Caesura: A pause in a line of music
A.k.a: "Railroad tracks"
Hello everybody! Sorry for the late post!
I know that I did say I was going to post a quick little improv (Fermata) sometime yesterday afternoon. But.. I had some other stuff (like a Jazz Band Competition), and I ended having to re-record the improv today. Although I said it'd be short, I couldn't bear to end the blog with a weak improv (I was also extremely heartened by all of the comments I've gotten - Thanks so much!) - so I'm preparing something a little bit bigger - hopefully something you'll all enjoy. But At this rate, it does not seem like I'll be able to get the post out (edit, upload, and embed) until later tonight, if at all, and if not, next... Wednesday. At our school, it's currently spring break, so I'm going to be busy a few days and though I have it all recorded, I currently do not have time to edit the video (put the audio and video together w/ text captions) until then. For those of you actually reading this blog, those of you who haven't completely abandoned blogger just because the project is done, I thank you for your patience.
I have gotten my grade for the project, but not the rubric yet - that may have to wait until post spring break (which ends April 6th), the earliest possible day we could get our rubrics back. If there are still people following this blog even then... well... thanks!
Welcome to the final Cavatina post!
Huge shoutout to everyone who has presented in both the morning and afternoon Gifted sessions, and good luck to those few who are presenting tomorrow!
It's done! It's finally done! D.C. al Coda: "da Capo al Coda," or "from the head to the tail." It directs the musican to go back and repeat the music from the beginning (Capo) and to continue playing until one reaches the first coda symbol.
Coda - A type of conclusion to a musical piece, often inserted into a repeated section (ex. D.C. al Coda).
First of all, shoutout to Alex, Matt, Jacob, Olivia, Matt, Zoey, and Laura, who all presented their TED Talks today in addition to myself. You guys were great!
This post is going to be a bit of a reflection on the TED Talk and on the overall project.
So about the TED Talk. Overall, even though I was really nervous on stage as I took in the fact that I was very alone, very exposed, and very nervous in the seconds before I began, I am very satisfied with the end result. I felt pretty confident in my script, and made it through with very few errors. I did my best to add tone and inflection to my speaking, but I am still unsure as to how well it translated to the audience. The PowerPoint went pretty smoothly as well, with no technical errors.
My goal with this talk was to not only explain a bit about what I'd been doing, what I'd accomplished, and to show off a bit of what I've learned, but to convey a message to the audience (side note: having an ultimate message/meaning was also a requirement for the TED talk in general). If you didn't hear my talk, that message was to not be afraid to make mistakes - just like in improvisation. I hope that I was able to bring that message to everyone.
About the live performance - personally, I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome. I think that I was able to show a lot of the different things I've been working on during the project - in just a minute or two worth of playing. I've also received overwhelmingly positive feedback, so I'm really glad that everyone enjoyed it. Some of my classmates even called me up to a sort of encore while we were waiting for the bell to ring (after the rest of the presentations had finished). Big thanks to everyone who enjoyed, and an especially big thank you to Mr. Conahan, the school's choral director, for lending me a piano to play on.
This project has been a lot of fun, and I've really enjoyed being able to spend so much time immersing myself in music, just playing whatever for an unconstrained amount of time. It was a really great learning and mastery-type experience. I hope that all of you readers really enjoyed following my progress on this blog as well. I have no idea if anyone really wants them, but for those who really enjoyed, below is a link to a Google Drive containing Mp3's for my songs - you can download them (they are filed as an album so you can drag it into iTunes or whatever), or you could just enjoy them on YouTube. Meddlings Album Download My YouTube Channel
I don't think that I'll be posting much anything else on this blog - as much as I've enjoyed improvising, the time it took to record, film, and upload the videos was a bit much to handle on a regular basis. I will be posting a follow up on this post, Coda, to review my performance when I get back my grade/rubric. I'll also be posting a final little clip of some improv (separate from Coda maybe). It'll be short and concise, and a little less cumbersome than Saturday Revue. It'll try to kind of emulate what I performed at the TED Talk. It's not the same obviously, but I hope it'll gets the point across.We'll see what happens!
- Josh C. Sorry for the weird highlighting - technical error forced my hand.
Subito Acclerando: To suddenly increase in tempo (speed)
Ok. My mind is kind of a mess right now, so this post is as much for organizing my own thoughts as it is for giving you guys a quick update on where things stand with this project.
