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Claude Debussy
Achille-Claude Debussy (French: [aʃil klod dəbysi],[1] 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918), known since the 1890s as Claude-Achille Debussy or Claude Debussy,[2] was a French composer. He and Maurice Ravel were the most prominent figures associated with Impressionist music, though Debussy disliked the term when applied to his compositions.[3] He was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1903.[4] Debussy was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and his use of non-traditional scales and chromaticism influenced many composers who followed.[5]
Debussy's music is noted for its sensory content and frequent usage of nontraditional tonalities.[6] The prominent French literary style of his period was known as Symbolism, and this movement directly inspired Debussy both as a composer and as an active cultural participant.[7]
Early life
Debussy was born Achille-Claude Debussy (he later reversed his forenames)[2] on 22 August 1862 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France, the oldest of five children. His father, Manuel-Achille Debussy, owned a china shop there; his mother, Victorine Manoury Debussy, was a seamstress. The family moved to Paris in 1867, but in 1870 Debussy's pregnant mother fled with Claude to his paternal aunt's home in Cannes to escape the Franco-Prussian War. Debussy began piano lessons there at the age of seven with an Italian violinist in his early 40s named Jean Cerutti; his aunt paid for his lessons. In 1871 he drew the attention of Marie Mauté de Fleurville,[8] who claimed to have been a pupil of Frédéric Chopin. Debussy always believed her, although there is no independent evidence to support her claim.[9] His talents soon became evident, and in 1872, at age ten, Debussy entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he spent the next 11 years. During his time there he studied composition with Ernest Guiraud, music history/theory with Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray, harmony with Émile Durand,[10] piano with Antoine François Marmontel, organ with César Franck, and solfège with Albert Lavignac, as well as other significant figures of the era. He also became a lifelong friend of fellow student and distinguished pianist Isidor Philipp. After Debussy's death, many pianists sought Philipp's advice on playing Debussy's works.
Musical development
Debussy was experimental from the outset, favoring dissonances and intervals that were not taught at the Academy. Like Georges Bizet, he was a brilliant pianist and an outstanding sight reader, who could have had a professional career had he so wished.[11] The pieces he played in public at this time included sonata movements by Beethoven, Schumann and Weber, and Chopin's Ballade No. 2, a movement from the Piano Concerto No. 1, and the Allegro de concert.[12]
During the summers of 1880, 1881, and 1882, Debussy accompanied Nadezhda von Meck, the wealthy patroness of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, as she travelled with her family in Europe. The young composer's many musical activities during these vacations included playing four-hand pieces with von Meck at the piano, giving music lessons to her children, and performing in private concerts with some of her musician friends.[13] Despite von Meck's closeness to Tchaikovsky, the Russian master appears to have had minimal effect on Debussy. In September 1880 she sent Debussy's Danse bohémienne for Tchaikovsky's perusal. A month later Tchaikovsky wrote back to her: "It is a very pretty piece, but it is much too short. Not a single idea is expressed fully, the form is terribly shriveled, and it lacks unity." Debussy did not publish the piece, and the manuscript remained in the von Meck family; it was eventually sold to B. Schott's Sohne in Mainz, and published by them in 1932.[14]
A greater influence was Debussy's close friendship with Marie-Blanche Vasnier, a singer he met when he began working as an accompanist to earn some money, embarking on an eight-year affair together. She and her husband, Parisian civil servant Henri, gave Debussy emotional and professional support. Henri Vasnier introduced him to the writings of influential French writers of the time, which gave rise to his first songs, settings of poems by Paul Verlaine (the son-in-law of his former teacher Mme. Mauté de Fleurville).
As the winner of the 1884 Prix de Rome with his composition L'enfant prodigue, Debussy received a scholarship to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, which included a four-year residence at the Villa Medici, the French Academy in Rome, to further his studies (1885–1887). According to letters to Marie-Blanche Vasnier, perhaps in part designed to gain her sympathy, he found the artistic atmosphere stifling, the company boorish, the food bad, and the monastic quarters "abominable".[15] Neither did he delight in Italian opera, as he found the operas of Donizetti and Verdi not to his taste. Debussy was often depressed and unable to compose, but he was inspired by Franz Liszt, whose command of the keyboard he found admirable. In June 1885, Debussy wrote of his desire to follow his own way, saying, "I am sure the Institute would not approve, for, naturally it regards the path which it ordains as the only right one. But there is no help for it! I am too enamoured of my freedom, too fond of my own ideas!"[16]
Debussy finally composed four pieces that were sent to the Academy: the symphonic ode Zuleima (based on a text by Heinrich Heine); the orchestral piece Printemps; the cantata La damoiselle élue (1887–1888) (which was criticized by the Academy as "bizarre", although it was the first piece in which the stylistic features of Debussy's later style began to emerge); and the Fantaisie for piano and orchestra, which was heavily based on César Franck's music and therefore eventually withdrawn by Debussy. The Academy chided him for "courting the unusual" and hoped for something better from the gifted student. Although Debussy's works showed the influence of Jules Massenet, Massenet concluded, "He is an enigma."[17]
Pieces from Ariettes oubliées
No. 2: "Il pleure dans mon cœur"
No 4: "Chevaux de bois"
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During his visits to Bayreuth in 1888–9, Debussy was exposed to Wagnerian opera, which would have a lasting impact on his work. Debussy, like many young musicians of the time, responded positively to Richard Wagner's sensuousness, mastery of form, and striking harmonies.[18] Wagner's extroverted emotionalism was not to be Debussy's way, but the German composer's influence is evident in La damoiselle élue and the 1889 piece Cinq poèmes de Charles Baudelaire. Other songs of the period, notably the settings of Verlaine – Ariettes oubliées, Trois mélodies, and Fêtes galantes – are all in a more capricious style.
Around this time, Debussy met Erik Satie, who proved a kindred spirit in his experimental approach to composition and to naming his pieces. Both musicians were bohemians during this period, enjoying the same cafe society and struggling to stay afloat financially.[19]
In 1889, at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, Debussy first heard Javanese gamelan music. He incorporated gamelan scales, melodies, rhythms, and ensemble textures into some of his compositions, most notably Pagodes from his piano collection Estampes.[20]
Personal life
Debussy's private life was often turbulent. At the age of 18 he began an eight-year affair with Marie-Blanche Vasnier, the wife of Parisian civil servant Henri Vasnier. The relationship eventually faltered following his winning of the Prix de Rome in 1884 and obligatory residence in Rome.
On his permanent return to Paris and his parents' home on the rue de Berlin (now rue de Liège) he began a tempestuous relationship with Gabrielle ('Gaby') Dupont, a tailor's daughter from Lisieux, soon cohabiting with her on the rue de Londres, and later the rue Gustave Doré. During this time he also had an affair with the singer Thérèse Roger, to whom he was briefly engaged. Such cavalier behaviour was widely condemned, and precipitated the end of his long friendship with Ernest Chausson.
He ultimately left Dupont for her friend Rosalie ('Lilly') Texier, a fashion model whom he married in 1899, after threatening suicide if she refused him.[21] However, although Texier was affectionate, practical, straightforward, and well liked by Debussy's friends and associates, he would become increasingly irritated by her intellectual limitations and lack of musical sensitivity. Moreover, her looks had prematurely aged, and she was unable to bear children.[22]
In 1904 Debussy was introduced to Emma Bardac, wife of Parisian banker Sigismond Bardac, by her son Raoul, who was one of his students.[23] In contrast to Texier, Bardac was a sophisticate, a brilliant conversationalist, and an accomplished singer. After dispatching Lilly to her father's home at Bichain in Villeneuve-la-Guyard on 15 July 1904, Debussy secretly took Bardac to Jersey for a holiday. On their return to France, Debussy wrote to Texier on 11 August from Dieppe, informing her that their marriage was over, but still making no mention of Bardac. Debussy briefly moved to an apartment at 10 avenue Alphand. On 14 October, five days before their fifth wedding anniversary, Texier attempted suicide, shooting herself in the chest with a revolver while standing in the Place de la Concorde; she survived, although the bullet remained lodged in her vertebrae for the rest of her life. The ensuing scandal was to alienate Debussy from many of his friends, whilst Bardac was disowned by her family.[24]
In the spring of 1905, finding the hostility towards them intolerable, Debussy and Bardac (now pregnant) fled to England, via Jersey.[26] Bardac's divorce was finalized in May.[27] The couple settled at the Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, from 24 July to 30 August 1905,[28] where Debussy was to correct proofs to his symphonic suite La mer,[4][24] celebrating his divorce from Texier on 2 August.
After a brief visit to London, the couple returned to Paris in September, buying a house in a courtyard development off the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne (now Avenue Foch) where Debussy would reside for the rest of his life.[29] Their daughter (the composer's only child) Claude-Emma was born there on 30 October.[24] Her parents eventually married in 1908, their troubled union enduring until Debussy's death in 1918. Claude-Emma, more affectionately known as 'Chouchou', was a great musical inspiration to Debussy (she was the dedicatee of his Children's Corner suite). Claude-Emma outlived her father by scarcely a year, succumbing to the diphtheria epidemic of 1919 after her doctor administered the wrong treatment.[30]
Mary Garden, who played the part of Melisande in the original production of Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902, was to write of him: "I honestly don't know if Debussy ever loved anybody really. He loved his music – and perhaps himself. I think he was wrapped up in his genius... He was a very, very strange man." [31]
Debussy died of rectal cancer at his Paris home on 25 March 1918,[32] at the age of 55. He had been diagnosed with the cancer in 1909[24] after experiencing bleeding, and in December 1915 underwent one of the earliest colostomy operations ever performed. The operation achieved only a temporary respite, and occasioned him considerable frustration (he was to liken dressing in the morning to "all the labours of Hercules in one"). His death occurred in the midst of the aerial and artillery bombardment of Paris during the German Spring Offensive of World War I. The funeral procession made its way through deserted streets to Père Lachaise Cemetery as the German guns bombarded the city. The military situation in France was critical, and did not permit the honour of a public funeral with ceremonious graveside orations. Debussy's body was reinterred the following year in the small Passy Cemetery sequestered behind the Trocadéro, fulfilling his wish to rest 'among the trees and the birds'; his wife and daughter are buried with him.[27]
Rudolph Reti points out the following features of Debussy's music, which "established a new concept of tonality in European music":
- Glittering passages and webs of figurations which distract from occasional absence of tonality;
- Frequent use of parallel chords which are "in essence not harmonies at all, but rather 'chordal melodies', enriched unisons", described by some writers as non-functional harmonies;
- Bitonality, or at least bitonal chords;
- Use of the whole-tone and pentatonic scale;
- Unprepared modulations, "without any harmonic bridge."
