Author: eboisen

A peek into Lockheed’s top secret development department that brought the U2 spy plane, the SR-71 , and stealth technology to life.

I am an engineer, so of course the technical aspects of the book are what drew me into it, but I found myself more interested in the comical workings of the government, particularly the CIA, in these engineering endeavors.  Both the U2 and the SR-71 were projects, at least initially, taken up for the CIA. The U2 spy plane was built to fly above the Soviet Union, undetected at 70,000 feet, and take pictures of any nuclear or military activity within the Soviet borders. This project started in the 1950’s. The CIA did not, and presumably does not currently,  get funding that is acquired through typical, shall we say, legitimate channels for their little “projects”.

To fund the U2, the CIA created a bogus corporation that would send checks to the Skunk Works’ head, Kelly Johnson’s, home address. Parts to build the plane were ordered through bogus companies and were sent to an empty building serving as the fake company’s headquarters. The said parts were then transported to Lockheed. Some of the checks, in 1950’s money, were in the neighborhood of $1,000,000. Who knows where this money came from? The operation was so shady that suspicious postal inspectors sent someone to follow the vehicles leaving the fictitious company’s headquarters to bring parts to Lockheed. The postal inspectors quickly found themselves on the wrong side of a CIA interrogation once they arrived at Lockheed.

With the U2 finally built and tested, pilots were needed to fly it over Russia. The CIA tried to use Turkish nationals as they felt it would look bad if an American pilot were shot down inside of Russia. This plan did not go well. The U2 was extremely difficult to land and fly. It had just two tandem wheels, like a bicycle, and extremely long wings that would often slap the runway upon landing. It was meant to fly at 70,000 feet, a feature that, at the time, could only be accomplished by keeping the weight very low. This meant only one seat, so training, which is normally done with an experienced pilot flying with his student, was impossible. The CIA then decided to use Air Force pilots. But they couldn’t be Air Force pilots. They had to resign their commissions and join Lockheed under assumed names with their pay coming from the CIA through checks from bogus companies. Here is a view of a pilot inside a U2 at altitude:

The U2 was largely successful in that it could fly over Russia, almost at will, without being shot down. Unfortunately, Russian radar was far better than predicted and, although it could not be shot down, the U2 could be tracked by Russian radar from almost the moment it took off to the moment it landed. The plane was built to fly at 70,000 feet as Russian fighter planes and missiles were assumed to not be able to approach this height. This proved true. U2 pilots frequently saw Russian fighters scrambling towards it, but they could do nothing more than fly in formations 15,000 feet below, to partially block the U2’s view.  It was also thought that Russian radar could not be effective at this height. This proved to be untrue. This was the height of the cold war and US-Russia relations were tense. Having a spy plane that Russia knew was flying over, but could do nothing about did not help relations. The US also knew that the Russians would eventually be able to shoot down something they can easily track.

This gave way to the CIA’s next spy plane-the SR-71 Blackbird. This plane was designed to fly at 90,000 feet at a blistering Mach 3. A plane at this speed will get surface temperatures exceeding 800° F just from the air moving over its surface at such a high speed. Standard plane-building materials such as aluminum were out of the question for this application. Titanium was settled upon. Oddly, the only place capable of supplying enough titanium to build this plane in 1960 was Russia. Bogus corporations were set up to buy titanium from Russia so that the SR-71 could be built to spy on Russia. You couldn’t make this stuff up if you wanted to. Titanium was very strong and brittle compared to most materials. Lockheed had to figure out ways to machine it as standard machining tools and processes of the time did not work on this metal. Titanium also reacted to other metals and chemicals in ways that typical aircraft materials did not. Eventually, Lockheed figured out how to make a a plane almost entirely out of titanium. This was the result:

Pretty crazy looking for 1964? It still looks futuristic. It could fly from New York to Los Angeles in less than an hour. It might still be the fastest plane ever built. It actually was capable of exceeding Mach 3, and has gone as fast as Mach 3.5 (2685 mph) with a ceiling of 86,000 ft. It could cruise at Mach 3. Known planes that can hit speeds above Mach 2, can only do so for short periods of time. This was truly a ridiculous feat of engineering during a time when the fastest computer of the era wasn’t capable of running the simplest app of a modern cell phone.

