being asked about with 12 line tossups, it was pretty often pretty difficult subjects--even some things that were boredline acanonical. I don't think I saw more than 5 buzzes (probably closer to 1-2) on the first 3 lines of a question. If this tournament is run again I'd think it'd be much better for everyone if a hardcap on tossup length was enforce at, say, 8 lines.
Also, I'd like to apologize for fucking up and reading the wrong packet. Luckily the schedule worked out such that everyone still got to play everyone else and got to play 9 prelim packets before we got kicked out.
Also, I thought the question length in this tournament was all sorts of ridiculous. It wasn't even easy things being asked about with 12 line tossups, it was pretty often pretty difficult subjects--even some things that were boredline acanonical. I don't think I saw more than 5 buzzes (probably closer to 1-2) on the first 3 lines of a question. If this tournament is run again I'd think it'd be much better for everyone if a hardcap on tossup length was enforce at, say, 8 lines.
Also, I'd like to apologize for fucking up and reading the wrong packet. Luckily the schedule worked out such that everyone still got to play everyone else and got to play 9 prelim packets before we got kicked out.
Mike Bentley
Treasurer, Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence
Adviser, Quizbowl Team at University of Washington
University of Maryland, Class of 2008
Treasurer, Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence
Adviser, Quizbowl Team at University of Washington
University of Maryland, Class of 2008
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Re: KLEE Discussion
We got kicked out?Bentley Like Beckham wrote:Luckily the schedule worked out such that everyone still got to play everyone else and got to play 9 prelim packets before we got kicked out.
Jerry Vinokurov
ex-LJHS, ex-Berkeley, ex-Brown, sorta-ex-CMU
presently: John Jay College Economics
code ape, loud voice, general nuissance
ex-LJHS, ex-Berkeley, ex-Brown, sorta-ex-CMU
presently: John Jay College Economics
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Re: KLEE Discussion
Err, before we were kicked out (2 AM, which was like 10 minutes after the tournament ended if I remember correctly).grapesmoker wrote:We got kicked out?Bentley Like Beckham wrote:Luckily the schedule worked out such that everyone still got to play everyone else and got to play 9 prelim packets before we got kicked out.
Mike Bentley
Treasurer, Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence
Adviser, Quizbowl Team at University of Washington
University of Maryland, Class of 2008
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Re: KLEE Discussion
I think L'Homme Arme is definitely the most famous by far outside of England where the In Nomine setting was definitely the most pervasive form of cantus firmus. I haven't heard or read the question, so I can't really understand the context.Jeremy Gibbs Free Energy wrote:I think that question was probably OK on balance because I don't think a TON of non-music people know what L'Homme Arme is. The way Renaissance masses would sometimes work is that they would pick a "cantus firmus" line to derive musical material from, which was usually something from a popular tune or a chant or another composition. I got in a small argument with our opponent about this, but as far as I have been able to tell, L'Homme Arme is the only melody that ever truly caught on in droves for this practice. The masses I have encountered that use a cantus firmus either use L'homme arme or else they use a work that never got used as cantus firmus again (although there are lots of non-L'Homme Arme based masses in this genre). If there are other examples of a cantus firmus that was popularly used in more than 1 or 2 masses I would like to know what they are, but as is all I can think of is L'Homme Arme.
Zach Yeung
St. John's '08
Rice University '12
Biochemistry and Cell Biology and Political Science
St. John's '08
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Re: KLEE Discussion
I forgot to mention that the In Nomine setting uses a segment of the plainchant cantus firmus from Taverner's Mass Gloria tibi Trinitas. I'm not sure if that's helpful.
Zach Yeung
St. John's '08
Rice University '12
Biochemistry and Cell Biology and Political Science
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Re: KLEE Discussion
As Charlie knows, since I was the dude discussing this with him at the time, I wasn't a big fan of the "L'homme arme" question, but I think it wasn't so bad as I thought at the time. I would have appreciated some more early clues about the song itself to disambiguate from other prominent canti firmi, but I suppose that's about all a writer could have done better here. I say that because I don't think anyone's likely to know the individual masses that the tossup starts out with, but it's pretty obvious to those with some knowledge of medieval music (which is probably safe to assume for this tournament only) that we're dealing with an oft-used cantus firmus. My experience and thinking at the time agrees and agreed with what people are here saying, i.e. that "L'homme arme" is probably the single most prominent cantus firmus, but there are other re-used canti firmi; that led to both my having guessed the right answer and the reticence to buzz that prevented me from using my guess. In the final analysis, that was rather a poor play on my part, given that we were down, I was fairly sure Charlie was at least thinking along with me, and I should have seen that I was playing too tight having been burned by reluctance on four of the previous five questions at that point... but I guess that's the advantage of hindsight.
MaS
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Re: KLEE Discussion
Wasn't In Nomine mostly used for instrumental music, and thus not in the running as an answer to a question that talks about a bunch of choral music?
Charlie Dees, North Kansas City HS '08
"I won't say more because I know some of you parse everything I say." - Jeremy Gibbs
"At one TJ tournament the neg prize was the Hampshire College ultimate frisbee team (nude) calender featuring one Evan Silberman. In retrospect that could have been a disaster." - Harry White
"I won't say more because I know some of you parse everything I say." - Jeremy Gibbs
"At one TJ tournament the neg prize was the Hampshire College ultimate frisbee team (nude) calender featuring one Evan Silberman. In retrospect that could have been a disaster." - Harry White
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Re: KLEE Discussion
Yeah, it was mostly instrumental consort music. I didn't realize that the question was calling for a choral work specifically. I misread it as piece instead of song. My bad.Jeremy Gibbs Free Energy wrote:Wasn't In Nomine mostly used for instrumental music, and thus not in the running as an answer to a question that talks about a bunch of choral music?
Zach Yeung
St. John's '08
Rice University '12
Biochemistry and Cell Biology and Political Science
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Re: KLEE Discussion
Has this set been posted yet?
Douglas Graebner, Walt Whitman HS 10, Uchicago 14
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http://avorticistking.wordpress.com/
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Re: KLEE Discussion
I emailed the set to George last week, but his hard drive is down at the moment. Once he fixes his hard drive then it will be available on the packet archive.
Ted Gioia - Harvard '12
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Re: KLEE Discussion
staaaaaaaats?
Rob Carson
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University of Minnesota '11, MCTC '??, BHSU forever
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