Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Well, look who it is. It's me.

(you) Oh, Daniel, nice to see you here, it seems you don't post a lot here. Is this your blog? I come here more than you.

(me) Yeah, well, I'm sorry, but I'm really busy right now. It seems the menu of my life is full of all sorts of tasty exciting things, and I'm having trouble fitting them all in. 

(you) Like what? What could you possibly do besides blogging?

(me) Well, all my writing time is being taken up by Script Frenzy, and I'm currently preparing for my Grade 9 RCM piano exam in June. And I'm in the middle of Kiwanis Music festival. And I'm also getting ready to go to Toronto for a National Youth Shakespeare festival. I'm trying to get rehearsals in and also work with some friends on set/costume design for the above festival. And I generally have lessons and rehearsals and meetings every day. So yeah, not much.

(you) Darn you, you always have good excuses.

(me) ...

(you) What page are you on in Script Frenzy anyway?

(me) Page 61. I have 39 pages to type in 4 days.

(you) What's your script about?

(me) Shhhh. It's confidential.

(you) I see. Well, I guess I'll see you more after Script Frenzy.

(me) You will. I promise.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Prelude

Hi everyone, this is just a little piece that I wrote for solo piano. It's also the one that I am submitting to the Kiwanis Music Festival for composition. Here's the short blurb I had to write about it:
"Prelude is a short piece for solo piano. The theme is introduced in the opening bar, modified and developed, and then finally recapitulated near the end. It is largely inspired by the works of Scriabin and Rachmaninoff and should be taken at a moderate, very free tempo, using lots of rubato to convey the dark, mysterious feel."

Hope you enjoy it. By the way, if you can think of a more creative title for it, I would be forever grateful! Post them in the comments. :)

Monday, April 19, 2010

If there's one thing I've learned from facebook fan pages, it's that we're really not that different after all.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Two answers to music-related questions

A couple more answers to questions, these ones rather music related.

Why don't you like top hit songs, but like classical music, upbringing?
The main reason is that simply, I don't think a lot of the top hit songs are very good. But I actually do listen to some "pop" music (*cough*Lady Gaga*cough*). It really depends on the music. I won't listen to it just because everybody else is listening to it. It's got to express something or make me think. But I actually do like a wide variety of music! The reason I like classical music so much is that I think there's really something to it! And judging by the fact that a lot of the good stuff has been around for hundreds of years, obviously other people think there's something to it as well! But yeah, my taste in music goes from J.S. Bach to Benjamin Britten, to Beethoven, to John Adams to the Beatles, to The Smiths, to Regina Spektor, to Loreena McKennitt to Queen to REM to Lady Gaga. I just love music! I can't say I'm super keen on rap, or heavy metal, or techno, but I'll listen to almost anything short of that. As for upbringing, my parents played a lot of classical and folk music when I was younger, so that has probably influenced my music taste, but now, I'd say I probably listen to the most varied in my household.

Do you like Rachmaninov: Piano Concertos #1 & 2?
Oh yeah! Rachmaninov's piano concertos are some of my favourite piano concertos! He actually wrote four of them (as well as a another work for piano and orchestra, his Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini). Out of the four concertos, his 2nd and his 3rd are the most well known. The Third concerto has a reputation for being one of the most difficult in the repertoire, as it takes a huge amount of technical skill, expressive power and lots of endurance to make it through the 50 minutes of intense playing. The Second concerto is probably the most played, because it's incredibly beautiful, and very popular. I have a real preference for the First Concerto, which in my opinion is very under appreciated (although I think it's very rapidly gaining popularity). The second movement of the 1st is just exquisite, and has this amazing dialogue between the flute and the piano. Just amazing. And then everybody forgets about the Fourth concerto, which just saddens me, because I think it's a great piece and needs your love too. But it always gets forgotten in preference for the 2nd and 3rd concertos.