Man, I've been really bad about being on my computer lately. I'm on every so often for a game or two with my residents, but most of the time I really haven't been on my physical computer. That's really why I haven't been posting lately, but now I'm hoping to be back here more frequently than I have been.
I also realize I have like 3 blog drafts that I never actually finished, so here goes this one!
So a lot has happened in the past 3 weeks. First off, I didn't end up getting the ARD position for Nerland, but I am going to be a RA there! I'm pretty excited for that to happen because that's really where I want to be for next year. I've really enjoyed working with freshmen this year, but I think it will be good for me to be in an upperclassmen dorm with some of my friends from here in Skarland and some I've met along the way. My staff ought to be pretty fun as well, so I really don't have any complaints with my position. I mean, I really enjoy being a RA as well, so could I really complain anyways? But Nerland is basically perfect for me. Its a gaming hall (not actually, but that's the tendency), its a dry dorm by choice (which means no alcohol), and I know a lot of people that are going there.
Music in my life is also going pretty dang well. The Wind Symphony also had a couple concerts in the past couple weeks which were really fun to play in. I've had more 1st horn parts lately, so I've been making some rapid improvements in terms of my playing. I think I'm going to go get the recordings of our concerts sometime this week so I can go listen to how we did from another perspective and see if I can pick myself out in the music. Jeremiah and I are also nearing completion of the Zelda Medley we're transcribing for a horn quartet (hopefully to be performed early next semester). I'll hopefully put up the arrangement we've done once we finish it but we do know at least what songs are going to be in it. We have (in this order):
- Zelda's Awakening (Windwaker)
- Ocean Theme (Windwaker)
- Song of Storms (Ocarina of Time)
- Song of Healing (Majora's Mask)
- Midna's Theme (Twilight Princess)
- Ballad of the Goddess (Skyward Sword)
- Zelda's Theme (Ocarina of Time)
- Epilogue (Windwaker)
I'm really excited to get it finished because then we can start playing it as a group and it will be AWESOME. Plus, if we can manage to have one of the faculty give us permission to play it in a Music at 1 I'll be ecstatic. I mean, how often would I have the chance to play a Zelda medley that I've created in a public setting? Basically never.
My new computer is almost complete as well! The last 3 pieces of the machine are now on their way to me after I got my wonderful tax return in the mail. I'm really excited to finally build this massive beast of a computer. Hopefully I'll have it up and going by the end of the weekend next week, although that is SpringFest and project weekend so we shall see how that goes. I know I really need to get those projects done and SpringFest is all hands on deck for RAs, so I know I'll be super busy for the entire weekend... Hopefully I'll still have some time to myself so that I can stay sane, but who knows.
I'm also changing my major soon. I still love Computer Science, but I have a ton of trouble with coding. I have neither the attention span nor the will to just do coding. So I'm hopefully going to change my major to Systems Administration instead. That way I can pursue what I really love about Computer Science, which is the Information Technology side of it, and hopefully end up as a Sysadmin sometime in the future. I think its a good choice for me and for my GPA, plus that kind of work is super awesome.
So that's my life as of late in a nutshell!
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Simplicity
So classes are going pretty well, but that's not the inspiration for this post today.
No, today it comes from Wind Symphony. I've been doing quite a bit of work with music in the last 3 or 4 months and I'm really happy that its starting to pay off. For one, I've been recreating some Zelda music to play in a horn quartet and I have 3 of the pieces done that I want to have for a horn medley. I hope to have songs like:
-Ocean Theme (Windwaker)
-Zelda's Awakening (Windwaker)
-Ballad of the Goddess (Skyward Sword)
-Departure (Windwaker)
-Windmill Hut (Ocarina of Time)
-Midna's Theme (Twilight Princess)
-Temple of Time (Ocarina of Time)
-Zelda II song (Zelda II)
And include them all together into a horn quartet medley to be performed towards the end of the semester. Hopefully I can get it done... But its a huge undertaking.
Also, towards the end of last semester I approached our director with an offering of music to play. As the nerd I am (if you couldn't tell from above) I asked if she would take a look at Fountain of Dreams from the Kirby series. The reply was that it was too simple for our ensemble to play, but that another song may be able to fit the part. Today I received an email with a site full of music and a question about One Winged Angel (Final Fantasy VII) by Nobuo Uematsu.
