Blog
Happy Pi Day
Posted by Steven on Tue 2006-03-14 07:10:58 UTC #There are nine empty beer bottles and one vodka bottle in my apartment's living room. This explains why my roommates had so many loud friends here on Sunday...
So... tonight was interesting. A couple weeks ago, one of the choir members asked me if I'd be interested in singing for her jazz studies jury thing. I would be in a group of seven people (mostly CSUN graduates or students from Santa Monica College) singing two songs in front of the director of jazz studies. So I first looked at the songs on Friday, then we had rehearsals Saturday and Sunday, and we sang it today. The two songs were Mo' Joe, arranged by the choir member, which is a bebop song that the choir will be learning, and Virou Areia, which is a fast samba. Mo' Joe I had down pretty well, because I was given a recording of the Finale playback, while for the other song I was sometimes just mouthing the words (which was fine, since there was another bass). I got most of it, at least. Anyway, this was a fun experience for me. I've never sung with a group where you're just given music and asked to learn it, and you perform it a few days later. It's so different from the jazz choir experience I've been used to, where you're given music and you go over it with everybody else, for the most part. The ratio of time where you practice alone to where you practice with others is reversed. It's kind of refreshing to move that quickly. And people thought the performance went really well, too. We'll apparently be singing it all again, along with one other song (called Covenant/Recessional; kind of the same style as Episode: Prelude or Sing a Song of Song) at her recital later in the year.
After that performance, I went to our normal choir rehearsal, which had started around the same time as the performance. We went over our songs that we're singing at the jazz festival on Saturday, as well as Like Someone In Love, which we'll starting working on more next week. A couple of the SMC people sang along with us for that last song... always nice to have another bass. Though there was some bad news: we're on the waiting list for Reno, and it doesn't look hopeful that we'll be able to perform, in which case we won't be going. Guess I'll just have to hope that the DP choir's concert isn't in the middle of my finals or something.
Do you like text like this blog better justified or non-justified?
So... tonight was interesting. A couple weeks ago, one of the choir members asked me if I'd be interested in singing for her jazz studies jury thing. I would be in a group of seven people (mostly CSUN graduates or students from Santa Monica College) singing two songs in front of the director of jazz studies. So I first looked at the songs on Friday, then we had rehearsals Saturday and Sunday, and we sang it today. The two songs were Mo' Joe, arranged by the choir member, which is a bebop song that the choir will be learning, and Virou Areia, which is a fast samba. Mo' Joe I had down pretty well, because I was given a recording of the Finale playback, while for the other song I was sometimes just mouthing the words (which was fine, since there was another bass). I got most of it, at least. Anyway, this was a fun experience for me. I've never sung with a group where you're just given music and asked to learn it, and you perform it a few days later. It's so different from the jazz choir experience I've been used to, where you're given music and you go over it with everybody else, for the most part. The ratio of time where you practice alone to where you practice with others is reversed. It's kind of refreshing to move that quickly. And people thought the performance went really well, too. We'll apparently be singing it all again, along with one other song (called Covenant/Recessional; kind of the same style as Episode: Prelude or Sing a Song of Song) at her recital later in the year.
After that performance, I went to our normal choir rehearsal, which had started around the same time as the performance. We went over our songs that we're singing at the jazz festival on Saturday, as well as Like Someone In Love, which we'll starting working on more next week. A couple of the SMC people sang along with us for that last song... always nice to have another bass. Though there was some bad news: we're on the waiting list for Reno, and it doesn't look hopeful that we'll be able to perform, in which case we won't be going. Guess I'll just have to hope that the DP choir's concert isn't in the middle of my finals or something.
Do you like text like this blog better justified or non-justified?
Beware the Ides of March
Posted by Steven on Sat 2006-03-11 06:04:14 UTC #For someone who doesn't have perfect pitch, it's surprising how often I'll have a song going through my head (in this case, This Masquerade) and it turns out to be in the right key.
So, today is Friday... a day where I tend to do no homework and just relax, as it is the first day of my weekend. Though sometimes I go to the music building to practice, as I did today. I'm supposed to be able to sing three songs for which I'll be singing bass by tomorrow at 11:30am. I got these songs 11 days ago, I believe, and they're not easy songs. Hopefully I won't have too much trouble at the rehearsal, because I think we're performing them on Tuesday.
