"Resolutions"

Hey friends!

I was sitting in class this morning and thought, "I should write a blog post today," so here we are. January 8th, folks. How're the New Year's resolutions coming? Still going to the gym? My resolution last year was to drastically increase my intake of sushi (I'm not kidding, that was actually my 2012 resolution) and I succeeded! I don't really have one specific resolution this year, but I have a couple things that I'd like to work on.

The first thing is that I would like to get in that habit of composing every day. I've been feeling a bit musically uninspired in the past month, and it's easy to just say "oh, I've got writer's block blah blah blah," but writer's block is nothing more than a really bad excuse. 99% of the time, writing, composing etc does not come in flash of creative inspiration, but rather comes from just starting somewhere and practicing everyday, and working diligently on it. So I want to get in the habit of working on my music every single day, even if it's just getting one measure further on a piece, or just quickly jotting down a melody. Just something. 

My second "resolution" is to read more. I didn't read much last year. So I'm going to try to read 40 books/plays this year. Seems like a steep goal, cause it's almost one book/play a week, but I'll see how it goes. I'd also like to write more, so maybe I'll try to write a response here once I'm done each book?

The first book I'm reading is a book of interviews with one of my favourite composers, Stephen Sondheim. It's called Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions.

The next few books I'd like to read are:

1. Life of Pi (I read this a few years ago, but I'm reading it this term for a literature class, so I'm looking forward to rereading it.)
2. Pride and Prejudice (I've been enjoying the Lizzie Bennet Diaries on Youtube, which is a great vlog-style modern adaptation of the novel (excellently done), and I've seen a stage production of P&P but I've never actually finished the book. I've tried multiple times, but never really gotten into it, but I'm determined to finish it. Then maybe I'll read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? ;P)
3. Cloud Atlas (I just watched the film, and thought it was fascinating, and thought-provoking, so I'd love to read the original.) 

Any other book suggestions?

Oh! And I'm going to try to write a blog post once a week! I'm not naive enough to believe that I will be consistent, especially once the term workload gets heavy, but I'm really going to try.

Hope all is well with y'all! 

Dan

News

Hi. How are you? Life is really good with me. Like, really good. I'm just really, extraordinarily happy right now. Not because of anything in particular, but rather because of a combination of smaller things that have happened or are happening in the future.

Things that have happened since I last blogged:

The Wizard of Oz. I auditioned for a large community theatre production of The Wizard of Oz. The audition went really well, I thought, and weeks later, I found out that I had a callback. Went to the callbacks, and then the waiting began. The day that my dad and I (and two good friends of ours) left on a backpacking trip, I got a text from my mom saying "call me!". I called home, and found out that the director had called, and I was cast as the Tin Man! You guys, you have NO idea how excited I am! It's 16 shows in December in the largest theatre I've ever performed in (it's got a balcony!). I guess this show is kind of this years "huge annual Christmas family show" so it's usually sold out and really popular and stuff. It'll be great. Tragically, the man who was supposed to direct it suddenly passed away, but the assistant director has stepped in to direct and the show is going ahead. This may sound silly, but I'm also pretty excited to do WoO because when I was younger, The Wizard of Oz was actually a really big part of my life. I was kind of obsessed with it for a number of years, and when I was probably about 9, I had this big elaborate plan to mount my own production of The Wizard of Oz. I had the script ready, I'd contacted many of my friends to be in the production, and had double-cast myself as both the Wicked Witch of the West and the Tin Man. To this day, I still don't know how I thought I could manage that. :D But it's kind of cool, years later, to be indeed be playing the Tin Man in a much bigger productions (we're going to have flying monkeys that fly, people!).

Backpacking. As I mentioned, I went backpacking with a friend of mine from Scouts, his dad, and my dad. Great trip. We didn't have the best weather for the hike we wanted to do, and consequently had to change our plans a bit, but it was still a great trip. Backpacking is amazing and I look forward to many more trips.

The Fringe. I had the pleasure of being part of the Fringe festival this year in a show that I wrote the music in. (I think I've mentioned it before. One of my friends "concieved it" and wrote the book, then another friend of ours wrote the lyrics and I wrote the music). We got good reviews (my first ever reviews!!) and our last shows were sold out. We even made some money! Hurray!

I got my learner's license. Finally.

I also have applied for 5 jobs and haven't heard back from any of them. That's an achievement, right?