That's a win. An awesome win.
Now to get that done!
No, today it comes from Wind Symphony. I've been doing quite a bit of work with music in the last 3 or 4 months and I'm really happy that its starting to pay off. For one, I've been recreating some Zelda music to play in a horn quartet and I have 3 of the pieces done that I want to have for a horn medley. I hope to have songs like:
-Ocean Theme (Windwaker)
-Zelda's Awakening (Windwaker)
-Ballad of the Goddess (Skyward Sword)
-Departure (Windwaker)
-Windmill Hut (Ocarina of Time)
-Midna's Theme (Twilight Princess)
-Temple of Time (Ocarina of Time)
-Zelda II song (Zelda II)
And include them all together into a horn quartet medley to be performed towards the end of the semester. Hopefully I can get it done... But its a huge undertaking.
Also, towards the end of last semester I approached our director with an offering of music to play. As the nerd I am (if you couldn't tell from above) I asked if she would take a look at Fountain of Dreams from the Kirby series. The reply was that it was too simple for our ensemble to play, but that another song may be able to fit the part. Today I received an email with a site full of music and a question about One Winged Angel (Final Fantasy VII) by Nobuo Uematsu.
That's a win. An awesome win.
Now to get that done!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Music for body and soul
Music has been a part of my life for basically as long as I can remember. I loved listening to music when I was little and started playing instruments in the 4th grade (technically 3rd grade if you count the recorder, but I usually don't...). I played the trumpet and it was the coolest thing ever to be able to come out of class twice a week and play my instrument in a small classroom from the "Standard of Excellence: Level 1" red book. Volga Boat Song was my favorite (It was number 109!). So I continued playing the trumpet for different schools all the way through the 8th grade. Then I hit high school for the first time.
High school band my Freshman year did not approve of me doing sports. I wanted to be in band again (because even then music was a huge part of my life) and the resounding answer was a direct "No." To be in Symphonic Band you had to be in the marching band. To be in the marching band you had to go to band camp at the end of the summer and give up most weekends during the school year. That just wasn't going to fly. I played D1 soccer in Everett and there was no way that I would give that up.
Not a chance.
So I didn't end up playing my freshman year because of that little problemo. I thought it also applied my sophomore year, but apparently with the new director it would have been fine. So I didn't play my sophomore year either. That was a sad couple of years because I missed music during that time. Music is a fun way to develop skills, lung capacity, and the ability to work within a group towards a common goal. Ensembles strive to make music with a group-wide balance, and when it is achieved, it sounds beautiful.So that was kinda lost for two years of my life. Then I packed up and moved to the great white north world of Alaska and was almost immediately asked to play in the pep band for when the cruise ships came around. Now, this was after 2 years of not playing at all, so it was pretty terrible. Yet I stuck with it and ended up in the Region II Honor Band on trumpet that year.
I think that one event started my enjoyment of music as it is now. I played in the Honor Band, then traveled with the Jazz Band to State Solo and Ensemble that year as a fill in for someone who couldn't go, then started having fun with messing around with instruments. I played the chimes for a choir song that year too because random percussion is fun. Way less stress too when they don't expect any sort of genius skill or memorization, they just wanted me to play it and have fun with it. It was great.
Senior year I played the trumpet for the first semester because of some.... mishaps. Like my first trumpet of the semester I sat on. It still played (kinda) but the bell was bent at something like a 30 degree angle. Never put your instrument on your chair for standing breathing exercises... Then the next trumpet I had broke inside of the spit valve and so it couldn't retain air properly to make the right tones. (That one wasn't my fault either!) But that happened so I needed to find an instrument to play. Why not the french horn? We already have 6 trumpets in the band and no french horns so I'll play that! And so I did. Sure I cheated a whole bunch (I took all the F horn music and transposed it to Bb music, then played the french horn with trumpet fingerings and the Bb key held down the whole time. It kinda worked... But not really). So that started that in my life.