It’s interesting to note that the SR-71 was originally referred to as the RS-71 from inception and for several years after, until president Lyndon Johnson misspoke when announcing the existence of the plane to the public in a speech. He mistakenly referred to the aircraft as the SR-71, so rather than issue a correction to his speech, Lockheed was forced to change tens of thousands of pages of documentation and drawings to refer to the plane as the SR-71, rather than the originally intended RS-71. Given the timeframe, the mid 1960’s, these were tens of thousands of all hand-drafted drawings and typed documents that each had to be duplicated, by hand, at great time and expense, to reflect the president’s accidental mis-naming.

Of course the CIA could not stop with the SR-71. They needed a plane invisible to radar.  Enter stealth technology. Ironically, again, as with the titanium supplied unknowingly by Russia for the SR-71, stealth technology was also largely borne from Russia. A Lockheed engineer, Denys Overholser, stumbled upon the works of a Russian Physicist named Pyotr Yakovlevich Ufimtsev. Pyotr had come up with the math necessary to design and compute the radar profiles of objects. Pyotr’s work was overlooked by the Russians, but Lockheed recognized its potential value and began building prototypes based off of designs dictated by the Russian physicist’s formulas. They proved very viable as the Lockheed prototypes were dozens of orders of magnitude better than any other military contractor’s stealth offerings. A full-sized bomber could have the radar signature of a ball bearing. One of the most difficult aspects of the Stealth bomber’s design was disguising the pilot’s round head in the cockpit from radar. Round shapes are picked up well by radar. Here is the familiar outline of the well-known shape of the F-117. Notice there is nothing round on it:

The odd design scatters radar, but makes for a rather uncontrollable design from an aeronautics perspective. Everything in the plane is fly-by-wire, with computers adjusting every aspect of the controls to keep the plane airborne. It saw its first use in the Iraq war as it sent laser-guided bombs to targets with great precision in the dead of night. After a week of non-stop bombing, Iraq had almost no remaining air defenses with none of the F-117’s being shot down as they remained invisible on the Iraqi defense’s radar screens. The plane proved a great success for over 25 years. It makes you wonder what is being cooked-up to replace it?

Someone mentioned this book in a LinkedIn post and it seemed interesting. It’s based on the perspective of a CEO, in this case, Ben Horowitz, of a publicly traded tech company. It details many of the decisions Ben had to make while at the helm of both Loudcloud and the company it morphed into –  Opsware.

One of the interesting things mentioned in this book is that Ben notes that a company’s stock price does not always match up with a company’s value. The actual state of a company can vary wildly from the value of its stock, particularly in less established companies.

He also makes a number of comments on hiring the right people. Ben likes hiring someone based on their strengths. If an individual has a particular strength that suits his needs, he is willing to overlook weaknesses in other areas that the position might ordinarily require. No one is perfect is a recurring theme throughout this book, even with regard to the CEO.

I was surprised how often this successful CEO admitted to being “in over his head”. Reading this book gives one the impression that most CEOs spend a great deal of time “in over their heads.” Running a public company means having to make decisions and then defend them to a board that always has less information than the CEO. Most of the discussions in this book sound like there will be many sleepless nights for any CEO with a conscience.  Hiring and firing is very commonplace in a tech company. Company valuations can also swing wildly with small decisions. Everything that goes right will probably be seen as a result of a joint decision (executives and board) and everything that goes sideways will fall squarely on the shoulders of the CEO. This book was somewhat anxiety-inducing.

Being a CEO does not sound pleasant, but Ben, throughout the book, never mentions many of the perks that likely exist. He also never mentions what it is like to have a net worth in the billions of dollars. This book is written like Ben never considered his personal wealth while running companies. He just seemed focused on moving his company to the next milestone without ever enjoying the ride. Ben is now a venture capitalist. Perhaps he knew what was waiting for him if he was successful and just gritted it out until he got there. I am guessing his current stress level is far lower than it was in the past.

Ben partnered with Marc Andreessen,  who worked with him at Opsware. The name of the firm is AH Capital Management, LLC. They started this firm using non-traditional methods for venture capital firms. One of the non-traditional methods used was extensive marketing. In the past, venture capital firms did not employ marketing. The reason given in this book is that venture capital firms often finance wars and it is not good for business when it becomes obvious that one firm may be backing both sides of a war. I will end on that note.

 

This is the fourth book in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. The majority of the book is based on earth and really only involves three characters. Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent are both in this story and both spend most of the pages here on earth (I know I am making a wild assumption here.) They only spend the last few chapters together and depart the earth shortly before the end of the book.

