Not that this matters to many of you, but the score i wrote? I had some notation issues in terms of being clear. I believe the issues are fixed, and i re-uploaded the pdf. I also got rid of the 32nd note in the beginning, but I won’t change the mp3 until i get to a computer where i can do that simply. I’m not going to repost it, I’m just going to re-upload it.
Anyhow, this was a truly fun exercise, and I added a subtitle to the whole thing as well.
My next musical task is to dissect some music i have heard before to recreate. Reverse engineering, musical style. I also need to find out the summer hours for the piano practice rooms, because if I’m actually going to accomplish what I want to I need to be able to play the piano again.
My semester is drawing to a close, which means that the wonder that is the summer and my thesis is about to begin. It’s a little daunting, but pretty awesome overall. I had a book art gallery reception on Tuesday, which was a lot of fun, and one of my books is in the display over on 51 Brattle St. until June 3.
My other coursework has been music theory and composition, which has been absolutely awesome and eye opening. I love the class, the prof and TA are excellent, and it’s just a ton of fun. Some of the composition assignments were a little daunting, but we got so much encouragement that it was hard to feel like anything was “wrong” in class. It’s also the most grade-absent class I’ve had here thus far (and these two are my 12th and 13th classes thus far).
Anyhow, last night was spent finishing up my final composition to hand in this evening. It was a bit intimidating, and I know there are a few notation errors in the sheet music which I will try to fix before class this evening (always show beats 1 and 3 in 4/4 music is the chief one that i violate on the first line). Really, check out the sheet music (i already did the edits, so let me know if you see any terrible errors). I will likely try to expand on this piece in the future, but for the time being I have precisely one minute and forty one seconds of creativity. If you don’t mind midi sound output, you can listen to Rainy Chinatown Ride.
Here’s my relationship to the piece: i once got into district regional chorus, which was awesome and crazy and competitive and we had this awesome nutjob of a director who kicked our asses for many consecutive hours of rehersal before a one off performance. It’s probably the most challenging and horrifying music experience of my life because it was a lot of sight reading and really challenging on people’s ranges, and it was all non-easy choral work except for the star spangled banner.
That concert that day was awesome, it was the first time i ever heard Stolen Moments (Oliver Nelson) and the first time i ever got into jazz (what can i say, through my parents all i had was a litany of musicals and Barbara Streisand behind me). Awesome.
One of the pieces we performed was The Promise of Living from the Tender Land… we hated it. the accompaniment sounded nothing like any of the 5 completely different vocal parts, and while sometimes the vocals went together, it was almost impossible to peg what part of the creepy piano accompaniment anything was supposed to go. Meanwhile the director kept telling us we sucked hardcore. So much so that we had to do this self-critique exercise… to this day nothing is as scary as that experience. No one liked the piece… when we had a moment to ourselves we all badmouthed the piece. it was the only one people felt really shaky about.
a month later when i heard a recording of the piece…. i cried like a baby. I’ve heard other recordings here and there, but I am totally psyched for an opportunity to see this in concert. Very excited… so excited i’m taking time out of finishing my book and finishing a composition piece to go see this thing.
I’m including a piece from NJ state choir from 2003. Hooray for Youtube.
Last week i made the decision that i am absolutely sick of iTunes. i used it because it fit the bill and did more than other programs i had been using and had more information visually available, even if i hated referencing the iTunes store for everything and i hated the limited browsing of podcasts (as is, i still don’t really like any of the podcast directories i’ve come across. I should look at MeFi and see if there’s a recommendation for something… otherwise i depend on you, kindred reader, to help me out).
Anyhow… at home I use Amarok. It makes me happy, and its happy with Ubuntu, which i have running on both machines. At work I am a slave to the windows, and while they started running it on windows, i’ve yet to really get behind that. I want light, i want something that is not taxing my resources. Instead I pulled foobar 2000, and it’s adorable and has a little alien icon… really that along with a super simple but functional display that i can skin in black makes me happy. Add to that some Doppler action for managing podcasts, and you have a happy happy eHawk. Unfortunately This American Life still doesn’t like downloading appropriately, but that’s fine… i can listen to it live online with little frustration.
Today I actually went and tweaked the equalizer settings for a music playlist, and it amazed me how high quality sound output makes music incredible, tear inducing excellent. I love music, i love totally filling my head with music. It’s delicious. It also drowns out the pounding of walls from construction here at work.
In case you’re wondering what’s playing right now? Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Relax, oh yeah. By the way, in that video the guy in the mustache and little cap cracks me up.
I made an alphabet book last month, which i didn’t really mention much of. I will be sure to post the various pages of my book over the next couple weeks since I finally got my little camera (Coolpix 2500) happy with linux. My book is titled “Menagerie,” and our professor has posted all the books in an online gallery with the show title LETTERS.
I have begun work on my final book project for my book art class, and i’m titling it “Monsters of Industry.” It’s a lot of fun thus far. I’m going to show the book at both open studios and at a gallery showing for my class. I had to submit an image today for the catalogue, and i figured i could be nice and share.
A long time ago i was totally mesmerized by Charlie the kinda angry unicorn and his magical journey. Today I am happy to notice that he’s back with a new banana filled adventure. If i’m not mistaken, that’s a singing santa-hatted banana slug. You heard me… santa-hatted banana slug.
This weekend was a lot of projects on top of scul betamission. I got really wet riding in the rain on Saturday, but I still had a lot of fun.
I mounted a wire on the back of bunny boogie and dropped it off at the somerville museum for the artist’s choice show for somerville open studios. Some time was devoted to getting a plan together for my final book project for my book art class. I need to devote some time to building a mock-up.