However the funniest music news of the year came with Honor Band auditions. So Kasey and I were doing our auditions on the last possible day after ski practice having never practiced any of the music before. We were there from 5:30 to 11:30. It was great. ANYWAYS, I finished up my french horn audition tape pretty quickly and it was terrible. TERRIBLE. Okay so I had only been playing it for about a month and a half and had been cheating, it was destined to suck. But then since Kasey was still working and I didn't want to desert him, making a percussion audition tape seemed like a logical choice! So I went and looked up what some of the symbols meant in the percussion music (because I am uncoordinated with my left hand and have never played percussion) and gave every song one recording and submitted a CD. My song for mallet percussion took over 5 minutes for a song that was supposed to last for 1 minute (because I am just that awesome). But the tape was really just for laughs.
Except then it became serious when I ended up as 3rd chair for the Honor Band out of something like 24 applicants. CONFUSED. Our director called me in on parent-teacher conference day to ask what on Earth happened and to explain how I was picked. Apparently to be a percussionist you don't really have to be that good, just be able to follow instructions and independently keep a beat. And I was fully intent on playing percussion in the Honor Band! This was hilarious and I couldn't stop laughing! Or at least until I found out the bad news to the story. Kasey ended up as 1st alternate for the Honor Band. Sadface.... So of course I gave up my spot. He's an awesome percussionist and one of my best friends and Region Music Fest was actually in Valdez so I wouldn't take that spot from him.
(It was still super funny though).
I also played the djembe for choir that year.
And the bass drum for Valdez High School's first ever Command Performance at the State Solo and Ensemble competition.
Basically it was an awesome year for music in my life. So now here I am at college and music has stayed with me. I remember walking in at orientation and going to find my room key where Hadassah told me to go and try to join Wind Symphony. Sure I went and auditioned, but man was it UGLY. Dr. Gustafson didn't even let me do the sightreading portion of the audition because it was just that bad. I made it in though! Music in college is way better than it is in high school too. The people actually want to play (for the most part) and the music is a lot harder! And slowly but steadily I have been improving. Like the fact that I can actually read my music and pitches that are written in F now. Its kinda important. Plus my Jury grade was a B! That's exciting for me!
So now this is semester 2 of music and we are playing all sorts of fun stuff in Wind Symphony and I really enjoy playing music. It is a good way to learn a new skill, learn how to keep a beat, and to listen/play some really good music. I guess this means that the point to take away from reading this is that you should play some music. Whether you have or not in the past, it is really relaxing (so long as you don't take on too many music commitments) and sounds pretty cool too.
Music makes me happy :)
High school band my Freshman year did not approve of me doing sports. I wanted to be in band again (because even then music was a huge part of my life) and the resounding answer was a direct "No." To be in Symphonic Band you had to be in the marching band. To be in the marching band you had to go to band camp at the end of the summer and give up most weekends during the school year. That just wasn't going to fly. I played D1 soccer in Everett and there was no way that I would give that up.
Not a chance.
So I didn't end up playing my freshman year because of that little problemo. I thought it also applied my sophomore year, but apparently with the new director it would have been fine. So I didn't play my sophomore year either. That was a sad couple of years because I missed music during that time. Music is a fun way to develop skills, lung capacity, and the ability to work within a group towards a common goal. Ensembles strive to make music with a group-wide balance, and when it is achieved, it sounds beautiful.So that was kinda lost for two years of my life. Then I packed up and moved to the great white north world of Alaska and was almost immediately asked to play in the pep band for when the cruise ships came around. Now, this was after 2 years of not playing at all, so it was pretty terrible. Yet I stuck with it and ended up in the Region II Honor Band on trumpet that year.
I think that one event started my enjoyment of music as it is now. I played in the Honor Band, then traveled with the Jazz Band to State Solo and Ensemble that year as a fill in for someone who couldn't go, then started having fun with messing around with instruments. I played the chimes for a choir song that year too because random percussion is fun. Way less stress too when they don't expect any sort of genius skill or memorization, they just wanted me to play it and have fun with it. It was great.