He concludes that Debussy's achievement was the synthesis of monophonic based "melodic tonality" with harmonies, albeit different from those of "harmonic tonality".[34]
The application of the term "Impressionist" to Debussy and the music he influenced is a matter of intense debate within academic circles. One side argues that the term is a misnomer, an inappropriate label which Debussy himself opposed. In a letter of 1908 he wrote: "I am trying to do 'something different' – an effect of reality... what the imbeciles call 'impressionism', a term which is as poorly used as possible, particularly by the critics, since they do not hesitate to apply it to [J.M.W.] Turner, the finest creator of mysterious effects in all the world of art."[35]
List of works
Clair de Lune
Composed in 1890, performed by Laurens Goedhart in 2011 (5:04) Première Arabesque (4:53)
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- List of compositions by Claude Debussy by genre (with audio)
- List of compositions by Claude Debussy by Lesure number (without audio)
Early works
From the 1890s Debussy began to develop his own musical language, which was largely independent of Wagner's style, coloured in part from the dreamy, sometimes morbid, romanticism of the Symbolist movement. Debussy became a frequent participant at Stéphane Mallarmé's Symbolist gatherings, where Wagnerism dominated the discussion. However, in contrast to the enormous works of Wagner and other late romantic composers around this time, Debussy chose to write in smaller, more accessible forms.
The Deux arabesques is an example of one of Debussy's earliest works, already developing his musical language. Suite bergamasque (1890) recalls rococo decorousness with a modern cynicism and puzzlement, and contains one of Debussy's most popular pieces, Clair de Lune. Debussy's String Quartet in G minor (1893) paved the way for his later more daring harmonic exploration, using the Phrygian mode as well as less standard scales such as the whole-tone, which creates a sense of floating, ethereal harmony. Debussy was beginning to employ a single, continuous theme, breaking away from the traditional A–B–A form with its restatements and amplifications, which had been a mainstay of classical music since Haydn.
Debussy wrote one of his most famous works under the influence of Mallarmé, the revolutionary Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, which is truly original in form and execution. In contrast to the large orchestras so favoured by late romanticism, Debussy wrote this piece for a smaller ensemble, emphasizing instrumental colour and timbre. Despite Mallarmé himself and colleague and friend Paul Dukas having been impressed by the piece, it was controversial at its premiere, but nevertheless established Debussy as one of the leading composers of the era.
Middle works
The three Nocturnes (1899) include characteristic studies: in Nuages, using veiled harmony and texture; Fêtes, in exuberance; and Sirènes, using whole-tones. Debussy's only complete opera Pelléas et Mélisande premiered in 1902, after ten years of work, and contrasted sharply with Wagnerian opera. Based on the play by Maurice Maeterlinck, the opera proved to be an immediate success and immensely influential to younger French composers, including Maurice Ravel. These works brought a fluidity of rhythm and colour quite new to Western music.
La mer (1903–1905) essays a more symphonic form, with a finale that works themes from the first movement, although the middle movement, Jeux de vagues, proceeds much less directly and with more variety of colour. The reviews were once again sharply divided. Some critics thought the treatment to be less subtle and less mysterious than his previous works, and even a step backward, with Pierre Lalo complaining "I neither hear, nor see, nor feel the sea". Others extolled its "power and charm", its "extraordinary verve and brilliant fantasy", and its strong colors and definite lines.[36]
Debussy wrote much for the piano during this period. His first volume of Images pour piano (1904–1905) combines harmonic innovation with poetic suggestion: Reflets dans l'eau is a musical description of rippling water, while the second piece Hommage à Rameau is slow and yearningly nostalgic, taking a melody from Jean-Philippe Rameau's 1737 Castor et Pollux as its inspiration.
The evocative Estampes for piano (1903) give impressions of exotic locations. Debussy came into contact with Javanese gamelan music during the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle. Pagodes is the directly inspired result, aiming for an evocation of the pentatonic structures employed by Javanese music.[37]
Debussy wrote his famous Children's Corner Suite (1908) for his beloved daughter, Claude-Emma, whom he nicknamed Chouchou. The suite recalls classicism – the opening piece Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum refers to Muzio Clementi's collection of instructional piano compositions Gradus ad Parnassum – as well as a new wave of American ragtime music. In the popular final piece of the suite, Golliwogg's Cakewalk, Debussy also pokes fun at Richard Wagner by mimicking the opening bars of Wagner's prelude to Tristan und Isolde.
Pieces from first book of Preludes
La fille aux cheveux de lin
Performed by Mike Ambrose La cathédrale engloutie
Performed by Ivan Ilic | |
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The first book of Préludes (1910), twelve in total, proved to be his most successful work for piano. The Preludes are frequently compared to those of Chopin. Debussy's preludes are replete with rich, unusual and daring harmonies. They include the popular La fille aux cheveux de lin (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair) and La Cathédrale Engloutie (The Engulfed Cathedral), although since Debussy wanted people to respond intuitively to these pieces, their titles were placed at the end of each one in the hope that listeners would not make stereotype images as they listened.
Larger scale works included his orchestral piece Iberia (1907), a triptych medley of Spanish allusions and fleeting impressions which was begun as a work for two pianos, and also the music for Gabriele D'Annunzio's mystery play Le martyre de Saint Sébastien (1911). A lush and dramatic work, written in only two months, it is remarkable in sustaining a late antique modal atmosphere that was otherwise touched only in relatively short piano pieces.
As Debussy's popularity increased, he was often engaged as a conductor throughout Europe during this period, most often performing Pelléas, La Mer, and Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. He was also an occasional music critic, to supplement his conducting fees and piano lessons, writing under the pseudonym "Monsieur Croche". Debussy avoided analytical dissection and attempts to force images from music, saying "Let us at all costs preserve this magic peculiar to music, since of all the arts it is most susceptible to magic." He could be caustic and witty, sometimes sloppy and ill-informed. Debussy was for the most part enthusiastic about Richard Strauss[38] and Stravinsky, and worshipful of Chopin and Bach, the latter being acknowledged as "the one great master."[39] His relationship to Beethoven was a complex one; he was said to refer to him as "le vieux sourd" (the old deaf one)[40] and adjured one young pupil never to play Beethoven's music for "it is like somebody dancing on my grave."[40] It was said that "Debussy liked Mozart, and he believed that Beethoven had terrifically profound things to say, but that he did not know how to say them, because he was imprisoned in a web of incessant restatement and of German aggressiveness."[40] He also admired the works of Charles-Valentin Alkan.[41] Schubert and Mendelssohn fared much worse, the latter being described as a "facile and elegant notary".[42]
Late works
Debussy's harmonies and chord progressions frequently exploit dissonances without any formal resolution. Unlike in his earlier work, he no longer hides discords in lush harmonies,[43] and the forms are far more irregular and fragmented.[44] These chords that seemingly had no resolution were described by Debussy himself as "floating chords", and were used to set tone and mood in many of his works. The whole tone scale dominates much of Debussy's late music.
His two final volumes of works for the piano, the Études (1915), interpret similar varieties of style and texture purely as pianistic exercises, and include pieces that develop irregular form to an extreme, as well as others influenced by the young Igor Stravinsky (a presence too in the suite En blanc et noir for two pianos, 1915).[45] The rarefaction of these works is a feature of the last set of songs, the Trois poèmes de Mallarmé (1913), and of the Sonata for flute, viola and harp (1915), though the sonata and its companions also recapture the inquisitive Verlainian classicism.
With the sonatas of 1915–1917 there is a sudden shift in the style. These works recall Debussy's earlier music in part, but also look forward, with leaner, simpler structures. Despite the thinner textures of the Violin Sonata (1917), there remains an undeniable richness in the chords themselves. This shift parallels the movement commonly known as neo-classicism, which became popular after Debussy's death in 1918. Debussy planned a set of six sonatas, but had only completed three (cello, flute-viola-harp, and violin) before he died.
The final orchestral work by Debussy, the ballet Jeux (1912) written for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, contains some of his strangest harmonies and textures in a form that moves freely over its own field of motivic connection. At first, Jeux was overshadowed by Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, which was composed in the same year as Jeux, and was premiered only two weeks later by the same ballet company. Decades later, composers such as Pierre Boulez and Jean Barraqué pointed out parallels to Anton Webern's serialism in this work.
Other late stage works, including the ballets Khamma (1912) and La boîte à joujoux (1913), were left with the orchestration incomplete, and were later completed by Charles Koechlin and André Caplet, who also helped Debussy with the orchestration of Gigues (from Images pour orchestre) and Le martyre de St. Sébastien.[46]
The second set of Préludes for piano (1913) features Debussy at his most avant-garde, where he uses dissonant harmonies to evoke specific moods and images. Debussy consciously gives titles to each prelude which amplify the preludes' tonal ambiguity and dissonance. He uses scales such as the whole tone scale, musical modes, and the octatonic scale in his preludes which exaggerate this tonal ambiguity, making the key of each prelude almost indistinguishable at times. The second book of Preludes for piano represents Debussy's strong interest in the indefinite and esoteric.
Pieces from second book of Preludes
Feuilles mortes
La puerta del Vino
Les fées sont d'exquises danseuses
Général Lavine - eccentric
La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune
Hommage à S. Pickwick Esq. P.P.M.P.C.
Les tierces alternées
Feux d'artifice
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Although Pelléas was Debussy's only completed opera, he began several opera projects which remained unfinished, perhaps due to his fading concentration, increasing procrastination, and failing health. He had finished some partial musical sketches and some unpublished libretti for operas based on Poe's The Devil in the Belfry (Le diable dans le beffroi, 1902–?1912) and The Fall of the House of Usher (La chute de la maison Usher, 1908–1917) as well as considering projects for operas based on Shakespeare's As You Like It and Joseph Bedier's La Legende de Tristan.
Further plans, such as an American tour, more ballet scores, and revisions of Chopin and Bach works for re-publication, were all cut short by poor health and the outbreak of World War I.
Mathematical structuring
Some people have claimed that Debussy structured parts of his music mathematically.[47][48] Roy Howat, for instance, has published a book contending that Debussy's works are structured around mathematical models even while using an apparent classical structure such as sonata form. Howat suggests that some of Debussy's pieces can be divided into sections that reflect the golden ratio, frequently by using the numbers of the standard Fibonacci sequence.[49]
Debussy's influences were wide-ranging. He acquired a taste for parallel motion in fifths, fourths and octaves from medieval music, and an appreciation for figuration and arabesque from the Baroque masters. He especially had a great love for the French clavier composers Couperin and Rameau, as well as J. S. Bach. Chopin and Liszt were also powerful influences, not only in terms of pianistic layout and harmonic ingenuity, but also because of their willingness to create new forms to accommodate their material.