Arthur finds a love interest named Fenchurch who also accompanies them into space. You might remember, or not, that in the first book of the series earth is destroyed by Vogons early in that book. Arthur and Ford are both surprised to find it still intact. It turns out that earth was in fact destroyed except that the dolphins of earth’s oceans, knew of the impending doom and transported all of earth’s inhabitants to an earth in an alternate dimension. The dolphins, however, are absent from this version of earth and the title of this book is their acknowledgement and gratitude for all the fish they were able to enjoy while on the original earth.

Towards the end of the book, Marvin the robot makes an appearance as an unfortunate victim of living for a time greater than the age of the universe. He welcomes death as the group of four venture to a site on a distant planet where God has left a final message for his creation, which is, “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

This book is well written in that it always seems to keep your interest, but at the end, you realize there wasn’t much of a plot compared to the author’s previous books. At the time this book was written, Douglas Adams was extraordinarily wealthy from his other Hitchhiker’s Guide books, so maybe his motivation, or imagination was waning when he wrote this. It’s not a bad book, but I imagine not many people would have bothered reading it if it wasn’t part of the popular series. It primarily spends its time exploring Arthur Dent’s quirky personality, which is entertaining, but the book, overall does lack a strong plot.

There are two more books in the series. The next one, Mostly Harmless is purported to be much darker than the previous books. I am not into dark books, so time will tell if I decide to read it.

I found a poem that my father wrote to my mother. I think it is quite good and ought to be shared.

I found this a few days before the second anniversary of his passing. I don’t recall seeing it before.

Guns, Germs, and Steel examines the advancement of different societies throughout the world and examines why some societies advanced at greater rates than others. Based on most accepted scientific research, all of humanity originated in what is now Africa. Why then, with an apparent head start, is this not the location of one of the more advanced societies throughout history? This book provides an explanation.

The title is derived from the advantages that generally make one society dominant over another. Guns gave an enormous fighting advantage for a society that had them over one that did not. Germs were also responsible for conquering societies that lacked an immune response to them. Societies that had livestock were the initiators of many of the world’s plagues. Viruses that morphed from livestock to human hosts created diseases capable of nearly wiping out entire civilizations. Civilizations that survived this early on had an acquired immunity that gave them a supreme advantage over hunter-gatherer tribes that had not. Steel in the form of tools and weapons are far superior to like  stone and wood forms and give a society that wields them a great advantage over one that does not.

Europeans, arriving by boat, regularly defeated the civilizations of the Americas. Despite being much smaller forces, the Europeans’ more developed immune response to the diseases they often carried with them traveled far in advance of their initial battles. The Europeans’ soldiers on horseback with swords and guns made conquest quite easy and got even easier as the diseases they brought with them wiped out thousands without so much a skirmish.

Based on what I have just described, it might imply that the Europeans gained their advantage by being more inventive and intelligent. The author, however describes the geographic and political structure that actually led to the advantages. One has to live in an environment that has animals that are domesticable to be able to benefit from livestock farming. The Americas only had dogs, turkeys, llamas, and guinea pigs available to them. Domestic crops were also quite limited and the orientation of the Americas is largely North-South, so crops that can be grown in what is now Washington state, are unlikely to survive in Mexico. Europe and Asia had vast areas of land over the same latitude with a greater diversity of domesticable plants and animals. The Americas also have geographic barriers that prevent knowledge from carrying over from region to region. North and South America are divided by the Panama strait. This is an area that narrows to just 50 miles across. Vast deserts also prevented dispersal of information over large areas.

The author asserts that a society’s early advantages were due largely to geography and he provides pretty sound explanations for these assertions. Having livestock and farming provides a surplus that allows people to specialize in something other than just gathering food. It allows for more complex political structures, development of technology, and for the creation of armies with professional soldiers.

The author also discusses the role politics played in the advancement of some societies. China, for example was at one point, the most advanced civilization in the world and responsible for much of the technology of early civilization, but then, due to the way China governed, it stagnated for a period. China is a huge country, that for much of history has had a central authority. If China had a ruler that made a decision, for better or for worse, the entirety of that civilization followed that decision. For example, during the 1400’s China decreased its exploration of the world. At that time Christopher Columbus, an Italian by birth, wished to lead expeditions and asked the European kings of his time for sponsorship to do so. If Columbus had been Chinese, the emperor of China would have declined and that would have been the end of the story. Columbus, however was able to petition the Kings of many of the European nations, and despite getting turned down by most, was able to gain sponsorship for his expeditions through the Spanish King Ferdinand II. This gave Spain and Europe an advantage in sailing, navigation, plundered wealth, and allowed them to conquer civilizations far from Europe.