So I've got my script all typed out - it's going through practice and revision at all times - but I'm still pretty nervous. Especially after seeing a number of really good presentations just a couple minutes ago. My hope is that I'll be able to keep my head screwed on my shoulders in the right direction for when I present. And I've got other homework to do at the same time as well... sheesh.
Ok, about the blog:
There are not going to be many other posts, and those remaining posts will probably be posted post-TED Talk (Wed 25th). This includes a recording of my "final" product. The reason I'm saving the recording for after the talk is because:
A: I'm a bit pressed for time
but more importantly:
B: Because it's improvisation, and because I'll be performing at the talk, they're going to be two very different pieces of music. I don't want to spoil too much about what kind of music I'll be improving at the talk, and I don't want to create any expectations set by another piece for the talk. I also want to end the project on a good note (hehe) in my last post or two.
So that's where we're at: stress, anticipation, excitement, and a promise to post a "final" song later.
Another shout out to all the people who presented today:
Dani, Jess, Sarah, Hannah, Harry, Sarah, Evan, and Kenny.
Well, it's time to wrap up the comments for this project. There are a LOT of cool projects out there, and today I actually got to see some TED Talks yesterday! Shout out to TJ, Caitlyn, Nicole, Jason, Mohammed, Helen, Ellie, and Abby.
Here are my comments for the section (I think I may be just a little behind schedule...)
Click their names for links to their blogs!
Nicole:
Choreographed and danced a dance to PTX's dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
Trevor:
Flew a bunch of planes in a simulator - can now fly a wide variety of those flying chunks of metal.
Caitlyn:
Learned to play piano, then accompanied a cello-solo piece on piano.
Jess:
Learning to write Mandarin Chinese. Her tower of note cards stands 2.5 inches high.
Eric:
Whittling various figures like Card Suits. He also whittle me a little figure for my birthday! (Which I forgot to mention was on March 18th). Thanks Eric!
Ellie:
Studied photography - her pictures really are worth a thousand words.
Dani:
Animating a short clip/movie - it's plot remains a mystery - can't wait!
Key changes will be made... to my workload this coming week.
Hello everyone! I hope you've been enjoying the last movement and my vlog... This week: Movement IV is finally out! This is going to be a relatively shorter post, but before we get to the recordings, a bit of nitty-gritty chit-chat.
So... the TED Talk presentations are now scheduled to be Friday the 20th and all during the following school week. I have taken a position on Wednesday the 25th. As the date draws nearer and nearer I am brimming with anticipation. And stress. And anxiety. But, oh well - I'll just have to believe in my improvisation skills that I've "honed" this project, as well as my ability to write a TED Talk.
Moving on, this week was about chord changes. I chose this as a last goal since switching from one key to another is relatively simple. There are plenty of super-complicated ways to change keys - but I've found that experimentation works pretty well. Different chords will set up for different transitions. It helps when one chord in a chord progression overlaps into different chord progression in a different key. Additionally, rests can serve as good transitions between keys. The big clincher, I guess, is what happens after the transition.
If you change from one key to another, and you don't do anything different, other than change the key, it's extremely boring. So I've found change a feel, tempo, rhythm pattern, or dynamic really accentuates the change - evolving the song, if you will - so that it's a little different with each change.
And... I'm back on the normal piano! Bigger dynamic range, in tune, clear, and nicer to look at than my homemade synthesizer studio... Though the lighting is a bit off... ah... I'm just being a bit nit-picky. Here are your recordings.
Nightfall
This one's key changes are a lot more - abstract. going against what I said previously about key changes needing changes in style (to an extent) to be more interesting. The changes are a lot more intertwined, switching fluidly, between G, D, and C Major, with an emphasis on the minor chords. The result was a bit of a darker, lower melody - minor, but hopefully kind of thoughtful too.
Saturday Revue
This one is 6 minutes long. Yes. 6 minutes. 5 key changes - four transitions - four changes in style - four keys (C-A-G-D-C). I kinda went all out. Since the whole concept of this song was to improvise a little differently in each key, I kinda went all out doing my best to make it sound good - and it ended up being really long. I'd like to say its my most complicated improv piece to date. It starts off kinda of slow, with a lot of block chords, eventually loosening up through the changes, before going into the final change, where it speeds up and the chord chorus reaches max volume.
I hope you find them both enjoyable!
Well, that's all folks... about my next post... I'm not yet sure if it's going to be my TED Talk reaction, or if it will be a recording of some complicated improvised song that incorporates what I've learned. The 6 minute song above was a bit of precursor - incorporating a lot of different elements of the project using key changes as a point of transition. Hopefully the final result will be more fine-tuned, (concise), and even better.