Among the Russian composers of his time, the most prominent influences were Tchaikovsky, Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin and Mussorgsky.[18][50] It can be inferred that from the Russians "Debussy acquired his taste for ancient and oriental modes and for vivid colorations, and a certain disdain for academic rules."[18] Specifically, Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov directly influenced one of Debussy's most famous works, Pelléas et Mélisande. In addition to the Russian composers, one of Debussy's biggest influences was Richard Wagner. According to Pierre Louys, Debussy "did not see 'what anyone can do beyond Tristan.'"[18]
After Debussy's Wagner phase, he started to become immensely interested in non-Western music and its unorthodox approaches to composition. Specifically, he was drawn to the Javanese Gamelan:[51] a musical ensemble from the island of Java that played an array of unique instrumentation, including gongs and metallophones. He first heard the gamelan at the 1889 Paris Exposition. Debussy was not interested in directly quoting his non-Western influences, but instead allowed this non-Western aesthetic to generally influence his own musical work, for example, by frequently using quiet, unresolved dissonances, coupled with the damper pedal, to emulate the "shimmering" effect created by a gamelan ensemble.
Debussy was just as influenced by other art forms as he was by music, if not more so. He took a strong interest in literature and visual art, and used these mediums to help shape his unique musical style. Debussy was heavily influenced by the French symbolist movement of the 1880s, which encompassed poetry, visual art, and theatre. He shared the movement's interest in the esoteric and indefinite and their rejection of naturalism and realism. Specifically, "the development of free verse in poetry and the disappearance of the subject or model in painting influenced Debussy to think about issues of musical form."[18] Debussy became personally acquainted with writers and painters of the movement, and based some of his own works on those of the symbolists. The poet Stéphane Mallarmé was a major influence, who in talking of "a 'musicalization' of poetry"[18] laid claim to a strong connection between music and his own poetry. Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune was directly influenced by Mallarmé's poem "Afternoon of a Faun". Like the symbolists in respect to their own art forms, Debussy aimed to reject common techniques and approaches to composition and attempted to evoke more of a sensorial experience for the listener with his works. Since his time at the Paris Conservatoire, Debussy believed he had much more to learn from artists than from musicians, who were primarily interested in their musical careers.
Above all, Debussy was inspired by nature and the impression it made on the mind, making a pantheistic profession of faith when he called "mysterious Nature" his religion. 'I do not practice religion in accordance with the sacred rites. I have made mysterious Nature my religion. I do not believe that a man is any nearer to God for being clad in priestly garments, nor that one place in a town is better adapted to meditation than another. When I gaze at a sunset sky and spend hours contemplating its marvellous ever-changing beauty, an extraordinary emotion overwhelms me. Nature in all its vastness is truthfully reflected in my sincere though feeble soul. Around me are the trees stretching up their branches to the skies, the perfumed flowers gladdening the meadow, the gentle grass-carpeted earth, ... and my hands unconsciously assume an attitude of adoration. ... To feel the supreme and moving beauty of the spectacle to which Nature invites her ephemeral guests! ... that is what I call prayer.'[52]
Contemporary painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler (who lived in France for a period of time) had a profound influence on Debussy. In 1894, Debussy wrote to violinist Eugène Ysaÿe describing his Nocturnes as "an experiment in the different combinations that can be obtained from one color – what a study in grey would be in painting."[53] Although it is not known what it is meant by this statement, one can observe in his music a careful use of orchestral, textural, and harmonic 'shading'.
Influence on later composers
Claude Debussy is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century.[54] His innovative harmonies were influential to almost every major composer of the 20th century, particularly Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, Olivier Messiaen, Béla Bartók, Pierre Boulez, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Henri Dutilleux, Ned Rorem, George Gershwin, and the minimalist music of Steve Reich and Philip Glass as well as the influential Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. He also influenced many important figures in jazz, most notably Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Bix Beiderbecke, George Shearing, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Jimmy Giuffre, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Django Reinhardt, and Herbie Hancock.[55] He also had a profound impact on contemporary soundtrack composers such as John Williams, because Debussy's colourful and evocative style translated easily into an emotional language for use in motion picture scores.
A number of posthumous discoveries bear Debussy's name. These include:
- Debussy Heights, a minor mountain range on Alexander Island, Antarctica, which was discovered in 1960 – including Ravel Peak
- Debussy, an impact crater on Mercury which was discovered in 1969
- Debussy, an Irish thoroughbred race horse
- 4492 Debussy, a main belt asteroid which was discovered in 1988
In 1904, Debussy participated in a handful of recordings made together with soprano Mary Garden. He also made some piano rolls for Welte-Mignon in 1913.[56]
- ↑ Claude Debussy – pronunciation at Forvo.com
- 1 2 Born Achille-Claude Debussy, he was known as "Achille" during his student days, changed his forename to "Claude-Achille" around 1890, and after 1894 was known simply as "Claude Debussy" (Fulcher, Jane F. Debussy and His World. Princeton University Press, 2001. p. 101.).
- ↑ Politoske, Daniel T.; Martin Werner (1988). Music, Fourth Edition. Prentice Hall. p. 419. ISBN 0-13-607616-5.
- 1 2 "Claude Debussy – Biographie : 1903–1909 – Centre de documentation Claude Debussy". Debussy.fr. Retrieved 10 March 2010.
- ↑ Claude Debussy – Biography at AllMusic
- ↑ Schmitz, E. Robert. The Piano Works of Claude Debussy. Duell, Sloan & Pierce, 1950. pp. 23–26.
- ↑ Hartmann, Arthur; Hsu, Samuel; Grolnic, Sidney; Peters, Mark A. (2003). "Claude Debussy as I Knew Him" and Other Writings of Arthur Hartmann. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 1-58046-104-2.
- ↑ Leon Vallas (March 2007). Claude Debussy: His Life and Works. Lightning Source Inc. pp. 4–. ISBN 978-1-4067-5912-9. Retrieved 27 April 2011.
- ↑ David Mason Greene (2007). Greene's biographical encyclopedia of composers. Reproducing Piano Roll Fnd. pp. 904–. ISBN 978-0-385-14278-6. Retrieved 27 April 2011.
- ↑ "Centre de documentation Claude Debussy". Debussy.fr. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
- ↑ Harold C. Schonberg, The Great Pianists, p. 343
- ↑ "Concerts where Debussy appeared as a pianist". Djupdal.org. Retrieved 10 March 2010.
- ↑ Edward Lockspeiser, Debussy: His Life and Mind, vol. 1, The Macmillan Company, 1962, pp 40–47.
- ↑ Alexander Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, p. 375
- ↑ Thompson, p. 70
- ↑ Thompson, p. 77
- ↑ Thompson, p. 82
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 François Lesure and Roy Howat. "Debussy, Claude." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 14 December 2009
- ↑ Moore, Stephen (1999). Satie the Bohemian: From Cabaret to Concert Hall. Oxford University Press. p. 172.
- ↑ Brent Hugh. "Claude Debussy and the Javanese Gamelan". brenthugh.com. Retrieved 2 July 2014.
- ↑ Nichols, R. (1998) The Life of Debussy. Cambridge University Press, 196 pages.
- ↑ Orledge, R. 'Debussy the man', in Trezise, S. (ed.) (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Debussy. p.4. Cambridge University Press, UK. ISBN 9780521654784
- ↑ Leon Vallas (March 2007). Claude Debussy: His Life and Works. Lightning Source Inc. pp. 169–. ISBN 978-1-4067-5912-9. Retrieved 27 April 2011.
- 1 2 3 4 Diane Enget Moore (2005). Debussy in Jersey. The Centenary, 1904–2004 .
- ↑ "23 Square Avenue Foch 75116 Paris, France". Google Maps. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
- ↑ Claude Achille Debussy Archived 17 March 2015 at the Wayback Machine.
- 1 2 Simeone, N. (2000). Paris – A musical Gazetteer. Yale University Press, USA.
- ↑ Eastbourne Local Historian (Eastbourne Local History Society) Nr 157 (Autumn 2010).
- ↑ "Claude Debussy's residence". Debussypiano.com. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
- ↑ "Tobin, A. (2012). ''Claude Debussy's Pianistic Vision''". Debussypiano.com. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
- ↑ Garden, M. & Biancolli, L. (1951). Mary Garden's Story. 302 p. Simon & Schuster, New York.
- ↑ Debussy, Claude Achille The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Columbia University Press. Retrieved 12 July 2010.
- ↑ Edward Lockspeiser (1962). Debussy: His Life and Mind, p. 207. ISBN 0-304-91878-4 for Vol. 1. cited in Roland Nadeau (1979), "Debussy and the Crisis of Tonality", p. 71, Music Educators Journal, Vol. 66, No. 1 (September), pp. 69–73.
- ↑ Rudolph Reti, Tonality, Atonality, Pantonality, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-20478-0.
- ↑ Thompson, p. 161
- ↑ Thompson, pp. 158–59
- ↑ Brent Hugh. "Claude Debussy and the Javanese Gamelan". brenthugh.com. Retrieved 27 January 2007.
- ↑ Claude Debussy (1962). Monsieur Croche the Dilettante Hater.
- ↑ Francois Lesure (1988). Debussy on Music The Critical Writings of the Great French Composer Claude Debussy
- 1 2 3 Roger Nichols (2003). Debussy Remembered .
- ↑ "The Myths of Alkan". Jack Gibbons. Retrieved 10 March 2010.
- ↑ Thompson, pp. 180–85
- ↑ Mark McFarland, "Transpositional Combination and Aggregate Formation in Debussy," Music Theory Spectrum 27 no. 2 (Fall 2005): 187–220
- ↑ Mark McFarland, "Debussy: The Origins of a Method," Journal of Music Theory 48 no. 2 (Fall 2004): 295–324
- ↑ Mark McFarland, "Debussy and Stravinsky: Another Look into their Musical Relationship," Cahiers Debussy 24 (2000): 79–112
- ↑ Barraqué, Jean (1977). Debussy (Solfèges). Paris: Editions du Seuil. ISBN 2-02-000242-6.
- ↑ "Golden Ratio". Web.hep.uiuc.edu. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
- ↑
- ↑ Howat, Roy (1983). Debussy in Proportion: A musical analysis. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-31145-4.
- ↑ Poleshook, Oksana. 2011 Russian Musical Influences of The Five on piano and vocal works of Claude Debussy LAP Lambert Publishing. ISBN 978-3-8443-1643-8
- ↑ Ross, Alex (2008). The Rest Is Noise. London: Fourth Estate. p. 41. ISBN 978-1-84115-475-6.
- ↑ Léon Vallas (1933). Claude Debussy: His Life and Works. Oxford University Press, H. Milford. p. 225.
- ↑ Weintraub, Stanley. 2001. Whistler: A Biography (New York: Da Capo Press). ISBN 978-0-306-80971-2. p. 351
- ↑ The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time, p. 117 (Britannica Educational Publishing, Gini Gorlinski, ed., 2009).
- ↑ Brown, Matthew. Debussy Redux: The Impact of His Music on Popular Culture, p. 3 (Indiana University Press, 2012).