This book caught the attention of Bill Gates and many other business leaders. Even though this book shows how civilizations advanced, or declined, in the past, many felt the the lessons learned could be applied to getting maximum productivity out of business organizations. If this book can explain why nations fail or succeed, why can’t the principles be applied to businesses as well? Even though this book is largely academic in nature, it is a fairly easy read. As is evidenced by its cover, it also won a Pulitzer prize for its author.

This book is considered fiction, but it is, for the most part, an autobiography of a small section of Bukowski’s life that led up to him becoming a successful author. The main character is Henry Chinaski. His life mirrors that of Bukowski as he spends the better part of 11 years working for the US postal service. This is not part of the book, but Bukowski had tried his hand at writing early in his adult life. He did not enjoy the success he had envisioned, and gave up. The book starts with him needing a source of income, so he applies for the post office. He initially worked as a substitute mail carrier. He would show up early every morning, and if a regular had called in, he would take that person’s route, if not, he went back home, unpaid.

Unlike regular mail carriers, who traversed the same route every time, a substitute carrier was rarely familiar with the route he was given. It made the job quite difficult. To make matters worse, regulars called in at a much higher rate when the weather was poor. This meant old Henry Chinaski had to wander unfamiliar streets in a downpour, all the while answering questions like, “where is the regular mailman?”

During this period of his life, Bukowski (or Chinaski) spent his days working to exhaustion and his evenings drinking to excess. Any free time he had was spent betting on horse races or getting involved with women that only seem to add extra angst to his life. The one exception may have been Betty. He did seem to care for her. She was his partner at the beginning of the story and reappears near the end, only to drink herself to death.

At the end of the bureaucratic, soul-stripping career at the post office, Henry is finally fed up with the constant needling from his supervisors and the doldrums of a typical day. He fills out the forms to resign. He has no plans. Upon returning home, he nearly drinks himself to death. Realizing he has survived his post-employment bender, he decides to write a novel, entitled Post office.

In real life, this becomes Bukowski’s first published novel. At 51 years old he has finally become a successful author. This book is very crude and honest. You won’t find yourself Googling words from these pages as you might from Moby Dick, but Bukowski is a master of brevity and human honesty in writing. He seems to see everything exactly as it is and he makes a common life seem fascinating.

This work may also be one of the first appearances of a modern antihero. He is a main character that you are not inclined to like, but you still find yourself rooting for him. Antihero examples in recent culture would be Tony Soprano from The Sopranos and Walter White from Breaking Bad. I am not sure these characters would exist without Charles Bukowski. I will definitely read more of his work.

A whopper of a tale in a whopper of a book.

Moby Dick was published in 1851, so some of the language is a little bit dated, but not as unreadable as one might expect. There is also some pirate-like banter among the crew. This can cause some pause for decipherment, but again, not a cause to put the book down. It is largely about life on a mid-1800’s whaling vessel. The strangest part of the book is the fact that it starts from the narrative of Ishmael, the main character of the book, but then it sometimes goes into a third person that is perhaps Melville himself. The funny thing is, based on Melville’s past experience, I believe Ishmael is the fictional version of Melville. Melville grew up in a well-to-do family, but his father died young and the family was left destitute. Melville worked and lived on ships for a time to earn money. This is likely where this story got its sails.

In third-person, Melville gives quite a lengthy lesson on types of whales and their characteristics and how accurately or inaccurately they are portrayed and described in literature and art of his time. He also gives a detailed account of a mutiny. These little history lessons are told outside of the actually story of the main characters. He leaves the fictional story many times to educate the reader on various whaling topics and then returns the narrative back to Ishmael’s view of the fictional account. It is a very odd way of telling a story, but it somehow works.

Melville takes quite a bit of time to introduce the reader to characters. He starts with Ishmaels’s cannibalistic South-Pacific islander bunk-mate, Queequeg. He takes 30 or so pages describing him and Ishmael’s initial aversion to the outwardly savage-looking character that ends up being his best friend. Queequeg is a very experienced harpooner. Ishmael is an experienced sailor, but without whaling experience, greatly relies on Queequeg for guidance when they both agree to be part of the crew of the wooden whaling vessel Pequod.

