I have rectified what I have previously noted as something negative. With less than a week of practice under my belt, I managed to not suck that much at a Classical Revolution session.
I’m coming for you, anti-generality. And lemme tell you, it’s going to be a wicked battle. Count on it.
So I’ve been to Carnegie Hall twice in two weeks, and haven’t written anything about either of those events, so… I suppose I should rectify that.
First, a little background. Despite my grounding in classical music, I hadn’t gotten into Carnegie Hall in the nearly 7 months I’ve been in New York. I know, shame, shame. However, I really didn’t have any excuses during spring break, and Mahler was being played by the Boston Philharmonic, so off I went to get some student tickets.
First impressions: while it’s not modern like Benaroya Hall, it’s also not overly ornate like the Rialto Theater (which I spent a fair amount of my high school years in). The seats are passable, but the seating in the balcony is tremendously steep.
Oh, you want me to talk about the music and acoustics? Well, it was somewhat disappointing for string enthusiasts, because when you get so far up the balcony, all the strings kind of get mushy and lose a lot of their definition, especially when playing softly. And really, strings shine when they go down to ppp and leave off the vibrato, so that didn’t work out so well. The brass came through much better, but there’s not really a time when the brass don’t come through, so that wasn’t a plus (winds? what winds?).
The poor acoustics may have contributed, but I didn’t really enjoy Mahler’s 9th: I thought that since I was really into his 5th and 6th symphonies, that his 9th should also be fantastic. However, it didn’t really have any hooks like the other two, and the brass tended to ride on top of the strings without letting them through except for when the entire orchestra dropped low, and by that time the strings just didn’t come through at all. So, Mahler’s 9th is not my favorite yet: I do want to listen to a recording before I pass judgement.
I went to Carnegie Hall for the 2nd time today, to do something completely different: there was a screening of Hayao Miyazaki’s work, specifically, 2 shorts by Studio Ghibli that have never been screened in the USA before.
So, wow. After watching those simple animations, I realize that my story telling prowess needs work. A lot of work. I simply could not see myself coming up with or writing those sorts of stories, or storyboarding them, and the animating was fantastic. So. Yeah. I think I’m still in Creative-Output shock. I’ll figure out what I’m thinking sometime.
Okay, now it’s time to watch Ask an Engineer. And then after that, work some more on the advanced programming project of death, and maybe even doing some work on the algorithms homework of death!
Sometimes I forget that I live in the real world, a world full of entropy and forces of nature, so it’s always good when small things like getting passed over for a job or not getting into a music program remind me about that. Getting my map out of sync with the territory is always a terrible thing…
So, not miffed about not getting violin lessons or being part of the university chamber music program: getting to know another violin teacher would be cool, because I’ve only had 3 throughout my life (and more is better, asymptotically), but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep doing classical music when I signed up for auditions. I’ve been doing classical music for almost 10 years, and I’m moderately good at it, but it’s nowhere near good enough to even make a small local impact. And ultimately, this is bothersome: I’ve spent maybe a solid third of a year playing the violin, and for that much playing, a minimal number of people hear my playing. No, I’m not trying to become a professional musician. Yes, I’ve personally benefited from all the practice and musical thought patterns drilled into my grey matter.
However, I’ve come to the conclusion that if it doesn’t move people (emotionally or in dance), then it’s worthless. Thus…
Ah, screw trying to fill up a blog post. No one listens to my playing, no one cares about my playing, and I’m tired of it. I’m going to try my hand at more pop-ish music (ha. Anything next to classical is pop), and try writing my own music.
We’ll see how that goes.
Back on the original tack, I’m a bit more miffed about not getting that sysadmin position. Ah well, time to apply to those tech support jobs…
On a different note, there seem to be a large number of geeks around here (good indicator is the fact I attended a talk by a speaker that blogged something a read a few days before). I’m just not sure how to get them to come out into the open: maybe RAM on a stick?
AHHHHHH I went to metrix create:space and it is AMAZING. I was geeking out pretty hard, and actually ended up going there twice in one day: once to just take a look around with my friend, and again to attend makerbot night. Being in the presence of 4 printers in various states of function was something awesome to behold, especially since I’ve never actually seen a real-life mendel running. Wade’s extruder is pretty prevalent across the board, and surprisingly painter’s tape is pretty prevalent as a flat board cover (as opposed to kapton). While I was there, I also desoldered stuff from my destroyed extruder board, and got the wrong-sized trimpots off my stepper boards, as well as a melted switch on my motherboard (that heat gun was niceeeee… also, the soldering iron with a dedicated fume sucker right next to the tip is an amazing idea, and I want one, maybe by hacking my hakko ). Now, the trimpot holes are now filled with solder, which could be problematic, especially since it won’t come out easily. I might have to make another trip to metrix create:space…
Okay, enough talk! Now time for pictures: I actually made it into the metrix create:space flikr stream:
Very cool. I also got myself a hobo token (essentially metrix’s token of good will; I think it’s a laser cut wood coin): I’ll pop up a picture eventually, just to prove that I’m a big geek.
I also had some fun remixing this remix of a D-Day picture; my some of my friends (probably jokingly) decided it would be a cool motivational poster, so I called them out and whipped one up. Here’s one style, and here’s another (thank god the source image is unrestricted). I made larger resolutions if they actually want to print them out; ask if you want them. (Is it disrespectful of the soldiers? I think not: those guys were pretty bad ass, and I think the message just serves to highlight that)
On a different note, I really want to remix rainymood.com. It’s essentially a high-quality 30-minute loop of rain, and it just begs for a piano solo on top. Or maybe violin, too… At any rate, it’s begging to be remixed, and it’s CC-licensed, and I have a compulsion to do it, so you might or might not get something aural on the blog soon.
And for pure conjecture, I want to hack a wii nunchuk: I have a feeling it would be an amazing mouse-like device.
Okay, it’s way past my bedtime (I know, I know). I’ll post again soon, hopefully with some results for something.
EDIT: congrats me! I made my first blog post (at least the one the I’ve managed to keep un-mangled) 2 years and 2 days ago, so it’s kind of a blogging birthday. Fun fun.
