Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Just testing something...

I'm just testing to see if I can make a link to an audio clip

Linky link link


EDIT: Aha! I can! Thats one of my compositions.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Prokofiev's second piano concerto

Wow. I have been listening to Prokofiev's second piano concerto and it is amazing. It is definitely one of my favorites (mind you, that isn't saying much because it changes every couple of weeks.)

Did you know that when he first wrote it, it was very strongly disliked? One critic even went as far as to say:

"To hell with this futurist music! What is he doing, making fun of us? The cats on the roof make better music!"

Each to his own, I guess. I think that its a masterpiece. It was pretty futuristic for his time though, so I guess that man can be excused.

Done!

Done! I have finished my longest, best piece that I have composed. The second movement of my piano concerto, officially titled Piano Concerto no. 1 in G Sharp Minor-Andante. Ooh, doesn't that sound spiffy? Now, mind you, I say that I am done it, but in three months from now, or so, I will likely scoff at it and rewrite a lot of it. Oh well, I am pretty happy with it at the moment. On to movements 1 and 3!

King Lear

I finished reading King Lear for an online course that I'm taking. Its a pretty neat book, and its fascinating to see how a small thing that we do can trigger big things. A good reminder that all our actions have consequences and that we need to be responsible for all our actions. A very smart man that I know once told me and some others that you are an adult when you take responsibility for all your actions. Hmm...I know a couple "adults' who don't do that...

NaNoWriMo

Yahooo! I just made it to 35000 words. Only 15k left. Problem is, I only have six more days to do it and I'm running out of plot...

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Woot!

I am almost finished the second movement from the piano concerto that I am writing. Its always nice to finish a piece that you don't completely hate. And no, I haven't written the first or third movements. I wrote the second movement first because the theme just strolled into my head and I knew that it would make decent second movement

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Heehee...

I just found out about Matchstick Rockets and they are soo neat. You make a little rocket with a paper match and aluminum foil with a little "Exhaust pipe". Then, you hold a match underneath until it launches! Too cool. Mine didn't fly very far, but I am going to refine my technique a bit more. Check out this link for how to make one (See? They're even known by NASA!)

Monday, November 5, 2007

Things I want to do

Kathleen has done it. Raine has done it. I think I will jump on the bandwagon and do it to. (Sorry for copying your idea).

Gosh, there are so many things I want to do! I'll just list a few.

1. Learn all 4 Rachmaninov Piano Concertos and play them with an orchestra.
2. Read War and Peace (by Leo Tolstoy)
3. Play in an orchestra
4. Learn to speak, read and write Italian, French, Spanish, German, Latin, Hebrew, Mandarin and Greek fluently.
5. Have my one book published.
6. Have some of my compositions published or played by an orchestra.

I might just keep adding to the list. Those are just a couple things.

Eeek!

I just joined NaNoWriMo! That means that I am going to write a 50,000 word novel in one month! Quite scary, I think. I'm really excited though, it should be fun. Check out the website for more details.