- ↑ "Steve's Debussy Page". 1 November 1913. Retrieved 10 December 2015.
- Thompson, Oscar, Debussy: Man and Artist, Tudor Publishing Company, 1940.
Further reading
- Fulcher, Jane (ed.) (2001). Debussy and His World (The Bard Music Festival). Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09042-4.
- Lücke, Hendrik (2005): Mallarmé, Debussy: Eine vergleichende Studie zur Kunstanschauung am Beispiel von "L'Après-midi d'un Faune". Schriftenreihe Studien zur Musikwissenschaft 4. Hamburg: Dr. Kovac. ISBN 3-8300-1685-9.
- Nichols, Roger (1998). The Life of Debussy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521578875.
- Parks, Richard S. (1989). The Music of Claude Debussy. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300044393.
- Pasler, Jann (December 2013). "Debussey: the Man, his Music, and His Legacy: an overview of current Research". Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association. 69 (2): 197–216.
- Poleshook, Oksana (2011). Russian Musical Influences of The Five on piano and vocal works of Claude Debussy. LAP Lambert Publishing. ISBN 978-3-8443-1643-8.
- Roberts, Paul (ed.) (2001). Images: The Piano Music of Claude Debussy. Amadeus Press. ISBN 1-57467-068-9.
- Roberts, Paul (ed.) (2007). Claude Debussy (20th Century Composers). Phaidon Press Ltd. ISBN 0-7148-3512-9.
- Ross, James. 1998. "Pelléas et Mélisande: The 'Nouveau Prophete'? Crisis and Transformation: French Opera, Politics and the Press" D.Phil. Thesis, Oxford University. pp. 164–208.
- Smith, Richard Langham, ed. (1997). Debussy Studies. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521460903.
- Trezise, Simon (ed.) (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Debussy. Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-65478-5.
- Cobb, Margaret (ed.) (2005). Debussy's Letters to Inghelbrecht – The Story of a Musical Friendship. University of Rochester Press. ISBN 1-58046-174-3.
- Miller, Richard (ed.) (Editor: Cobb, Margaret) (1982). Poetic Debussy 2nd Edition. University of Rochester Press. ISBN 1-878822349.
External links
- Claude Debussy at DMOZ
- "Debussy material". BBC Radio 3 archives.
- Claude Debussy at AllMusic
- Claude Debussy Catalogue chronologique (French)
- Documentary film about Claude Debussy
- Works by Claude Debussy at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Claude Debussy at Internet Archive
- Works by Claude Debussy at Open Library
- Free scores by Claude Debussy in the Open Music Library
- Free scores by Claude Debussy at the International Music Score Library Project
- Free scores by Claude Debussy in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)


text:
Well, well. Liberals and lefties try to claim President Obama's far more progressive than George W. Bush. That may not entirely be the case, because, unlike Bush, Obama can't bring himself to meet with the Dalai Lama...
Not yet, at least: White House officials have reportedly asked Tibetan authorities to keep their distance when the Lama visits next week. This is the first time a President has refused to meet with the spiritual leader since he first came to the U.S. in 1991. Even Bush met with him, and he was evil!
Apparently Obama and his administration are worried about pissing off China, which rules Tibet with an iron fist. But some experts say it's a pointless gesture, because China doesn't really give a damn:
"We've got the classic case of a Western government yet again conceding to Chinese pressure that is imaginary long after that Chinese pressure has ceased to exist," said Robert Barnett, a Tibetan expert at Columbia University. "The Chinese must be falling over themselves with astonishment at what Western diplomats will give them without being asked. I don't know what the poker analogy would be. 'Please, see all my cards and take my money, too?' "
Oh well, Dalai: better luck next life!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Walgreens Drug Store
In the beginning, back in the year 1901, Charles R. Walgreen (Sr.) was a shoe shiner for a rundown barbershop. He made extra money on the side by polishing the knobs of the local mobsters and government officials at 2 bits a blow.
The Chicago Times-Herald quoted Sir Ian McKellen as saying:
"That Charlie gives some good dome. Now if only he'd stop spitting the load out on my loafers."
Charles lived in an upscale breadbox on the corner of Cottage Grove and Bowen Avenue on Chicago's South Side, and went to turning tricks to support his opium and ether addictions. After his initiation into the Vice Lords, and a brief period of selling smack to orphans, Charles had a revelation of the atheist kind. He decided that if the Vice Lords could make him sell smack to children then there was no reason why he could not sell children for smack.
He went to the local loan shark to blow his way into the black market, and Charles spit his way up to $4.75 and a bag of Cheese Puffs - enough money to buy a 50 ft. by 20 ft. (15.24 m. by 6.10 m.) rundown crack house located right behind his breadbox.
A Company is Almost Born
Charles found that selling orphans for smack was not as easy as he imagined.
The U.S. Government had officially declared a war on children, making it nearly impossible to obtain them by legal or illegal methods. The border patrol and National Guard intercepted hundreds of ripe young children, which were burned to destroy the taint before they could contaminate the minds of the American people.
The "War on Children" continues to this day.
A Company is Born
One night after swabbing Walt Disney's deck, Charles decided that he had to make something of his life.
Walt told Charles that a man named Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov wanted to play butt pirates, and would pay a reasonable amount for Charles to shit on his sword.
After a week of skeet skeet skeet, Vladimir bestowed upon Charles an EBay gift card and a chickenbox, before setting sail for the U.S.S.R., never to be seen or heard from again.
Vladimir had left Charles with a balance of $10.73 on his EBay gift card, with which he went online and bought a Ph D. diploma and a Pseudoephedrine Mini Lab. With the installment of the Pseudo Mini Lab, Charles was able to develop popular self-named products such as Wal-Crack, Wal-PCP, Wal-LSD, Wal-8Ball, Wal-Heroin, Wal-Xtasy, and the infamous Wal-Meth.
He also had a line of herbal supplements, selling them as G/S Wal-Coke, Wal-Ijuana, Wal-Shroom, Wal-Peyote, and Wal-GlandOnTheBackOfABufoFrog.
Sales in the 1st year were low due to the draft for the "War on Children". To increase his company stock, Charles would pull all-niters on Service men at 28¢ a head job. He porked several women a day.
Charles discovered the cure to sleep by accident in his Pseudo Mini Lab, when it turned out that the pseudo department repressed the gene that activated sleep. This helped pave the way for a service that no one else provided.
He would stay open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year to toss the salad of his customers. He even went as far as to denounce Jesus Christ and proclaim himself to be God, stating that everyone that would like a job in His Company had to lose sight of family, morals, intelligence, and proclaim Charles as God. They also had to believe that everyone below management and pharmacist were expendable, did not have lives of their own, were to never call in unless you were dead (Ha Ha Dee Dee Dee), and useless.
Very soon, Charles had a cult following, and was rapidly filling their cake holes with chickenbox.
A Son is Born
Much to his surprise, in 1910 Charles discovered that he was father to a son named Charles "Chuck" R. Walgreen (Jr.) Apparently, Charles had got Vladimir Lenin pregnant during a game of "hide the salami" during the shoe shining years.
Vladimir had been raising Chuck in Russia, out of fear of persecution in the "War on Children". Chuck was a secret agent in the KGB and dictator to the Soviet Union, although Charles denied being the father of Chuck and demanded a paternity test.
Vladimir called 1-888-45MAURY to be a guest on "The Maury Povich Show" to prove that Charles was the only man that he had ever slept with (excluding the 17 Catholic school boys 5 minutes before & 5 minutes after their affair).
The DNA test determined that not only was Charles the father of Charles "Chuck" R. Walgreen, (Jr.) but was also the mother. Still doubtful, Charles decided to settle it once and for all. He sucked off Chuck, swallowed his load, analyzed his DNA, and determined that a) Chuck was his clone, b) that he lacked the sleep gene altogether, and c) that he was a vampire. He immediately proceeded to teach himself all the necessary tasks in order to keep up with the Pseudo Mini Lab.
Charles died shortly after when he discovered that he was the man on the Quaker Oats container.
A Monster is Born
No one could have imagined how far Chuck would take the Walgreens Company. His appetite for cock was not that of his mother & father's but he had an uncontrollable thirst for the blood of children.
He knew the only way to import children into the country would be to build Soviet embassies in 46 states, and Puerto Rico. His mother/father had slept with an exploder named Richard E. Byrd and in exchange for waxing his wood, Richard gave Charles a state in Antarctica, which Chuck went on to name the Walgreen Coast (because he lacked originality).
He enslaved the penguin population with the false promise of an endless supply of fish.
Chuck supplied the penguins with hover bikes and they were ordered to move 1 ft by 1 ft (30.48 cm by 30.48 cm) blocks of ice to the Bering Strait to reassemble the land bridge for the Cheerful Communist Children's Party (CCCP). Chuck knew the value of an authentic child and knew a few high-ranking American officials that would pay top ruble to sleep with a Communist child. Chuck bought a fleet of semi-trucks and painted the Company name on the sides to let weigh-in stations know not to fuck with his shipments of children.
However, after several years of uninterrupted bloodsucking on the finest children that humanity could offer, Chuck Walgreen was arrested after several key officials were caught whispering secrets to eager little Communist children.
Luckily, Chuck had cloned himself just for this very occasion. He announced Charles "Cork" R. Walgreen (III) as the new leader of the vampires.
The Pharmacy That Communists Trust
Cork was brought to term in the womb of a human woman named Katie Holmes, who was used so that Cork could be born a day walker. From the very first day out of the womb, Cork was a natural at making methamphetamines, and soon set out to reclaim the black market on children.
Homeland Security, however, had tightened its grips on the borders and airports when the Patriot Act took effect, and among the few areas of the country that were not monitored were New Orleans and the Mississippi River. Apparently, a notorious group of grues had destroyed the city and the government was too busy shooting their lawyers to give a fuck.
Cork did the unthinkable and went to visit the Grue King, where he agreed to give 15% of the U.S.S.R population annually to help feed the new Grue Kingdom of Old Orleans. When a reporter asked the grue's Secretary of State as to why they did not eat Cork, the Secretary promptly ate the reporter and returned to foreign affairs abroad. It is a known fact that grues are allergic to clone vampires.
Eventually, Walgreens would start "Wag's", a place to get some chickenbox and meth at 2am. However the Wag's experiment was short-lived and would be sold to Kmart for $37 million.
When Walgreens Lost Sight
After decades of sucking the blood out of children and hooking America on smack, Cork decided it was time for him to make a clone of himself to take Walgreens and Russia into the new millennia.
With the help of a grue geneticist from the Kingdom of Old Orleans, Cork inserted his DNA into the egg of a Grue to unleash the most intimidating creature that the family of Walgreen could produce. A new breed of vampire and Grue had been born.