I played KotOR II over the the past couple weeks. It was good until the ending... but I guess that's to be expected when the publisher tries to rush game development. I'll probably play through it again if/when the restoration project is completed. Anyway, now Louis is offering to pay for EVE Online for me, so I'll probably play that. Of course, EVE's not a game where can just sit down and focus on it for long periods of time without doing anything else at the same time. You kind of have to multitask if you don't want to get too bored. (At least, that was the experience I got from the trial.) But still, it should be fun.
Oh, Epicenter went on a mini-tour last weekend. We performed in Bakersfield and Oxnard. I got to see my family in Bakersfield, which was nice. Though I think I liked the Oxnard performance better... I don't know if it sounded any better, but it felt better. And next weekend, we're going to the Royal High School Vocal Jazz Festival in Simi Valley (wow, a short drive to get to a jazz festival, amazing). The main attraction there will be Vocalogy, so that should be a good show.
Okay, I'm tired of writing now.
So, today is Friday... a day where I tend to do no homework and just relax, as it is the first day of my weekend. Though sometimes I go to the music building to practice, as I did today. I'm supposed to be able to sing three songs for which I'll be singing bass by tomorrow at 11:30am. I got these songs 11 days ago, I believe, and they're not easy songs. Hopefully I won't have too much trouble at the rehearsal, because I think we're performing them on Tuesday.
I played KotOR II over the the past couple weeks. It was good until the ending... but I guess that's to be expected when the publisher tries to rush game development. I'll probably play through it again if/when the restoration project is completed. Anyway, now Louis is offering to pay for EVE Online for me, so I'll probably play that. Of course, EVE's not a game where can just sit down and focus on it for long periods of time without doing anything else at the same time. You kind of have to multitask if you don't want to get too bored. (At least, that was the experience I got from the trial.) But still, it should be fun.
Oh, Epicenter went on a mini-tour last weekend. We performed in Bakersfield and Oxnard. I got to see my family in Bakersfield, which was nice. Though I think I liked the Oxnard performance better... I don't know if it sounded any better, but it felt better. And next weekend, we're going to the Royal High School Vocal Jazz Festival in Simi Valley (wow, a short drive to get to a jazz festival, amazing). The main attraction there will be Vocalogy, so that should be a good show.
Okay, I'm tired of writing now.
Hey, it's February.
Posted by Steven on Sat 2006-02-04 07:30:16 UTC #Well, I don't really have anything to do right now (at least nothing that I either want to do or can't be done much later), so I guess I'll find some way to distract myself. Maybe by writing a blog entry.
So, the first week of my second semester at CSUN is now over. I haven't even written about the first one. My last actual entry was about Europe, back in July. And before that trip, there's a huge gap that includes, oh, I don't know, maybe graduation from high school and all of the other post–CC semester–and–AP test (look, en dashes!) stuff. Oh well. I might go back and write about it later. I probably won't.
They're playing annoying music upstairs again. It's rather loud right now. It usually lasts less than 15 minutes, but they seem to be playing it more tonight... probably because it's the weekend and maybe they think, “Who's going to be studying on a Friday night, anyway?” Well, me, for one, and the thumping bass is annoying in any case. Sadly, low frequencies transmit the best through floors and through my headphones. I can just drown out the other frequencies with my own music if I can hear them.
I'm listening to one of the songs we're singing this semester. It's called Beautiful Love, arranged by Matt Falker (our director, for those of you who don't know). I like the ending. Well, I like the entire song (and the solo section; I might try to get it), but I like the ending the most—probably because it's like a ballad, and I haven't sung a ballad this year so far. We should get to Like Someone In Love (arranged by Gene Puerling, Singers Unlimited) some time this semester, though.
I keep fast-forwarding my music while writing this. I've gotten used to my laptop's keyboard shortcuts for Home, End, etc. and they happen to be about the same as my desktop's Winamp shortcuts.
Yay for random rambling. I suppose that statement is somewhat redundant. Anyway, I realized some time ago that the reason I didn't update my blog much (aside from the fact that I don't generally like writing) is that I felt like I had to write about stuff that's happened since my last update, which takes too much effort, unless I'm in a really good mood and a writing mood at the same time, which, as you can see by my diffuse entries (woo, double meaning), isn't very often. But then I realized that I didn't. Yes, it's nice to have a personal history to read, but I suppose I'll live without it.
Our air conditioner is broken. Apparently there's a problem on the roof (hopefully they'll fix it soon). So our air conditioner is really good at blowing air around right now, and that's about it. Luckily it's cooled down to 57° outside; it was 81° earlier, and that was a bit too warm for me.