Captain Ahab is the captain of the Pequod. Melville introduces the character and then takes nearly 100 pages to physically describe him fully. Ahab is missing one leg which he has replaced with the polished carving of a whale jaw that serves as a peg leg. It has an ivory appearance and Ahab has a strategic hole in the deck that fits this peg so he can keep himself steady on the ship when stationed at top deck. He lost his leg to the great white whale, Moby Dick, and Ahab is hell-bent on getting revenge on the creature that disassembled him.

Later in the whaling journey Queequeg becomes so ill that a coffin is built for him. When the end appears near, he makes a miraculous recovery and the coffin is returned to the ship’s carpenter to be re-purposed as a floatation device.

The Pequod encounters and kills several whales on its journey, but never meets Moby Dick. During these journeys, the narrator goes into great detail about how a whale is processed as well as its anatomy. He describes its skeleton and notes how the skeleton does not really give a true indication of the living whale’s actual form. In this, Mellville is quite accurate, one would likely not guess the living form of a sperm whale from just the skeleton:

Versus the actual living whale:

The top of the head, above the skull shown in the skeletal illustration, is filled with a large reservoir, that holds as many as 500 gallons or more, of oil. This is the primary reason for hunting the whale, as this oil had many applications at the time, especially as lamp oil. Bear in mind, that this whale can grow to nearly 80 feet long and weight over 50 tons. The skeleton is enormous.

Ahab takes his crew across all ends of the earth until he finally finds a fellow whaling vessel, Rachel, that has encountered the great white whale. Ahab gets his wish of the opportunity to slay the whale. As expected, it does not go according to plan. The Pequod and all its boats are destroyed by the giant whale in Ahab’s pursuit of him. As a spinning vortex pulls the Pequod and all its remnants to the bottom of the sea, only one crewman remains with his head above water – Ishmael. As all that remains vanishes into the sea, the coffin, previously made for Queequeg, shoots to the surface. Ishmael floats upon it until he is rescued by the passing Rachel.

It seems pretty obvious from reading this book, that the author of Jaws drew a great deal of inspiration from this story. It was a different time and place, and a different sea creature, but the lust for greed and revenge on the open sea plays out in a similar manner. The mannerisms of many of the characters are also similar.

As famous as this book is, it is interesting to note that it was not popular in the author’s time. Released in 1851, it did not become popular until the early 1900’s, after Mellville’s death. Mellville largely gave up writing novels and worked as a US customs inspector after his writing career faltered, largely due to lack of initial success of this book.

 

Progressive rock band Rush’s bass guitar extraordinaire, Geddy Lee got extremely bored during the pandemic. He is not someone who likes idle time, so he decided to write an autobiography. I have never read the autobiography of a musician before, so I really do not know where the bar stands for these things, but this one was quite an interesting read. A musician who spent 40+ years on the road is going to have some stories. Even without his music-related stories, his life is quite interesting.

His parents met as teenage, Polish concentration camp inmates in Auschwitz. They were eventually moved to separate camps during the war, but whatever spark they had upon meeting, managed to carry on throughout the war. They were both imprisoned for nearly the entire duration of WWII. It is a miracle that either one survived, let alone both. Many of their family members did not. Upon liberation, Geddy’s father walked hundreds of miles from Dachau to Bergen-Belsen to reunite with his love. They actually married in the officer’s quarters of Bergen-Belsen as it was then being used to house the newly freed prisoners.

His parents found that many Jews were not warmly welcomed back to their native Poland, and more often than not, all their property had been appropriated.  With this knowledge, Geddy’s parents traveled to Toronto, where a relative had fled to at the start of the war, to start a new life. With almost no belongings, they started their new life. Little by little, they were able to buy their own house in a Jewish neighborhood in the Toronto suburbs. They eventually had three children, one of which being Geddy.

Their life was continuously improving as Geddy’s father manages to start a successful general store. Then tragedy hits. Geddy’s father passes away after a brief illness when Geddy was only 12. His father was only 45. The effects of six years of forced labor in the prison camps had taken their toll. His heart gave out.