They named the clone Kevin Walgreen. He was a bit of a disappointment to Cork. Kevin was not a day walker and he slept a lot. He even came out with red hair. When Cork brought this to the attention of the Grue geneticist, it said that its great great great grandfather was the has-been comedian Carrot Top, which would technically place Kevin in the race known as the Ginger Kids.
Further enraging Cork, Kevin denounced Marxism and quickly brought Capitalism into the Company. With a bold move of defiance, he dropped the price on children to $1 each every few weeks, marking the occasion as Dollar Day$, and opened over 78,203 Medicare Part D Plans to help fit the needs of particular customers with their methamphetamine payments.
This threw Walgreens into chaos. The shelves never had enough children to last the week of a sale. Pharmacists were sticking their fingers up each other's ass and taking turns smelling each finger and admiring the aroma. The members of management were actually Man Bear Pigs and their noses were covered with shit. The veteran employees were killed by space monkeys and penguins. Walgreens Drug Store, in short, was now on a mission to replace everyone's child with a genetically worse-off child in the likeness of Charles, Chuck, Cork or Kevin.
This new race, crossing the violent gene of the Grue with the flaws of its management and corporate officials, produced a being known only as Sally Struthers. Sally Struthers ordered Kevin to put on a pair of cleats and crawl into her uterus to give it a good scrubbing and he remains inside her to this day, humping her eggs in an endless attempt to be reborn.
Walgreens Rules of Service
The Seven Service Basics
- 1. Nobody Waits at Walgreens. (Unless you are receiving a prescription. The waiting time is 7 hours after you have been standing in line for 3 days. The Drive-thru is just for decoration.)
- 2. In Your Aisle, Gets a Smile! (We do not uphold this because we are bloodsucking zombies that think our shit smells like the Eau de Parfum Spray, which is located at the Cosmetic register for the outrageous price of $29.99 for a 1.7oz bottle.)
- 3. It's No Problem! (If it is not the Company's problem then take your troubles elsewhere. We do not tolerate whiney customers.)
- 4. The Phone's for You! (We may deny our employees religious freedoms but we do tolerate unnecessary phone calls for members of our staff and corporate employees. Talk as long as you like. Management may sit in the office all day on the phones and accomplish nothing.)
- 5. Company's Coming! (All stores are to have fresh stocks of children for the management, district management, regional management, and corporate officials at all times. A thirsty manager is a grumpy manager.)
- 6. See You Soon! (Let all customers know that they are addicted to smack and will return or else!)
- 7. Surprise! (Try not to surprise a pufferfish. They don't like it.)
The Walgreens Creed
- We believe in the children that we merchandise, in our God and in our ability to render oral satisfaction (should we find ourselves so inclined)
- We believe that honest children can be sold to honest people by honest methods.
- We believe in waiting, not working; in laughing, not working; in boosting, not working; and in the pleasure of selling children.
- We believe that we can get what we go after, and that we are not down and out until we have lost faith in our God Charles.
- We believe in God Charles and the smack we are doing, in not working and the work we will not do, and in the sure reward of selling children for smack.
- We believe in not being courtesy, in not being kind, in generosity to ourselves, in the Cheerful Communist Children's Party, in Grues, and in dishonest competition.
Do Your Homework
Whenever shopping for children in the future, be sure to price match. Walgreens does not honor the price matching system for advertisements with their competitors.
For ease of customer price-matching, Walgreens has created a code to enable easier viewing of the worth of a child, so that they can masturbate over how much money they made. The following letters notate Walgreens' favoured method of child-pricing:
See also
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text:
English meanings & explanation of The Noble Quran without Arabic text. Reads from left to right. Great to give for dawah purposes to Non-Muslims. Now in tall size with fine paper & semi hardback binding.
The Noble Quran summarized in one volume by:
Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan and Dr. Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali (click on names for biography)
Interpretation of the meanings of the Noble Quran in the modern English language. A summarized version of At-Tabari, Al-Qurtubi and Ibn Kathir with comments from Sahih Al-Bukhari.
This 1 volume summarized version offers brief commentary and Ahadith wherever necessary. This unique combination of commentary and relevant Ahadith makes this a very useful study reference tool.
Other Sources:
Dawah Books for Distribution to Churches and Mosques | ||
Day Of Judgment Accountability - Quran Surah Al-Fatir, Verse 18 |


text:
Redefining the kilogram and the ampere
New research using graphene presents the most precise measurements of the quantum Hall effect ever made, one of the key steps in the process to redefine two SI units.
Groundbreaking research by the National Physical Laboratory's (NPL) Quantum Detection Group and an international team of collaborators is underpinning the biggest change in the Système Internationale d'unités (SI Units) since the system began 50 years ago.
It has long been the goal of scientists to relate all of the unit definitions to fundamental constants of nature, making them stable and universal, and giving them closer links to each other and the quantities they measure.
Key units to be redefined are the kilogram (mass) and the ampere (electric current). Presently the kilogram is defined by a physical lump of platinum-iridium and the ampere is defined via the force produced between two wires.
The goal is to define the kilogram in terms the Planck constant h and the ampere in terms of the electron charge e.
Making this change relies on the exactness of the relationships that link these constants to measurable quantities.
The quantum Hall effect defines a relationship between these two fundamental physical constants. Experiments are needed to test the quantum Hall effect in different materials in order to prove whether or not it is truly universal.
Until recently the effect was exclusively observed in a few semiconductor materials. A few years ago the quantum Hall effect was also observed by the same team in graphene, a completely different type of material with a very different electronic structure.
This research directly compared the quantum Hall effect in graphene with that observed in a traditional semiconductor material. Graphene is hotly tipped to surpass conventional materials in many important applications, partly due to its extraordinary electrical properties.
The results confirmed that the quantum Hall effect is truly universal with an uncertainty level of 86 parts per trillion, supporting the redefinition of the kilogram and ampere. The quantum Hall effect in graphene is so good that it should be the material of choice for quantum resistance metrology.
The discovery was today highlighted in Nature as a leading piece of research.
JT Janssen, NPL Science Fellow and the lead author of the research, said: "Many metrology laboratories around the world have been striving to do this experiment and it is a real achievement that the NPL team and its co-workers were the first to get this key result. It turns out that the quantum Hall effect in graphene is very robust and easy to measure - not bad for a material that was only discovered six years ago."
More information: Read paper in New Journal of Physics: iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/13/9/093026/
Provided by National Physical Laboratory


text:
learn boxing
now browsing by tag
Boxing Lessons for Beginners – The Ten Punches of Boxing
Quick Summary of the 10 Punches of Boxing.
Boxing is a combat sport in which two people engage in a contest of strength, speed, reflexes, endurance, and will, by throwing punches at each other, usually with gloved hands. Traditionally, the goal has been to knock the opponent unconscious from a blow to the head.
Amateur boxing is both an Olympic and Commonwealth sport and is a common fixture in most international games—it also has its own World Championships. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of one- to three-minute intervals called rounds. The result is decided when an opponent is deemed incapable to continue by a referee, is disqualified for breaking a rule, resigns by throwing in a towel, or is pronounced the winner or loser based on the judges' scorecards at the end of the contest.
While people have fought in hand-to-hand combat since before the dawn of history, the origin of boxing as an organized sport may be its acceptance by the ancient Greeks as an Olympic game in BC 688. Boxing evolved from 16th- and 18th-century prizefights, largely in Great Britain, to the forerunner of modern boxing in the mid-19th century, again initially in Great Britain and later in the United States.
ESPN.com: ALL-TIME GREATEST BOXERS
Best 10 Boxers ever
Lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, heavyweight
Ring career: 1902-26 Record: 167-38-37-3 (117 KOs) and 48 no-decisions
Career notes: Almost certainly the greatest fighter never to win, or even fight for, a world title. … Fought all the way from lightweight to heavyweight, and continued to fight — and win — even after becoming almost completely blind in one eye and partially blind in another. … Problem was that he was just too good. That, and the fact that heavyweight career overlapped with that of Jack Johnson — who refused to give him a title shot, and whose behavior outside the ropes made promoters leery about the prospect of another black heavyweight champion — combined to deny him the world title opportunity he deserved. … After being forced to retire because of blindness, disappeared from view until he was rediscovered by journalist Al Laney in 1944.
Ring career: 1914-27 Record: 61-6-8 (50 KOs) and 6 no-decisions
Career notes: Held world heavyweight title from 1919 to 1926, although only six of his fights during that period were official title defenses. … Furious two-fisted punching style was hugely popular with fans. … Engaged in some of the most celebrated battles of all time, including with Luis Angel Firpo and Gene Tunney. … The "Manassa Mauler" was the face of boxing at a time when it was still, along with baseball and horse racing, the most popular sport in the land. … Rakishly handsome and charismatic outside the ring, was all-action inside it, brandishing a breathtaking, go-for-broke fighting style. … Won the title by shattering the jaw of giant Jess Willard. … When he lost it, by decision to Tunney in 1926, it was in front of the largest paid attendance in the history of boxing — more than 120,000 spectators. … In rematch, floored Tunney for a count of nine, the infamous "long count" in which Tunney was actually on the canvas for 14 seconds. … After losing rematch, retired and opened a restaurant in New York.
Let's go to the video: 50 Greatest: Jack Dempsey
Ring career: 1897-1928 Record: 77-13-14 (48 KOs) and 19 no-decisions
Career notes: First black heavyweight champion. … Beat Tommy Burns to win crown in 1908, and held on to it until defeated by Jess Willard in 1915. … Was in many ways precursor to Muhammad Ali: dominant in the ring and deliberately provocative and antagonizing outside it, shocking and infuriating white society with his boldness and arrogance. … Was driven into exile for much of his reign, living and fighting in Europe and South America to avoid facing charges under the profoundly racist Mann Act, which prohibited the transport of white women across state lines for immoral purposes. … Died in an auto accident in 1946.
Let's go to the video: 50 Greatest: Jack Johnson
Ring career: 1911-32 Record: 85-5-1 (69 KOs) and 121 no-decisions
Career notes: Won world lightweight championship in May 1917, and retired as champion in January 1925, making him the longest-reigning lightweight champion ever. … After more than seven years, made return to the ring, winning 18 of 19. … At one stage, fought 154 consecutive bouts without losing. … Of five losses, three were in his formative ring years, one was on a foul when challenging for the welterweight championship and one was the final contest of his career, during his comeback after a seven-year layoff, against fellow Hall of Famer Jimmy McLarnin. … Exceptional all-around talent possessed speed, accuracy and power in one package. … Became a referee after retirement, and collapsed and died in the ring while refereeing a bout in New York state.