My most recent big news is that I'm going to school this year. Which is a big change for me, since I've been homeschooled my entire life. The school I'm going to allows lots of flexibility, and is self-directed. I can work at my own pace, and I don't have to "sit in a classroom", but I likely will have to be there (I haven't got my time-table yet) for regular school hours. It's crazy, but strangely, I'm really, really excited. It'll be a change, which will be nice. Not that I was unhappy homeschooling by ANY stretch, quite the contrary, but I was just looking for a change of pace, change of scene and a good way to get these courses done. And I'm taking French, and possibly Italian and Spanish, so I'm very excited about that! It just feels really right for me at this point in my life.

Lots more has happened, but this is long enough for today. :)

This summer has been fabulous, but I'm looking forward to jumping into new adventures. And I'm looking forward to blogging again!

I don't know if anybody reads this blog anymore, but if you do-thanks! If you read that entire post, survived, and are still planning on reading my blog, you rock and I love you.

Take care,
Dan

You know, it's amazing to me just how much energy we as humans spend complaining about the weather. It seems to me that out of the entire world, it's the only thing that we have absolutely no control over. In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if that's not exactly why we do it. The weather is one thing that we can complain about and not have somebody say "Well, if you don't like it, then do something about it!"

Update

Hi folks,

I obviously haven't been blogging recently, because I've very busy getting back into my regular schedule of life. I'm back at weekly piano and flute lessons, but not voice lessons yet because my teacher is busy being a new father. :) But I've started something new: Musical Theatre! Twice a week, for 3 hours. On Mondays, we alternate between dance and acting for the first half, and then have choral for the second half. And then on Thursdays, we have vocal masterclasses. It's fantastic, and I'm learning loads!

And of course, I have "school work" too. I'm also taking an online writing class, so that's good.

The theatre company I'm with is doing A Midsummer Night's Dream this November, so I'm just starting to get pretty busy with that too, directing, music writing, and lots of rehearsal scheduling! It's going to be fabulous.

Also, in case you didn't know, I went on a big backpacking trip to the mountains with my Venturer company, this past August. I'm working on a big series of blog posts on that, which I will post periodically.

Anyway, just thought I'd post a quick blog to let you know what I've been up to!

Take care,
Daniel

Indeed

Two-way dialogue is good.

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.

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

Oh and by the way....

Oh and by the way, I am not wearing a dress as Katherine in Henry V. Honestly, that's what everybody asks me, but seriously? It's hardly like dresses are the only thing that women wear. If you're a woman, look down at what you're wearing. Are you wearing a dress? I didn't think so. You're probably wearing pants.

Catching up

Hello everyone!

I haven't posted for a while, so I expect that this post will be quite a long one. I apologize.
At the moment, I am sitting in Second Cup drinking an Italian Soda. It's an absolutely beautiful day outside so I decided to walk over to Second Cup (it took me sixteen minutes). The sun is shining, there isn't a cloud in the sky and it's about +3 (which means that I can wear a spring/summer/fall jacket instead of a parka!). It's wonderful to take a break from everything and just enjoy the beautiful day.

My long hiatus from blogging can be blamed on many things. Mainly, I've been quite busy with Henry V I've had rehearsals almost everyday, and to be honest, I'm now cramming to get my lines into my head. Did I mention that my parts got changed? Instead of playing Alice (the maid to the Katherine), I am now playing Katherine, the princess of France. The guy playing Katherine had to drop out because of a family wedding in the middle of our performance run. So I took on that part along with the other two little parts I've got (Messenger and Grandpre).
We're 10 days away from preview night, and so the atmosphere at rehearsals has changed. Everybody is a lot more alert, focused and quickly hurrying to learn lines. The fight choreography is really coming together, but frighteningly, it seems that my choreography is kind of getting abandoned. We haven't ran it since learning the choreography. Eep! And the girl who is my "fight partner" is currently sick. So I've had to fight with a fake opponent. I know it'll all come together though. The whole thought of acting in a real theatre with real lights and a real technician and a green room and tech rehearsals and everything is still so exciting to me!

My graduation recital is all over and it went swimmingly! It actually went better than I could possibly have imagined! The piano that I was able to play on was this incredible Steinway. If you're not an musician, you might think this sounds crazy, but there are some instruments that you just connect with. It's crazy and sounds weird but honestly, when you touch the right instrument, it's just amazing. It feels completely natural and almost feels like you don't have to do much, like the instrument can feel what you want and respond. It's pretty crazy and I was fortunate enough make a connection like that with this piano. So it was a pretty amazing experience and I felt right at home playing. Thanks for all the support everyone and thanks to those of you who were able to come out!