Senior year I played the trumpet for the first semester because of some.... mishaps. Like my first trumpet of the semester I sat on. It still played (kinda) but the bell was bent at something like a 30 degree angle. Never put your instrument on your chair for standing breathing exercises... Then the next trumpet I had broke inside of the spit valve and so it couldn't retain air properly to make the right tones. (That one wasn't my fault either!) But that happened so I needed to find an instrument to play. Why not the french horn? We already have 6 trumpets in the band and no french horns so I'll play that! And so I did. Sure I cheated a whole bunch (I took all the F horn music and transposed it to Bb music, then played the french horn with trumpet fingerings and the Bb key held down the whole time. It kinda worked... But not really). So that started that in my life.
However the funniest music news of the year came with Honor Band auditions. So Kasey and I were doing our auditions on the last possible day after ski practice having never practiced any of the music before. We were there from 5:30 to 11:30. It was great. ANYWAYS, I finished up my french horn audition tape pretty quickly and it was terrible. TERRIBLE. Okay so I had only been playing it for about a month and a half and had been cheating, it was destined to suck. But then since Kasey was still working and I didn't want to desert him, making a percussion audition tape seemed like a logical choice! So I went and looked up what some of the symbols meant in the percussion music (because I am uncoordinated with my left hand and have never played percussion) and gave every song one recording and submitted a CD. My song for mallet percussion took over 5 minutes for a song that was supposed to last for 1 minute (because I am just that awesome). But the tape was really just for laughs.
Except then it became serious when I ended up as 3rd chair for the Honor Band out of something like 24 applicants. CONFUSED. Our director called me in on parent-teacher conference day to ask what on Earth happened and to explain how I was picked. Apparently to be a percussionist you don't really have to be that good, just be able to follow instructions and independently keep a beat. And I was fully intent on playing percussion in the Honor Band! This was hilarious and I couldn't stop laughing! Or at least until I found out the bad news to the story. Kasey ended up as 1st alternate for the Honor Band. Sadface.... So of course I gave up my spot. He's an awesome percussionist and one of my best friends and Region Music Fest was actually in Valdez so I wouldn't take that spot from him.
(It was still super funny though).
I also played the djembe for choir that year.
And the bass drum for Valdez High School's first ever Command Performance at the State Solo and Ensemble competition.
Basically it was an awesome year for music in my life. So now here I am at college and music has stayed with me. I remember walking in at orientation and going to find my room key where Hadassah told me to go and try to join Wind Symphony. Sure I went and auditioned, but man was it UGLY. Dr. Gustafson didn't even let me do the sightreading portion of the audition because it was just that bad. I made it in though! Music in college is way better than it is in high school too. The people actually want to play (for the most part) and the music is a lot harder! And slowly but steadily I have been improving. Like the fact that I can actually read my music and pitches that are written in F now. Its kinda important. Plus my Jury grade was a B! That's exciting for me!
Its my horn!
So now this is semester 2 of music and we are playing all sorts of fun stuff in Wind Symphony and I really enjoy playing music. It is a good way to learn a new skill, learn how to keep a beat, and to listen/play some really good music. I guess this means that the point to take away from reading this is that you should play some music. Whether you have or not in the past, it is really relaxing (so long as you don't take on too many music commitments) and sounds pretty cool too.
Music makes me happy :)
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
School, sports, and creativity
My classes are pretty awesome this semester. I enjoy all of them except for Communications and Calc III really..... Comm is annoying. I'm already proficient at public speaking. I'm also not saying that I am perfect at it, but considering the fact that the course is a "skill development" course I really would rather not take it... I mean come on, today I was the only kid in the entire class that gave a speech without any visual aids or notes and I still made it to the time limit without sounding like a complete moron! RAWRG. This class will annoy me. And its 3 hours long every Tuesday.... I hate Tuesdays... Calc III is Calc III. Heh. Math.... I can survive it!
But Computer Science is amazing because I code and do fun things and make projects and confuse my professor with "if statements." Recital Attendance is glorified nap time with beautiful music, so what's not to like? Physics is interesting, but the labs are lame... But it was to be expected. And I freaking love Wind Symphony. Its the best class ever. I go in and play music with a large ensemble 3 times a week and this semester I managed to snag 3rd chair out of 7! FREAKING STOKED! NO MORE 4th HORN FOR ME PLEASE! (This is incredibly exciting. I was 4th horn on every single song except for Hillulah last semester.) This semester we are playing some pretty sweet music too so it will definitely be a concert worth watching!