Lightweight, welterweight, junior middleweight, middleweight
Ring career: 1968-2001 Record: 103-16 (70 KOs)
Career notes: Won lightweight championship from Ken Buchanan in 1972. … Snarling, unstoppable ring monster dominated lightweight division for seven years, and then outhustled Sugar Ray Leonard to become welterweight champ in 1980. … Quit in the rematch with Leonard five months later. … At 32, destroyed Davey Moore to win a junior middleweight belt in 1983, and fought bravely against Marvin Hagler five months later. … In 1984, was felled, flat on his face, by Tommy Hearns inside two rounds. … In the 21st year of professional career, improbably won a middleweight belt by beating Iran Barkley in 1989.
Let's go to the video: 50 Greatest: Roberto Duran
Ring career: 1940-66 Record: 230-11-1 (65 KOs)
Career notes: Two-time world featherweight champion renowned for legendary defensive skills. … Achieved tremendous success despite suffering near-fatal injuries in a plane crash in 1947. … Legend that says he once won a round without throwing a punch (he almost certainly did not) is testament to defensive wizardry of "Will o' the Wisp." … Won first 63 bouts before losing to Sammy Angott, and then went 72-0-1 before losing again, to Sandy Saddler. … Only Saddler was ever truly able to figure him out, winning three of four times in bouts that were frequently brutal and foul-filled.
Let's go to the video: 50 Greatest: Willie Pep
Ring career: 1934-51 Record: 68-3 (54 KOs)
Career notes: Won world heavyweight championship in 1937, and retired as champion in 1949. … Held heavyweight title for longer (11 years, 8 months, 7 days) and made more successful defenses (25) than anyone. … Defined by two fights against Max Schmeling of Germany. In first encounter, was unbeaten and knocked out in the 12th round, in June 1936. In rematch, almost exactly two years later, as world champion knocked out challenger in the first round, becoming hero to black and white Americans alike, and cemented his place as one of the most popular champions of all time.
Let's go to the video: 50 Greatest: Joe Louis
Featherweight, lightweight, welterweight
Ring career: 1932-45 Record: 151-21-9 (101 KOs)
Career notes: Only boxer to hold world titles at three different weights simultaneously. … Won featherweight crown in October 1937. … Added welterweight title in May 1938 and became lightweight champion three months later. … Challenged for middleweight crown in 1940, and held champion Ceferino Garcia to a draw. … Known variously as "Hammerin' Hank" and "Homicide Hank." Third nickname, "Hurricane Hank," was perhaps the most appropriate. … Was a whirlwind of a fighter, a perpetual-motion machine who overwhelmed opponents with a nonstop, suffocating fusillade of punches. … Faced 17 world champions in career and defeated 15 of them.
Let's go to the video: 50 Greatest: Henry Armstrong
Ring career: 1960-81 Record: 56-5 (37 KOs)
Career notes: First to win heavyweight championship of the world three times. … Was banned from the ring for three years for refusing induction into the armed forces during the Vietnam War. … After ban was lifted, lost to Joe Frazier in "Fight of the Century" in 1971, but stunned George Foreman to regain belt in 1974. … Lost title to, and regained it from, Leon Spinks in 1978. … Three of defeats came in last four bouts, including two in an ill-advised emergence from retirement, against Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick, at 38. … Transcended the sport unlike any other boxer. … Reinvented the way heavyweights were supposed to fight, deploying a speed and athleticism that was previously unheard of; also alternately bedazzled and appalled America and the world with charisma, showmanship and braggadocio. … Viewed progressively over the years as loudmouth, villain, hero and finally a figure of pathos. … Remains for many the definition of a champion.
Let's go to the video: 50 Greatest: Muhammad Ali
Welterweight, middleweight
Ring career: 1940-65 Record: 175-19-6-2 (109 KOs)
Career notes: Won world welterweight title in December 1946, and defended it four times before stepping up in weight and winning, in 1951, first of five stints as middleweight champ. … Attempted to win light heavyweight title from Joey Maxim in 1952, but was stopped in the 14th round. … Born Walker Smith in Ailey, Ga. … Was the most complete boxer yet to grace the squared circle. … Lost just one of first 123 fights, to Jake LaMotta, a defeat avenged five times in a classic ring rivalry. … A near-perfect pugilist at welterweight, was less dominant at middleweight, but was still able to win the title five times, including three times after he had retired for two and a half years. … Only stoppage defeat was when challenging Maxim for light heavyweight crown, and then was leading on points until overcome by heat so extreme that it had forced the replacement of the referee in the 10th.
Let's go to the video: 50 Greatest: Sugar Ray Robinson
Kieran Mulvaney is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C. He covers boxing for ESPN.com, Reuters and TigerBoxing.com.
for full list visit: http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/greatest/featureVideo?page=greatest150


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In Texas these days, there's a feeling of absolute and unwavering confidence in the concept of an American energy revolution. From the depths of reserves to the richness of the energy, an incredible transformation is taking place.
We've been talking about the significant impact of the U.S.'s oil production for a while now, but the buzz about shale oil and gas is only getting louder. At Morgan Stanley's energy forum in Houston this week, Director of Research John Derrick and Portfolio Manager Evan Smith said shale was the prevailing topic.
One area that's driving this game-changing trend is located only hours from our headquarters. It's the Permian Basin located in western Texas and southeastern New Mexico, covering an enormous area. Three component parts make up the Permian: the western Delaware, Central Basin and eastern Midland. If you overlay the Eagle Ford and Bakken basin areas over the Permian, you can see that both the Bakken and the Eagle Ford shale formations easily fit inside.
(click to enlarge)
The area isn't new to the oil industry, as companies have been drilling in the Permian area for almost a century. Back in the 1970s, oil production reached 2 million barrels per day, but fell to 800,000 barrels per day in 2007. It wasn't because the oil wells had dried up but companies couldn't get at the resource. But now since the introduction of shale technology, oil production began increasing once more to 1.2 million barrels per day by 2012.
And as more data is released, the more convinced we are that this incredible growth will continue. According to Tudor Pickering Holt & Co., by 2025, oil production is projected to more than double to more than 3 million barrels per day. That's about as much oil that is produced these days by Kuwait, the third largest oil producer in OPEC.
Natural gas in the Permian Basin is also estimated to substantially increase, growing from about 4.3 million cubic feet per day to more than 7 million cubic feet per day.
When it comes to investment plays, "the Permian is red hot right now," says Global Hunter Securities. The research firm finds that, on a year-to-date basis, if you invested in the "pure-play" companies, including Diamondback Energy (FANG), Concho Resources (CXO) and Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD), that have a resource base in the Permian area, your portfolio would be up an incredible 39 percent.
By comparison, over the same timeframe, the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (XOP) increased only 15 percent. The S&P 500 Index, which has had a great run so far, rose 16 percent.
Pioneer has been a long-term holding in the Global Resources Fund (PSPFX), and has benefited the fund with its handsome return of about 60 percent so far this year. We continue to be bullish on the company due to its substantial presence in the Permian. Pioneer has a net resource base of about 7 billion barrels of oil equivalent across more than 40,000 drilling locations in the Permian, according to Global Hunter. This enormous resource base translates to decades of drilling ahead.
Here in San Antonio, we've personally witnessed several economic benefits that have positive repercussions for the entire U.S. Locally, there's been a rapid monetization of energy assets. Businesses have been building incredible expertise and creating a growing number of high-paying jobs. For the rest of the country, the effects of cheaper gas and readily available energy create enormous potential for a more competitive United States of America.
We're seeing savvy investors already taking advantage of the nation's incredible energy shift. You might not want to miss out. One solution that aims for better growth potential and lower volatility is the Global Resources Fund, which takes a balanced approach to the energy and materials sectors.


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5 Simple Ways to Save Money Right Now
We asked five experts in the financial industry to give us their best piece of advice for saving money.
1. Stop carrying credit cards. "If you leave the house with only enough cash to buy what you're shopping for, you're automatically unable to succumb to impulse buys, which often bust your budget… we're more likely to overspend with pieces of plastic than real money."
Source: Stacy Johnson, CPA and President of Moneytalksnews.com
2. Ask for a discount. "In this economy companies may be more willing to give you a 'break.' But you won't get a deal unless you ask. Be reasonable. Come up with a figure you think is fair and ask for a price break. If you don't get a 'yes,' ask to speak to the supervisor and state your case. Many times you will walk away with a discount."
Source: Janice Lieberman, Contributing Editor to Reader's Digest and author of Tricks of the Trade: A Consumer Survival Guide and How to Shop for a Husband
3. Wait it out. "For 30 days, promise yourself that you won't make a single big-ticket purchase without waiting a full day. Next time you see something you like, ask the store to hold it for you until the next day. If you still want it 24 hours later, then it's yours to buy… Whether your weakness is shoes, gadgets or candy bars at noon, this rule can save you big bucks."
Source: Beth Kobliner, author of Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your Twenties and Thirties and BethKobliner.com
4. Get your friends to motivate you. "In many cultures, saving is a group activity. By being vocal about your savings goals – whether it's a wedding, down payment on a house or even a marathon donation – you can save more money, and do it more quickly by getting the support of friends and family." Try share your financial goals with loved ones through popular, private social networking sites.
Source: Bob Weinschenk, CEO of SmartyPig.com
5. Do a price check. "Impulsive buying is one of the biggest mistakes people make when shopping online because you can pretty much guarantee you won't be getting the best deal." Instead, do your homework first. Check out price comparison sites to find out which retailers have the best deals, and find thousands of coupon codes to apply before checkout at sites.
Source: Christian Gordun, CEO and founder of Couponcraze.com


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This article shows how you can build your own video community using lighttpd with its mod_flv_streaming module (for streaming .flv videos, the format used by most major video communities such as YouTube) and its mod_secdownload module (for preventing hotlinking of the videos) on Debian Lenny. I will use FlowPlayer as the video player, a free Flash video player with support for lighttpd's mod_flv_streaming module. I will also show how you can encode videos (.mp4 .mov .mpg .3gp .mpeg .wmv .avi) to the FLV format supported by Adobe Flash.
Full story »


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At Least 17 Pets Dead, Two People Injured After Fire Ravages Missoula Home
At around 6:20 this morning, May 29, the Missoula Fire Department dispatched three engine companies, a ladder company and the Battalion Chief to a structure fire at 1633 Idaho Street.
The fire appears to have started somewhere near the center of a single family, single level, modular home. Assistant Fire Chief with the Missoula Fire Department Jeff Brandt said the fire "extended throughout the structure and up into the rafters."
"There was quite a bit of damage to the structure," said Brandt. "we ran into several issues with the fire load inside of the house, as well as... well, there were just a lot of pets inside the home."
By Brandt's last count before leaving the scene, at least 17 different pets had died in the fire and were being taken Pruyn Veterinary Hospital.
"There were cats and dogs and snakes and chickens and other birds inside the structure," said Brandt. "One lady took a little smoke damage and she and another person were taken to the hospital for minor injuries. No one was hurt seriously"
Investigators are still trying to determine what started the fire in the first place. Damage to the structure is estimated at over $45,000.