The other thing i did this weekend was work on a firefly themed design, and i absolutely love the way the whole thing came out. I’m hoping the folks who received it find it useful. I thought i’d share a lower res version of the basic design so that i can show that i didn’t totally waste my time this weekend. I also managed to almost finish up sewing 2 little stuffed critters, and i got some paint down on one painting. Not as much as I’d like to have gotten done, but such is life.
you may remember i wrote about why Happy Feet makes me sad, how i get frustrated by the movie because it implies that all we need to do to save the world is make people see what’s wrong. I don’t believe that, because people look at what’s wrong right in the face and don’t do anything. The moving message of hope falls rather painfully, to me, because the messages are being delivered all the time, and people mostly just blow past it.
Still, this doesn’t mean you can’t tell a story of hope in a way that works. I know there are folks out there that don’t agree with me, but I absolutely adore the show Eli Stone, partly because the kind of hope compiled with ridiculousness and a little bit of mysticism is intriguing. The show is a rather comedic law show that is very character driven and complete with musical numbers (which we all know makes me happy), but it’s even more important than that.
The main character of the show is an excellent cynic who has to deal with the amazing, and the amazing is coupled with tragic. In response to all of this he has to hope for the best possible. The show is all about cultivating that hope and doing good, not out of some need to redeem the soul, but more out of the need to have a decent life. The show is a lot cheerier than anything I’m usually willing to watch, but when i think about some of the cases the show has dealt with I realize that while they manage to keep the brightness and humor, it’s all pretty sad and dark, and they don’t always win.
The idea that this kind of storytelling goes on makes me happy, because this is something i identify with.
There are people out there doing these crazy incredible and awe inspiring things, and it’s not all about the peace corps (though I know people doing that too, and I cannot begin to express my admiration), but about people who are smart and talented and good finding something good to do and bringing that goodness to others. I have two examples this week, courtesy of Casey and Angie.
Bren Bataclan’s Smile Boston Project is an artist getting out there with some great giggle inducing paintings and reaching out to people and trying to cut a deal. I love it, and I love that he’s taken it not only to Boston, but to other cities as well.
The other is Shawn’s Uncultured Project. This is incredible stuff that leaves me in absolute awe. Someone taking the time and initiative to go out somewhere where people have nothing and start making a difference. I’ll let the video speak for itself, but if you watch it, really think about what he’s talking about because this is the kind of call out we all need to get off our asses and start doing something.
Ever listen to This American Life? I highly recommend it, or at least pick through for show themes that pique your interest. Today I feel somewhat assuaged over any kind of occupational frustrations I might have. Why? Because I’m not an astronaut. Episode #329 “Nice Work if You Can Get It” opens with a conversation with an astronaut, and one of the things she talks about is how they don’t get to fly. Essentially all the astronauts interviewed cited meetings as the most horrible part of their job. The younger astronauts may not even get a chance to fly in their career because the current shuttle program is winding down and there won’t be a new shuttle until 2020.
Think of the amount of training, hard work, competing, and education that went into becoming an astronaut. You’ve made it! You are at the top of your game and fit to go into space. There’s just one problem… during the prime of your work years there’s no spaceship to take you out there. Bummer. I mean, at that point, are you still an astronaut? Do you need to actually go into space to hold onto that title?
This is sort of the opposite of the situation presented in Gattaca, but I think it’s equally disturbing. Part of me thinks that these are the kinds of people who are going to be excited to work for Virgin’s space program for the insanely rich.
In one interview, the astronaut notes how she watches sci-fi shows like Battlestar Galactica and Farscape, and when asked if it’s anything like the real thing, she notes “absolutely not.” Firstly they get no gravity, and secondly that sexy fighter look that they give most of the spaceships is absolutely useless in space. This led up to my favorite quote of the week: “None of that is any advantage when there’s no atmosphere, you don’t need a wing. You don’t need a pointed nose. You could be a box and have the same maneuverability as you do… you know, the borg had it right, they’re a big cube. They’re perfectly maneuverable!”
The astronaut example examines the idea of overeducation and the potential for occupational dead-ends. I see the same thing going on for friends i have in law, where i suddenly know lawyers who are puzzling over whether or not to renew their license since they’re not making money in law anymore.
The question stands: what are we willing to do for work, what does our pay have to be in order to be happy in that job… and how far apart are those two? I would argue that the glut of law students is directly related to people feeling robbed at work. Example: if I’m a brilliant physics student, but I know that I’m not going to be the next great professor of physics, in fact, i may only be destined for assistant professor, then odds are I am going to leave physics no matter how much i love it. The needs of providing for onesself, retirement, and a family block out the potential of a not-so-top job. That same person is going to say “my income has to be good to compensate for all the smarts I have.” A trail of reasoning puts a lot of these folks in law school and then into something that seems to be a crowded job market.
It’s an interesting problem… if so many of us are so educated, what then do we find acceptable to do for work? Besides, who is left to do things like sweep the floor and clean the toilets?
The astronaut is a really good example, for me, of what’s wrong. When we start having all these news reports about a recession, it all seems overdue, and I think of the brilliant people I know who are either overqualified for every job they apply for, or refuse to take a job seriously below their skillset. It’s going to be interesting to watch how the college graduates in the 10 year range (10 years before now to 10 years from now) try to navigate the seeminly overpinched job market.
This weekend was a lot of projects on top of scul betamission. I got really wet riding in the rain on Saturday, but I still had a lot of fun.