The biography details the Jewish mourning customs which lasts 11 months. A prayer is said every day and music is not permitted. Unfortunately for Geddy, Bar mitzvahs often utilize music to help celebrate the event, and Geddy’s fell within the mourning timeframe. Perhaps this starvation from music made him appreciate it more than he would have otherwise. He started his first band shortly after this mourning period. He eventually started one with his classmate, Aleksandar Živojinović (stage name, Alex Lifeson, Geddy’s birth name was Gary Lee Weinrib). Both Geddy and Alex had an insatiable appetite for music. Neither of their parents was all that keen of having musicians for sons, but there was no stopping them. They played as often as they could and eventually, when the drinking age was lowered to 18 just as they turned 18, they were able to play in local bars. They were able to make a modest living playing music. They were also able to hone their craft. Eventually they gained a fairly large following in their native Toronto and managed to record an album with a song that somehow caught the attention of a Cleveland, Ohio radio station DJ. The song Working Man seemed to strike a nerve with the largely blue-collar audience. This led to an audience in the US as well as Canada.

They toured like crazed musical gypsies. Travelling from show to show in a station wagon, they took turns driving while one member slept on top of the gear in the back of the car. Eventually the station wagon became a van, then an RV, and then a tour bus. I don’t know how they did it. They played 250 shows a year for a decade, living out of different vehicles until they made it.

The book then chronicles the production of their various albums and the departure of their longtime producer, Terry Brown. It also covers the events of their final tour. Their esteemed drummer, Neil Peart, suffered the loss of his teenage daughter to a car accident and then the loss of his wife to cancer all within a year. His life was shattered and he roamed North America on a motorcycle for nearly two years trying to make sense of things. During this time the band’s status was up in the air. Eventually, Neil, was able to build his life back. He found a new wife and felt ready to resume his career as a musician after five years adrift. The band was back in business for another decade, until Neil had enough. They had their final tour in 2015. Fate then turned on Neil once again as, sadly, he passed away from brain cancer in 2020. Geddy talks about the difficulty in accepting that he will never see him again. Geddy still appears randomly on stages to perform with others, but Rush as a live band is officially gone.

This book was a very interesting read, particularly if you a fan of Rush’s music.

 

I had never paid much attention to Anthony Bourdain during the height of his popularity. I thought his show was just a cooking show. Something, at the time, I was not really interested in. Recently, I have begun watching Parts Unknown and realize it is not really a cooking show. It is more of show that taught about different cultures. It also dabbled in politics, and of course, food.

This is the book that made him a household name. He had previously written two works of fiction, but they went nowhere. Before this book, he was basically an unknown, outside of New York city, journeyman chef.  It is clear from reading this that he is very well-read. He writes in a Charles Bukowski or William S. Burroughs sort of manner. Kind of a high-brow look at the gutter. He lays out his life, warts and all, for the entire world to see. He paints a very vivid picture of his life and the crazy characters he mingled with. Oftentimes, the individuals he described had me laughing openly. The debauchery and depravity is so outrageous that it appears more funny than sad. There is definitely talk of cooking contained in the book, but the story is more about his life and the lives of restaurant kitchen culture in New York city.

Bourdain mentions that he is risking his livelihood by publishing this book. He has pulled his life out of the throes of addiction and become a well-respected chef at this point. Revealing the worst points of his life was definitely a risk. If this book had only been a modest success, it may have been damaging. The fact that it was so honest and took so many risks, however, is probably what also helped make it successful. I found this to be an amazing book. Be warned, however, it can be a bit crude at times. This book is not for someone who is easily offended.

I wrote a little program to help myself learn the different degrees of the notes of each of the 12 musical keys. These would be the actual note names of the old Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do Solfège for a given musical key. The program randomly picks a key and scale degree and asks the user to pick the radio button corresponding to the correct response. The actual notes of each scale are not hard-coded into the program. Intervals of the chromatic scale are used to compute them when a question is randomly chosen.

The program:

The correct answer below would be “D” as the A major scale contains the notes A, B, C#, D, E, F#, and G#. The fourth note is “D”. Chords are constructed with the different scale degrees, for example, a plain major chord consists of the Root(first note), the Third(third note), and the Fifth(fifth note), or the A, C# and E notes for an “A” chord. All chords are constructed using rules of combinations of notes based on scale degrees. Knowing them will allow a musician, or even a hack like me, to construct chords of any type, in any key. Here is a screenshot of this simple, but effective program:

It works just like a deck of flash cards. I have found it to be a pretty effective way to help learn the notes of each key. You get one point for a correct answer and minus one point for an incorrect answer, but it does not let you get a negative score. If you have any interest in basic music theory, give it a try with the link below, if not, thanks for reading this until the end.

Scale Quiz

note:  For those of you with OCD, you may have become uncomfortable due to some misalignment in the quiz display. Sincere apologies-it has been corrected.