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Gartner on Thursday issued its global mobile phone sales data for the second quarter, which shows that the industry grew 16.5% from the same quarter last year, to 428.7 million units. Smartphone sales jumped 74% year-on-year, with 107.7 million smartphones having been sold to end users around the world. "Smartphone sales continued to rise at the expense of feature phones," said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner, in a statement. "Consumers in mature markets are choosing entry-level and midrange Android smartphones over feature phones, partly due to carriers' and manufacturers' promotions." Android was the top smartphone operating system in the second quarter with a market share of 43.4% and unit sales totaling 46.78 million devices, and Symbian's 23.85 million devices secured it a No. 2 position with 22.1% of the smartphone OS market. Apple's iOS held 18.2% of the smartphone market last quarter, followed by RIM's BlackBerry OS at 11.7%, Samsung's Bada OS at 1.9% and Microsoft mobile platforms at 1.6%. Gartner also said Nokia was the world's top smartphone vendor in the second quarter, though it did not provide data to support this claim in its press release, which follows below.
Gartner Says Sales of Mobile Devices in Second Quarter of 2011 Grew 16.5 Percent Year-on-Year; Smartphone Sales Grew 74 Percent
ZTE Became Fifth-Largest Mobile Phone Manufacturer and RIM Dropped to No. 6
Egham, UK, August 11, 2011—
Worldwide sales of mobile devices to end users totaled 428.7 million units in the second quarter of 2011, a 16.5 percent increase from the second quarter of 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. (see Table 1).
The channel built up stock at the end of the first quarter of 2011 in preparation of possible component shortages following the Japanese earthquake. As a result, sell-in demand slowed in the second quarter of 2011 to 421.1 million units, a 4.4 percent decrease from the previous quarter.
Sales of smartphones were up 74 percent year-on-year and accounted for 25 percent of overall sales in the second quarter of 2011, up from 17 percent in the second quarter of 2010.
"Smartphone sales continued to rise at the expense of feature phones," said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner. "Consumers in mature markets are choosing entry-level and midrange Android smartphones over feature phones, partly due to carriers' and manufacturers' promotions." However, replacement sales in Western Europe showed signs of fatigue as smartphone sales declined quarter-on-quarter.
Table 1
Worldwide Mobile Device Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q11 (Thousands of Units)
Vendor 2Q11 Units
2Q11 Market Share (%) 2Q10 Units
2Q10 Market Share (%) Nokia 97,869.3 22.8 111,473.7 30.3 Samsung 69,827.6 16.3 65,328.2 17.8 LG 24,420.8 5.7 29,366.7 8.0 Apple 19,628.8 4.6 8,743.0 2.4 ZTE 13,070.2 3.0 6,730.6 1.8 Research In Motion 12,652.3 3.0 11,628.8 3.2 HTC 11,016.1 2.6 5,908.8 1.6 Motorola 10,221.4 2.4 9,109.4 2.5 Huawei Device 9,026.1 2.1 5,276.4 1.4 Sony Ericsson 7,266.5 1.7 11,008.5 3.0 Others 153,662.1 35.8 103,412.6 28.1 Total 428,661.2 100.0 367,986.7 100.0 Source: Gartner (August 2011)
In smartphones, Nokia's sales into the channel in the second quarter of 2011 were low. This was partly due to a very competitive market that deflated demand for Symbian, but also to inventory management issues in Europe and China in particular. The channel bought less and worked hard to reduce stock levels, partly by cutting prices on older products. These factors reduced Nokia's average selling price for smartphones, compared to the first quarter of 2011. "The sales efforts of the channel, combined with Nokia's greater concentration in retail and distributors' sales, saw Nokia destock more than 9 million units overall and 5 million smartphones, helping it hold on to its position as the leading smartphone manufacturer by volume," said Ms. Cozza. "However, we will not see a repeat of this performance in the third quarter of 2011, as Nokia's channel is pretty lean."
Samsung achieved strong growth in sales of mobile devices. For example, the Galaxy S II sold well, and this model went on to chalk up 5 million sales by the end of July. A strong performance in the smartphone market helped Samsung increase its market share, to become the third-largest smartphone vendor. However, its overall share dropped year-on-year, and grew only marginally quarter-on-quarter, mainly due to Samsung's weaker presence in more price-sensitive market segments.
Apple continued to exceed expectations, even though the iPhone 4 will soon be replaced by a new model. Part of its growth came from the 42 new carriers and 15 new countries that it entered in the second quarter of 2011, which brought its total coverage to 100 countries. This expansion caused its inventory to grow a little by the end of the second quarter of 2011, when sales to end users stood at 19.6 million units. In mainland China, Apple is the seventh-largest mobile phone vendor and the third-largest smartphone vendor.
Research In Motion's (RIM's) share of the smartphone market declined to 12 percent in the second quarter of 2011, from 19 percent a year ago. Also, the company lost its No. 5 position in the worldwide ranking of mobile device vendors to ZTE. Demand for RIM's devices in the second quarter was impaired by an ageing portfolio and delays in shipping products. In the coming quarters RIM will have to deal with increased competition to its messaging offering and manage a platform migration from BlackBerry 7 to QNX.
Google and Apple are the obvious winners in the smartphone ecosystem. The combined share of iOS and Android in the smartphone operating system (OS) market doubled to nearly 62 percent in the second quarter of 2011, up from just over 31 percent in the corresponding period of 2010 (see Table 2). Gartner analysts observed that these two OSs have the usability that consumers enjoy, the apps that consumers feel they need, and increasingly a portfolio of services delivered by the platform owner as well.
Table 2
Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2Q11 (Thousands of Units)
Operating System 2Q11 Units
2Q11 Market Share (%) 2Q10 Units
2Q10 Market Share (%) Android 46,775.9 43.4 10,652.7 17.2 Symbian 23,853.2 22.1 25,386.8 40.9 iOS 19,628.8 18.2 8,743.0 14.1 Research In Motion 12,652.3 11.7 11,628.8 18.7 Bada 2,055.8 1.9 577.0 0.9 Microsoft 1,723.8 1.6 3,058.8 4.9 Others 1,050.6 1.0 2,010.9 3.2 Total 107,740.4 100.0 62,058.1 100.0 Source: Gartner (August 2011)
"We expect manufacturers and distributors to remain cautious about raising their stock levels in the second half of 2011, following the recent uncertainty on the world financial markets," said Annette Zimmermann, principal research analyst at Gartner. Gartner expects sales of mobile devices to grow around 12 percent in 2011.
For more information, see the Gartner report "Market Share: Mobile Communication Devices by Region and Country, 2Q11" which is available on Gartner's website at http://www.gartner.com/resId=1764117.


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Ability Order
Pyromania (PASSIVE)
Annie Passive Ability
Chapter 1
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In the time shortly before the League, there were those within the sinister city-state of Noxus that did not agree with the evils perpetrated by the Noxian High Command. These outcasts sought to leave their neighbors in peace as they pursued dark arcane knowledge. The leaders of this outcast society were a married couple, a grey witch and a cabal warlock. Together they resettled their followers beyond the Great Barrier to the northern reaches of the unforgiving Voodoo Lands. This couple's child, Annie, now comes to the Institute of War to pursue her calling. The combination of Annie's lineage and the dark magic of her birthplace have given this little girl tremendous arcane power. At the age of two she miraculously ensorcelled a shadow bear a ferocious denizen of the petrified forests outside the colony turning it into her pet. To this day she keeps her bear, Tibbers, by her side, often keeping him spellbound as a stuffed doll to be carried like a child's toy.In the courtyards that dot the landscape inside the Institute of War, Annie is all sweetness and light, living the carefree life of an imaginative, playful child. Champions who have met her in battle, however, will tell you that a different Annie comes out to play when she is inside the arenas. Annie has the power of destruction by fire at her fingertips, bringing fireballs to bear against her foes which fuel her magic reserves should they strike their targets down. Occasionally her spells will even stun an unsuspecting opponent. She can scorch multiple enemies by unleashing a cone of torrid flame in front of her. Annie can encase herself in a sphere of fire, boosting her protection while harming those who would dare strike her. Finally, Annie can unleash Tibbers, releasing him from his doll-prison to wreak havoc on her enemies.
1. Abilities
Free stun every 5 spell casts. Use disntegrate and shield to help you build up a stun if you decide to gank/initiate.
No manacost if the skill results in a kill, so use it farm lower health creeps/neutrals as much as possible. Decent damage, mediocre AP ratio.
High damage cone AOE nuke. Does more damage than disintegrate but has twice the cooldown, which is why it is maxed second. Later on it becomes your aoe stun if ulti is not up. Don't always only use stun on disintegrate when ulti is down.
Molten Shield
Adds a good amount of survivability. +50 magic resist and armor is no joke. Always keep this on in team clashes. It not only helps you survive, but it helps build pyromania counters.
Summon: Tibbers
Ultimate nuke, very much like inferno in DotA. It's a high damage AOE with slightly better AP scaling that your other nukes. Don't underestimate the damage, with tibber's immolation and high attack damage, the damage is actually increased by around 100-200 damage. Tibbers' movespeed is actually faster than a lot of hero's movespeed if they don't have boots. USE ALT + CLICK TO CONTROL BEAR! DO NOT MANUALLY CLICK BEAR AND CONTROL. It can also be used to pathblock opponents after being drops, and it will help buy that one extra second needed to kill an opponent.
2. Introduction
Annie - fairly underused in lower and average level games. For some reason she doesn't have the attractiveness that is so commonly found in heroes such as vlad/sona/anivia. However, Annie is ridiculous. Huge burst potential with stun and decent survivability means that she is highly viable in higher level play. Her ability to solo is also vastly underrated, as not many people know how to abuse her skills early game.
3. Masteries + Runes
You really only need Archaic Knowledge in offensive tree. The rest can go in utility for more regen + cooldowns.
magic pen marks
mana regen per 5 per level seals
cooldown glyphs/magic resist per level glyphs
health/magic pen quints (i would advise at least 1 or 2 health quints)
Please note that this is to boost overall usefulness and survivability in games. I know that there are people who prefer higher damage output over survivability/cooldown/regen, so if your one of those people, go for magic penetration for marks and gylphs and then straight +AP runes for seals and quints. It sucks mid-late game though, just tellin' you.
4. Summoner Abilities
Summoner Skills: Annie is highly versatile with summoner skills since she already have stun + high damage.
*Flash - gives her more survivability and allows her to chase/initiate with stun or get out of team clashes.
*Ignite- Another nuke for your arsenal. Try to get it on as fast as possible to prevent heals.
Other choices:
Teleport - For ya know, teleporting. Preventing BD and such. It can also be used to tele-gank, although i wouldnt take it just for that unless your premading and just fooling around.