Have a great week!
- Josh
P.S. Shout out to my friend Trevor. He turned 16 today. Check out his blog here.
Here are this week's comments. I took a look at the list of all four classes' blogs, looking to "explore" the available blogs a bit more. I hadn't commented on Liliana or Ellie's blogs yet, and I wish I had sooner - they're doing some pretty awesome stuff, so be sure to check out their blogs as well!
Jess: Mandarin
- Chinese tones and pinyin, plus a cool shout out!
Liliana: Balloon Animals
- Birds, Bears, Bow-and-Arrows, and more!
Ellie: Photography
- Pictures worth a thousand words - this post focused on still life!
If you haven't seen it already, check out Movement III!
Complicated accompaniment is complicated...
Hello! Welcome to Movement III!
As this is project is fast approaching its climax, a number of things are going to be happening!
First and foremost, I need to start working on my TED-talk. The presentation is in the near future (March 17-19), and I need to get prepared so that I can have time to practice and make a presentation and all that. I'll be talking about that a little bit more.
And by talking, I mean literal talking. This post will be containing a vlog (video + blog), where you get to "meet" me. I'm gonna talk about a number of things, including more about the state of the project, my origins as a musician/why I chose piano improv as my project topic.
It's not perfect. It might be a bit long. And my voice might seem a little congested. And I look away from the camera to consult my computer which has a teleprompter running. The jump cuts and video insertions may also seem a bit random. Again, not perfect... but I wanted to add the bit of personal narrative. I did my best to offset the length with a bit of humor and music... though I'm still not quite sure I've succeeded. I hope I'm not acting too silly at some points... Watching myself over and over again has desensitized me, and I have no idea if others will find this good, or will find it immature... I hope you enjoy nonetheless...
Edited on iMovie. Teleprompter: Cue Prompter
Phew. Got that over with. (Sorry it's YouTube again - the file size is once again too big for Vimeo to embed). Indeed - the process of procuring good recordings can lead to... insanity. And "so on."
Moving on, to this week's recordings. I know that there are only two of them, but I was a bit pressed for time, what with recording the vlog as well. If given the option, I would have probably redone them... but overall I am satisfied with how they turned out. And, now, for the results of the poll:
In a stunning and complete (but not all that surprising) turn of events: live video of my hands has won by... a lot. 5 votes to 0. Thank's for your input!
The main focus was to increase the complexity of my left hand's movements.Now that's a very abstract goal - after all, how does one define "complex" without using their own opinion? What I've been doing up until this point is playing whole chords (for the most) with my left hand - whole note, whole note, maybe a few other rhythms thrown in there too. Additionally, in the past, I have improvised with a constant movement of the broken chord in triplets or in eighth notes.
To add "complexity" this week I strove to play broken chords of varying rhythms, in an attempt to weave the left and right hand together into a more cohesive piece. This includes interjecting notes between hands using syncopation, swapping melodies (briefly) between hands, or playing transitional notes outside the chords between phrases of melody or chords in the progression. There wasn't much research involved in the making of this piece - just listening to music of varying genres gave me a few reference rhythms, but the rest was purely experimental. I'm pretty satisfied with end result. I hope you are too. Enjoy the fruits of my labor.
The Coming of Spring - A kind of bouncy tune keyed in C Major - It starts off a little scrambled, like flowers finding their way through snow... (maybe) and resolves with some nice chord-choruses near the end. A little jaunt-of-a left hand melody switch as well.
Rain - A bit of a melancholy tune - kinda like a rainy day. Set in G Major - with E minor harmonies to offset the major key. I really tried to intertwine each hand's part - and not trip over my own fingers in the process.
At the end of the post, she left a little nod towards my blog (thank you for the compliment).
And I would like to argue that I am on the level of a hedgehog playing jazz piano.
(Here comes the "retaliation")
In fact:
I found that hedgehog going in the opposite direction.
Though it's a .gif, not a Vine, so there's no sound.
And a few other animals playing piano .gifs
To my readers, I apologize for the randomness of this post.
I felt obligated, somewhat, to respond to that post somehow (I'm probably over-reacting because I found the hedgehog playing jazz hilarious).
Though, whether this post counts as retaliation or whether it merely augments the strange enigma that is the joy of watching animals play the piano, it's hard to say.
Rest assured, I'll be back to normal by the time Movement III comes out (perhaps this weekend...?).
And be prepared! I'll be including a video blog or "vlog" as well.
