Henry V

So, tonight is the dress rehearsal of Henry V, we have our first preview night tomorrow night, and by Sunday night, it will all be over!

Overall, it’s been good and good experience for me (ooh, something to put on my resume!). But it’s been exhausting and quite a big time commitment. I have to say that I haven’t felt full energy for a while now, especially with a big lack of sleep from Scout camp this past weekend which I don’t thing I’ve fully recovered from. It feels like the show is finally all coming together now, and despite tech rehearsals being slow and boring for the actors, it is pretty exciting to have lights, sound and set. But we’ll see how the dress rehearsal goes tonight.

I was talking to one of my friends, Zach, who is also in the show about this strange drug that is theatre. I mean, I always get soo stressed about it, and say “I can’t wait till this is all over”, and you get so sleep-deprived and sanity-deprived, and you think it will never end and then when it does, you know what you do? You do it all over again! I seem to have this annoying habit of taking on more that I should really be able to handle, but then when I’m finally done all my projects, I just get bored and take on more. Why, Daniel, why? But yeah, it’ll be nice to have Henry V be all over, and then I can have some free time.

Oh wait, actually I’m just getting started on another Shakespeare project. But that’s a story for another blog post….

Scriabin Prelude no. 9, op. 11

Hi everybody, I just wanted to post this little video that I recorded yesterday.



I wanted to record it and post it because  I think the music is just remarkable. It''s Scriabin's Prelude no. 9 from his Opus 11. I haven't been practising this piece long, so I hope you can get a sense of the music from my mediocre playing and video quality. What I love about this piece is that it's so rich, musically. It's only one page long, but he packs so many notes, and thick harmonies into it. Each prelude is like a perfectly formed package. And they're so intelligently composed! I mean each one has a beginning, middle and end, and every note is important. They're just brilliant! So I hope you enjoy this quick little video. Oh and by the way, if you want to hear this prelude played by a master- Here is a video of of the great Russian pianist Vladimir Horowitz playing it.

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.

*sigh* Comments

Hi everyone,
It is with great regret that I am announcing COMMENT MODERATION. Due to a large amount of icky spammers posting spam comments on my blog, I've decided to add a word verification box when you post a comment, and I will also be "moderating" comments. So when you submit one, it won't show up until I've reviewed it. Sorry about this. :( It's just that I'm getting tired of fake users posting links to stupid spammy websites. But don't let this stop you from posting comments! If it's really a problem, let me know, and maybe I'll revert it to it's former glory.

Spammers begone!

Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of posts/comment responses lately. I have lots on my plate right now.

Dentists and blood

I went today for my annual teeth cleaning and general tooth check-up at the dentist, and was quickly reminded of why I don't like going to the dentist. It's bloody painful. Oops, I mean bloody and painful. You see, I, um, don't floss. And so my gums are really sensitive and are rather prone to bursting and spewing forth lots of blood. When I brush my teeth every day, it's rare to have a day that they don't bleed. As both of my parental units told me today, if only I flossed, my mouth wouldn't bleed as much. In fact, my dad even gave me a stirring speech about how not flossing would cause bacteria to infiltrate my gums and make my teeth rot from the root up. Anyway, it was very painful having my teeth cleaned, and all I could think of as I was lying there bleeding on the dentist was, "gosh, do I really have to do this every year for the rest of my life?". Nice thought. I think I probably lost about 2-3 tablespoons of blood (I'm serious). By the time I got out of the chair, my teeth and gums felt like they had been stabbed, poked, prodded, scraped and gouged, (which, incidentally, they had been). So, I guess my new New Year's resolution is to floss. I flossed tonight and bled more.

Which brings me to another thought. I think I've said this before, but as I was staring at all the blood on my finger, I was thinking about how much I love the colour of my blood. Is that weird? Maybe it is. But it's such a beautiful, rich, bright red! I love it.

Hmm, what else? This has been kind of a rambling little post. Hey, actually, what do you think about this kind of post? Do you like the random little posts about my cool (read: weird) life, or do you like the more formalized posts?

Um...-insert lame title here-

Last night, I was thinking about what I do for fun. Obviously, the first things that crossed my mind were music and theatre. And then, as I was thinking about it, I considered whether I actually completely do them for fun. Clichéd as it sounds, they are more of a necessity to me, rather than pure entertainment. When you truly have a passion or a calling for something, it's not necessarily always a fun thing, but you just have to do it, because it's something that is essential to you.