Ghost - Not as useful for annie as flash, since flash allows for better initiation with Tibbers.
5. Items
Start with either:
1. Doran's Shield- More health, armor, and health regen, so you can be more aggressive.
2. Sapphire Crystal+ potions- Due to changes to dorans, this build will give good mana and potions, which are useful if you know your facing harassment.
3. Boots of Speed+ 3 pots- Another viable build. Suitable if your very aggressive, as boots allow you catch up to your enemy and pots allow for quick heals from creep/tower damage. More of a solo mid/top build due to lack of survivability and spammability of spells.
After that:
Boots of Speed Cuz you need to move fast, and only if you didn't start with boots.
Mejai's Soulstealer ONLY IF YOU ARE DOING WELL AND YOU KNOW YOUR TEAM CAN KEEP YOU ALIVE. Otherwise, this is just a waste of money if your getting pummeled. Usually not a good idea in ranked games unless its one-sided.
Rod of Ages If you get can get this early enough (pre 25-minute mark), then go for it. It offers more health, AP, and mana, and that's never a bad thing.
Upgrade your boots.
Mercury's Treads against slow/stun team, and Sorcerer's Shoes if not worried about survival, not to mention it gives more magic penetration. The new CD boots are an option, but annie already has pretty low CD for most of her spells, so that CD won't be making too much of a difference after runes and masteries. Most of the time its gonna be merc though.
Decision Time
Heres where items get situational, if you need survivability, or are facing Blitz, Morg, or Ashe, then:
Banshee's Veil Your gonna need to survive in team clashes, especially late game when a single stun or nuke can basically force you to back off. It offers valuable HP and Mana, and the magic resistance and spell block is INVALUABLE, especially if their team is caster heavy. Who wants to focus an Annie with Molten Shield and spellblock on at the same time? Even if they do try to take your down, your team will be able to gain significant time to return the favor. I always get this late game, unless their team is super dps heavy.
If all is well, then:
Rabadon's Deathcap The definition of pure AP damage. It will give you a huge boost to damage.
Then fill in remaining spots according to your current situation:
Void Staff because your AP scaling isn't amazing, and magic penetration/reduction will provide more of a benefit. Get Abyssal if your facing lots of nukes/casters or if there are other main casters on your team. Otherwise go for the void staff since it's much cheaper and very effective against those magic resist stackers.
Zhonya's Hourglass Now that they've revamped it, it's actually quite usefull, especially if your focused hard by their whole team/against DPS. Unload your spells and laugh in their face as they click on you with all their might while your allies rape. Did i mention it gives a lot of AP?
Rylai's Crystal Scepter Another late game item. This offers each of your spells a slow, and gives a huge chunk of health for annie. Less worries about people getting away or not surviving is always good. Both your shield and tibbers aoe will slow, which means that it can buy you valuable time when being chased.
Special mention:
Quicksilver Sash Completely underrated. Its the perfect answer to those CC heavy teams when banshee's isn't enough. Enemy teams will rely on CC to stop you from doing too much damage, this is just a get out of jail free card.
So final build
Normal Game
Click here to view more detail
Against AP heavy teams:
Click here to view more detail
Against DPS heavy teams:
Click here to view more detail
Items are situational, and of course you can win with other builds.
6. Skilling Order
There are two ways to start Annie, beginning with either Incinerate or Disintegrate. The difference is that Disintegrate gives better farming capabilities, since you can start last hitting at level one. This is most useful when you are soloing a lane, since you wont be getting first blood now (unless your team is going hunting for first blood), and getting a quickly level and money advantage is key. Going incinerate first means that you can get a stun, because you can spam it 5 times at fountain/on the way to your lane, and it also deals more burst damage than disintegrate. It's more useful early game in a dual lane since it can land a first blood faster and the aoe is helpful in case of an early team clash. It also comes in handy in your team decides to gank pre-laning phase.
1. Incinerate/Disintegrate
2.which ever one you didn't pick
Then max disintegrate and then incinerate, getting Timbers whenever possible. Some people prefer to get a level of molten shield at level 5 to charge up stuns faster, but i prefer to get more burst damage. You can choose which one you like better. Finish molten shield last. Some people might wonder why we level disintegrate over incinerate even though incinerate does more damage. The reason is because disintegrate's cooldown is half as long as incinerate, so the actual damage over 8 seconds is higher with disintegrate than incinerate. Not to mention incinerate's lack of spamability and hefty mana cost.
7. Farming
Use disintegrate to last hit creeps. It costs no mana so use it as much as possible. Once you get a decent amount of AP and magic penetration, you can start using incinerate to one hit ranged creeps when they stack. You can also use incinerate to farm wraiths since they usually go down in one hit once you level up disintegrate to level 4 or 5. Try to get some help getting the Golem rune, since the cooldown reduction and mana regen is really useful.
8. Ganking/ First Blood
It's preferable that every time that you get a stun you harass your enemy with your two nukes. However, not everyone is gonna stand there and take your nukes when they see that you've got a stun up. That is why I'd suggest that prior to you going for the kill, harass them while your stun is down. They usually don't expect it since you usually farm when stun is down.
Basically, this will keep the enemy hero to around 1/2 life or lower by the time you get Tibbers. If you can finish them up with your 2 nuke combo previous to that, then go ahead. If not, once you get to level 6, get a stun and initiate with Tibbers. For some reason, people tend to use Tibbers last, but by doing that you are wasting the damage that Tibbers could have been doing through his aura and attacks. Also note that his aoe is pretty large. So basically, the order then becomes:
1.Tibbers. Immediately ALT+CLICK on the enemy hero so Tibbers starts attacking.
Flash and mop up kills if need be.
Yeah i skipped numbers 2 and 3. ****'em. Only winners in this world.
9. Working in the team
Annie can initiate, but i prefer to let a tank initiate with a slow and then start the above combo on some poor soul. STAY ALIVE. Flash out if your too much in the middle and then go back in. Remember to focus their caster or carry first. If an ally is being chased, unleashing incinerate/disintegrate will sometimes cause them to back off.
10. Enemies
So here's what can give you trouble:
Veigar- Besides the fact that he can one combo most of your team, his ulti will do at least half of your health. Couple that with an aoe stun and the ability to hit 600+ ap easily, it's gonna be a battle to see who can stun who first and combo. He NEEDS TO GET FOCUSED in teamfights, or else you can say goodbye to one of your allies.
Kassadin-Similar to veigar, but harder to take down. Focus him when you can, and be wary of his position. His silence can ruin your damage capabilities, so make sure your allies know to CC him as soon as he appears.
Poppy- Well built poppys can take out 3/4 of almost anyone's health with 1 combo. Expect to drop the remaining 1/4 within the next 5 seconds. Don't stay in the front of your team, as you do not want to be utlied. However, if you are, don't waste tibbers him. Stun him and keep spamming spells to get your stun up as fast as possible. You want to kite him for as long as possible till ulti is over. If he ultis another ally, DO NOT FOCUS HIM. Focus someone else until ulti is over.
Vlad-Be aware of how farmed he is and his CD for pool. It can completely negate tibbers and the majority of your combo.
Anivia- Get caught in wall or flashfrost and your dead. Huge aoe damage, lots of survivability wih egg. Egg her then focus others and then focus her. Do not commit too much to killing her. She can easily kite a whole team.
Jungle Rammus- Watch for ganks. Taunt can ruin your ability to initiate or even combo at all.
11. Summary
Annie is one of the best casters in the game, and rightly so. Her short cooldowns along with her amazing burst damage capability makes her very much feared in higher level ELO play.
Ty for your attention
Hope you enjoyed


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Cutting the nut slot and truss access. This month, we continue with day three of our build and go face up to do some routing. For those following along
Radius Routing
This step requires that I rout the fretboard radius. As a workaround, pre-slotted and radiused fretboards can be sourced from various suppliers, or you can rearrange the procedure to fit your needs. I approach the radius with a .500" ball nose cutter.
A quick review of fretboard radii is in order: 7.25" or 9.5" for vintage to modern Fender, 10" or 12" for Gibson and modern Fender, and 16" or 20" for shred guitars. Additionally, compound radii such as 9.5" at the nut to a 16" at the 22nd fret are a possibility. Compound radius fretboards are further evidence that if you can draw it, a CNC can cut it.
The nut width is 1.687" and the butt width is 2.250". Finally, I cut the radius on a shaper table with a 12" radius cutter. For some operations a CNC will be faster, but that ultimately depends on the operation, tool capacity, machinery and the mind.
I use a .125" end mill for a Fender-style nut slot, up to a .187" width for a Gibson-style nut, in addition to opening up the adjusting area for the truss rod, which is then covered up with the headstock veneer.
Additionally, you can opt for something like a zero fret, which utilizes a fret slot and fret at the 0.000" origin, making open strings sound the same as fretted notes.
Neck Perimeter and Headstock
Next up is cutting the neck perimeter and headstock. A pin router would work here if you don't have a CNC, but requires devising a key pattern to guide the router pin where you want the cut. Since this is a tremolo model, I also need to route the tremolo recess at this time to utilize the installed cutter as much as possible.
Here I fly cut the surface of the body to a final thickness of 1.780" using a 1" end mill. It wraps around the end of the fretboard, where I look for a .375" height offset from the end top center of the fretboard radius to the top surface of the body. This measurement works well for standard Tele or Strat tremolo bridges.
For fret slotting I use a .023" end mill; other diameters can be used for harder or softer woods, or if your fret wire has a wide or narrow tang. With my approach, I don't slot through the side of the fretboard; the slot stops shy at about the thickness of a bound neck, .045". This requires me to use a fret that has been nibbed. The advantage here is that you don't see the fret slot from the side, fret sprout is rarely an issue and it sure looks pretty. Also, while in this position, I use the same cutter to stab center holes on the headstock for tuner locations.
I use a .250" end mill and drill my fretboard face dots and my bridge pivot posts. If you were planning on using rear loaded electronics, you could now cut your face control holes.
That does it for this month; next month we're going face down for rear routing operations.
Gene Baker
Any questions or comments visit
email me at firstname.lastname@example.com
Fine Tuned Instruments LLC, home of his "b3" instruments.


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Perhaps I'm just naive, but when I try to decipher the wall of tasks I'm targeted to do over the course of a week, I just can't help but think whoever builds the project schedule needs to get some remedial training on basic project management.
For example, I am assigned 13 tasks today, the shortest lasting .13 days (default time metric in Microsoft Project), and the longest lasting .75 days. I can't help but think that it is blatant micromanagement scheduling projects in sub 10 minute intervals.
The effects of management are becoming evident in slipped tasks, resource assignment exceeding capacity by a factor of two at some points in time, and spending more time clearing tasks and figuring out what comes next than actually doing work.
How can I convince the project manager to create tasks with larger duration and to see the larger picture?