Our intramurals have also started! As stated before I'm playing basketball, soccer, and broomball. Our games on Monday went kind of like this:
We freaking suck at basketball. It was a painful game in which I was knocked on my ass once, Denali dislocated her shoulder, Ashley was having problems breathing, and Elika forgot how to dribble. It was pretty amazing how awful we were. Heck, we didn't even make it to the second half due to the mercy rule (25 points down at any point). We ended up losing 34-7 with Levi scoring 2 points for our team and I scored the other 5. Maybe we will become better? Or maybe not... I hate basketball, but I love playing sports with my friends so I'll stick with it.
Soccer is going to be awesome this quarter. We all work well as a team and we have a freaking rock-solid defense. ATP (our team) even won our first game 1-0! I think this is a promising start to this season of my favorite sport of all time.
Broomball is getting progressively better. We are still losing, but teamwork is finally allowing us to have some good passes down the ice and some shots on net! Elika, Sarah, Levi, and Denali are beasts on offense for reals. I only came out with one bruise too! It was a pretty exciting game and today we will play against the team from the music department and we had better win.... We should win. For once. I really missed playing broomball as the goalie, but I didn't really miss the losing. Oh well. The game is still fun!
I have also started a new side project/game recently and it is amazing what you can do in that game. Minecraft is awesome. Our floor even has a pretty sweet server that we are putting together with about 10 of us from on campus. I HAVE TAKEN TO THE SKIES! And I love that game. Our most recent production (server-wide) is a road/skybridge (I love my skybridges :D ) project that now spans between everyone's house on the server. Our server will be flourishing for quite some time I'll bet and the finished project will be a sight to behold, trust me.
So I guess that's it for now. And I leave you with a Tonberry.
(I didn't draw it)
But Computer Science is amazing because I code and do fun things and make projects and confuse my professor with "if statements." Recital Attendance is glorified nap time with beautiful music, so what's not to like? Physics is interesting, but the labs are lame... But it was to be expected. And I freaking love Wind Symphony. Its the best class ever. I go in and play music with a large ensemble 3 times a week and this semester I managed to snag 3rd chair out of 7! FREAKING STOKED! NO MORE 4th HORN FOR ME PLEASE! (This is incredibly exciting. I was 4th horn on every single song except for Hillulah last semester.) This semester we are playing some pretty sweet music too so it will definitely be a concert worth watching!
Our intramurals have also started! As stated before I'm playing basketball, soccer, and broomball. Our games on Monday went kind of like this:
We freaking suck at basketball. It was a painful game in which I was knocked on my ass once, Denali dislocated her shoulder, Ashley was having problems breathing, and Elika forgot how to dribble. It was pretty amazing how awful we were. Heck, we didn't even make it to the second half due to the mercy rule (25 points down at any point). We ended up losing 34-7 with Levi scoring 2 points for our team and I scored the other 5. Maybe we will become better? Or maybe not... I hate basketball, but I love playing sports with my friends so I'll stick with it.
Soccer is going to be awesome this quarter. We all work well as a team and we have a freaking rock-solid defense. ATP (our team) even won our first game 1-0! I think this is a promising start to this season of my favorite sport of all time.
Broomball is getting progressively better. We are still losing, but teamwork is finally allowing us to have some good passes down the ice and some shots on net! Elika, Sarah, Levi, and Denali are beasts on offense for reals. I only came out with one bruise too! It was a pretty exciting game and today we will play against the team from the music department and we had better win.... We should win. For once. I really missed playing broomball as the goalie, but I didn't really miss the losing. Oh well. The game is still fun!
I have also started a new side project/game recently and it is amazing what you can do in that game. Minecraft is awesome. Our floor even has a pretty sweet server that we are putting together with about 10 of us from on campus. I HAVE TAKEN TO THE SKIES! And I love that game. Our most recent production (server-wide) is a road/skybridge (I love my skybridges :D ) project that now spans between everyone's house on the server. Our server will be flourishing for quite some time I'll bet and the finished project will be a sight to behold, trust me.
So I guess that's it for now. And I leave you with a Tonberry.
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