I suppose I should write something about my classes. Let's see... this semester's accents are Spanish, German, and Chinese. But at least they can all form coherent sentences, unlike a certain professor last semester. So far my favorite class (aside from choir) is Comp 222 (even though we haven't really done anything in any of our classes yet), probably because the professor has a sense of humor. Or maybe because, of the one lecture that I've had in each class, his seemed to be the easiest to follow. The worst class award looks like it's going to Hist 271. While not too big of a surprise (it is a history class, after all), it's winning the award this early in the game because we'll be required to write a series of letters from the perspective of an African-American who lived some time between 1865 and now. Creative (albeit historically based) writing. Bleh. Oh, and the one extra credit opportunity is a 6–10 page essay. In other news, I don't know who my physics lab teacher is yet, because the original one couldn't do it and the new one was busy this week, so they sent a sub to our first session.
Hm, apparently my new roommate (no, I haven't changed rooms yet) goes to sleep early (that is, 11:17; I generally go to sleep around 4 because of my schedule). And he closed the window. Pity, now it'll be all hot again tomorrow. Oh well, more ice packs for me. Wow, and after three minutes he's already snoring. Hopefully I can open the window a bit while he's asleep.
And now I can't think about anything else to write about. I guess that means I get to see how often people check this blog now, seeing how once every couple months would have been enough.
So, the first week of my second semester at CSUN is now over. I haven't even written about the first one. My last actual entry was about Europe, back in July. And before that trip, there's a huge gap that includes, oh, I don't know, maybe graduation from high school and all of the other post–CC semester–and–AP test (look, en dashes!) stuff. Oh well. I might go back and write about it later. I probably won't.
They're playing annoying music upstairs again. It's rather loud right now. It usually lasts less than 15 minutes, but they seem to be playing it more tonight... probably because it's the weekend and maybe they think, “Who's going to be studying on a Friday night, anyway?” Well, me, for one, and the thumping bass is annoying in any case. Sadly, low frequencies transmit the best through floors and through my headphones. I can just drown out the other frequencies with my own music if I can hear them.
I'm listening to one of the songs we're singing this semester. It's called Beautiful Love, arranged by Matt Falker (our director, for those of you who don't know). I like the ending. Well, I like the entire song (and the solo section; I might try to get it), but I like the ending the most—probably because it's like a ballad, and I haven't sung a ballad this year so far. We should get to Like Someone In Love (arranged by Gene Puerling, Singers Unlimited) some time this semester, though.
I keep fast-forwarding my music while writing this. I've gotten used to my laptop's keyboard shortcuts for Home, End, etc. and they happen to be about the same as my desktop's Winamp shortcuts.
Yay for random rambling. I suppose that statement is somewhat redundant. Anyway, I realized some time ago that the reason I didn't update my blog much (aside from the fact that I don't generally like writing) is that I felt like I had to write about stuff that's happened since my last update, which takes too much effort, unless I'm in a really good mood and a writing mood at the same time, which, as you can see by my diffuse entries (woo, double meaning), isn't very often. But then I realized that I didn't. Yes, it's nice to have a personal history to read, but I suppose I'll live without it.
Our air conditioner is broken. Apparently there's a problem on the roof (hopefully they'll fix it soon). So our air conditioner is really good at blowing air around right now, and that's about it. Luckily it's cooled down to 57° outside; it was 81° earlier, and that was a bit too warm for me.
I suppose I should write something about my classes. Let's see... this semester's accents are Spanish, German, and Chinese. But at least they can all form coherent sentences, unlike a certain professor last semester. So far my favorite class (aside from choir) is Comp 222 (even though we haven't really done anything in any of our classes yet), probably because the professor has a sense of humor. Or maybe because, of the one lecture that I've had in each class, his seemed to be the easiest to follow. The worst class award looks like it's going to Hist 271. While not too big of a surprise (it is a history class, after all), it's winning the award this early in the game because we'll be required to write a series of letters from the perspective of an African-American who lived some time between 1865 and now. Creative (albeit historically based) writing. Bleh. Oh, and the one extra credit opportunity is a 6–10 page essay. In other news, I don't know who my physics lab teacher is yet, because the original one couldn't do it and the new one was busy this week, so they sent a sub to our first session.
Hm, apparently my new roommate (no, I haven't changed rooms yet) goes to sleep early (that is, 11:17; I generally go to sleep around 4 because of my schedule). And he closed the window. Pity, now it'll be all hot again tomorrow. Oh well, more ice packs for me. Wow, and after three minutes he's already snoring. Hopefully I can open the window a bit while he's asleep.
And now I can't think about anything else to write about. I guess that means I get to see how often people check this blog now, seeing how once every couple months would have been enough.