A random note- I apologize for the lame titles of these posts. I can write posts, but I can never name them. It's almost comical.

Brainwashing

Well. After the overwhelming response to my last post, I can only guess that people don't like answering questions. Or don't like thinking about them (goodness, I hope it ain't so!). And that, my jolly friends, is precisely the topic of my post today. In my opinion, we don't think about big questions enough. We accept things too easily and move on to the next thing. After all, that's what our society teaches us to do. Fast food, disposable technology and and our whole obsession with "fast results" teach us to zoom through things without really taking notice about them. It's the same with ideas. We often don't think about them, and take them for granted, without putting them to a test and thinking for them for ourselves.  There are so many issues out there that people have opinions on, without really thinking through them and often without having researched for themselves. They've just heard them passed down from passed down from parents, friends, leaders etc. and never questioned them. Which is how brainwashing happens. Yay for our generation.

Think.

What's the issue?

What, in your opinion, is the biggest issue that is dividing people today?

Post your comments below (anonymous if you like)

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)

About the name of this blog

I don't think that I've ever posted about why this blog is entitled Musings of a Liber Boy. 

Liber is a Latin word that means free. It originates from the name for tree bark which was used in ancient times for writing on. Those who were free (and not slaves) were usually fortunate enough to be able to read and write, and so the "educated", or free folk were called liber.
I feel so fortunate to be truly free, both in mind and body, and so I put that in the title as a reminder to myself of what a blessing it is to be a free person.

The other part of the title is simply what this blog is about: musings. It's a place for me to write my thoughts, and my musings for other people to read. They might be just a couple thoughts, or they might be some formalized paragraphs, but they are always musings from a free, young guy (that's me).

Enjoy!

January 2nd, new year's resolutions, etc.

Today is January 2, the second day of the new calendar year. Of course, the year doesn't begin just because we say it does. You could really start the year at any point in the Earth's rotation around the sun. Regardless, the New Year is seen as a kind of "new beginning". People make all sorts of New Year's resolutions, which usually crash in the first month or two.

I think the reason for this is that although people get really excited about the idea of starting over, they simply aren't willing to change their behaviour, or they don't realise that they have to.

Our culture is so in love with the idea that "this year is going to be different". As if the change between December 31, 2009 and January 1, 2010 makes a difference at all! We should be making goals and "resolutions" the moment we think of them, rather than waiting for the New Year to change us. 

In my opinion, the way to change behaviour is a day by day thing. Instead of focusing on this year, (which is a pretty long stretch), we should focus instead on this week, or today. It's much more practical and much more achievable.

By all means, set yearly goals, but then don't just expect that you're going to achieve them unless you plan and work towards them on a day by day (or week by week) basis.

Anyway, all that said, here are my goals for 2010.

1. Increase the quality of this blog. I'd like to improve my writing, and delve "deeper" into topics of interest. Maybe this year, I'll do some writing about politics, religion, faith, etc.
2. Continue exercising regularly. In 2009, I got into a habit of using our Elliptical for an hour every second day at an increasing difficulty, and so I'm keeping that up. 
3. Begin writing a musical. I'm planning to write the script+lyrics/libretto during Script Frenzy in April, and then work on composing the music during the summer. I'm theoretically working on plot outlines now (actually, I do have ideas). I'm excited.

Okay, written down, those don't look particularly spectacular. Ha. I have more, but I'm not going to bother you with them.

In 2010, other milestones that will come up for me is that I'm doing my final Suzuki Piano recital (a solo recital!) on February 13. I'm majorly excited for that!

Also, on September 22, I turn 18, which means that in Canada, I will no longer be a minor and I will have all the legal rights, which include drinking (not applicable), smoking (not applicable), and voting (YES!!). Crazy. This year, people!!

Happy New Year!

On playing Bach and Mozart

I adore playing the music of Bach and Mozart (especially the Bach! It's glorious!), but at the same time, it makes me feel so inferior as a pianist. You see the wonderful thing, and the thing that makes it so difficult to play well is that it's so transparent. If you make one wrong note, or misplace the weight of your finger by an tiny degree, it stands out, and it sounds wrong. In short, you have to play it perfectly. When you're playing something really Romantic, like Chopin, you can get away (if you have to) with a slip, here or there, and most people won't notice. Not so with Bach. You have to be precise. And that precision, is precisely what makes it so wonderful to listen.

*sigh* I'm not there yet.