I should probably write about something other than the arts so people think that I actually do something other than music and theatre. Ha! I actually finally finished that math textbook I was working through (Saxon Algebra 1/2). Ah, finally. It felt good to get it over with and now I can move on. And I got a good mark on the final exam too!

To change subject completely, I was reading The Screwtape Letters (by C.S. Lewis) this morning and I found a quote that I thought was really interesting. (It's in Letter XXI if you're curious to look it up).

Lewis says:
"Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury. And the sense of injury depends on the feeling that legitimate claim has been denied."
I thought this was a really interesting quote because I can really see the truth in it. We get angry about things because we think we have the right to something "better". We have this idea of what we think we should get out of life and get angry when we don't get exactly what we think we need. Maybe if we took a step back and appreciated what we were given, we would be happier. Hmmm.

Anyway, I think I'll wrap this post up now, so thanks for reading! By the way, I'm still planning on posting Part 3 of my last post. It will just be delayed, as I haven't written it yet. Lol.

Eeeee!! Stuff.

Okay, so after a long hiatus of being locked in my house at the piano, I am back! A lot of things have happened since I last posted. Wait, when did I last post? Too long ago, that's for sure.
This blog post will be in three parts.

PART 1: Henry V
A local University-College is doing a production of Henry V, and they had semi-open auditions. So, I auditioned, got a call back and got a role! Actually, three roles to be precise. Our director decided to do some unconventional casting, and so she cast all the women in the cast as the English, and all the men as the French. So I'm Alice (maid/lady-in-waiting to Katharine, the French princess), a messenger to the Grandpre, and the Grandpre himself. It should be fun. It's great to just have somebody else plan everything and tell me what to do and when to show up. I don't have to plan a thing! Yay. Thankfully, it's not devouring too much of my time or energy, because I have something else on my plate that is devouring my time and energy. This brings me to:

PART II: Piano Recital
In other news, as I mentioned briefly here, I am performing my Suzuki Piano Gradution Recital on February 13, which is like, tomorrow. When you complete all 7 volumes of the Suzuki Piano repertoire, you perform a solo recital, which is what I'm doing. Actually, I'm not exactly doing it the conventional way, as I'm only playing one piece of music from the Suzuki repertoire. Ha. But I do have a full hours worth of music memorized to play. So, I've been practising madly 3 hours a day. Btw, if you're interested, here is the program I'm playing.

F. Chopin
Polonaise Opus 26, No. 1 in C# Minor

W. A. Mozart
Piano Sonata in Bb Major, K. 281

S. Rachmaninoff
Prelude in C# Minor, Opus 3, No. 2

J. S. Bach
Partita No. 1 in Bb

I. J. Paderewski
Minuet in G, Opus 14, No. 1

A. Ginastera
Suite de Danzas Criollas 

Part III will come in another part, as I must go eat breakfast and get to practising.

Five Love Languages

Have you ever heard of the five love languages? There's a book about it by Gary Chapman, which I actually haven't read. But you can do a quick test on the official website. You can take it here. 

Basically, Gary Chapman says that there are five basic ways that we express love. Each of us has a primary way (or maybe two) that we use the most. The five are:

1. Words of Affirmation

2. Quality Time

3. Receiving Gifts

4. Acts of Service

5. Physical Touch

It's interesting to know what your primary one is and the primary ones of those around you, so that you can best show your love in the way that matters most to them. 

I just took the test and these were my results.

Your Scores (Out of 30 questions)

10	Words of Affirmation
8	Quality Time
0	Receiving Gifts
5	Acts of Service
7	Physical Touch

Interpreting and Using Your Profile Score

The highest score indicates your primary love language (the highest score is 12). It’s not uncommon to have two high scores, although one language does have a slight edge for most people. That just means two languages are important to you.

The lower scores indicate those languages you seldom use to communicate love and which probably don’t affect you very much on an emotional level.

So as you can see, my primary love language is Words of Affirmation, followed closely by Quality Time and Physical Touch. And check out my score for Receiving Gifts. Ha. Now these scores obviously don't mean that you don't use that language at all, it's just not your primary love language.

You can read more about the languages here.

Anyway, I strongly encourage that you check it out, take the "test" and encourage your family/friends to take it too.

Oh, and if you're comfortable, post your results in the comments below! I'm interested in knowing. (But no pressure)