People who have been on this blog a while might be noticing that I have skipped straight to Life Tip No. 35 without posting the first 34. They do exist, but some of those need to be re-evaluated before I post them to this blog because, as we all know, the internet is permanent, ahaha.

However, this morning I woke up craving sophistication, evening gown parties with champagne flutes and a discussion of the arts, so I thought it was a fitting time to share this particular life tip with everyone:

Life Tip No. 35
Memorize the full name of at least one not-too-mainstream classical piece. That way, when a stuffy conversation turns towards that direction, you’ll have something stimulating to contribute.

For starters, mine is currently P.I. Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, as performed by Itzhak Perlman.

 

However, before that, it was Gabriel Fauré’s Masques et bergamasques Suite, Op 112. I got a lot of delightful mileage out of that one, as Fauré is considered by many to be an underrated composer and the song itself is delightfully jovial.

You see, once you namedrop a classical piece in conversation, you must make sure you go home and learn the name of another one, because the people you spoke with might want to talk to you about classical music again, and you don’t want to let them know that it was a gimmick the first time.

Do this again and again, and suddenly you have a repertoire. Listen to a new song once you use the old one, and sooner or later, you find that you begin to form opinions on classical music. And then, in the end, you are actually more knowledgeable about classical music than other people, and at that point, is it really a gimmick?

Basically sophistication is just a long con where you commit so long that it might as well be true. And I find that absolutely delightful.

I’ll make Life Tips a series on this blog as well. A little variety never hurt anyone, ahaha.