I had been planning on being so super productive this summer.....
I had big plans of doing so much composing, but as of now, I've done no composition whatsoever. The closest I've come is having started to almost work on the dance film project. I've written down one chord that sounded like a train, although I will most likely change that chord between now and the final product.
I'm starting to even feel guilty about not having spent this summer working my ass off to become a better composer - As it is, I'm years behind the other people that will be doing the MMus program in terms of experience in writing things... I should not be sitting on my laurels, I should be using the time during the summer to write so much stuff.
Nevertheless, I don't have that inspiration, and my days are already starting to fill up with rehearsals and all of that stuff. Tomorrow my day is filled with things to do straight from 9am up until 10 or 11 pm... and the rest of the week is similarly 10+ hour days. Looking at my schedule... it snuck up on me.. I knew that July was going to go by quickly.. It looks like the next time I will have time to think about anything other than musical theater in some capacity, it will be the tail end of July, right into August.
I am planning on visiting my sister and her husband in Thompson during the first week of August, before I start ballet work because as soon as the ballet is done it's summer session, I'm moving to London.
In other words, my move is sneaking up on me very quickly. I think I will be prepared. I'm spending some time today ripping my favorite CD's onto my computer. I don't want to take them with me (another thing I'm going to be storing at my parents' house).
So, I've been playing on the IKEA website, and I think I can get the kind of desk I want by simply choosing a table top and then some kind of legs. I spent a lot of time trying to find the perfect desk - what I really want is a large working area on the desk, but usually that costs a lot of money, and you can only get that in one of those huge wooden office desks. Now, don't get me wrong; that would be absolutely amazing, BUT I don't have 700$ to spend on a desk... I don't have that much to spend on anything really. Anyway, for much less, I can get something that will suit my needs!
I also played around yesterday with the monitor from the home computer seeing how great the extended desktop feature is... I love it. I'm getting a very large LCD monitor for my computer from my wonderful sister so that I can see everything on the computer screen when I'm composing for large ensembles. It will also be large enough that I can use it as a TV screen for watching movies or whatnot.
5 comments:
Good luck finding a nice work desk!
$700 table from IKEA sounds quite big, is your new apartment really big? if so, I'm jealous!!!!
hey, what program/software do you use to compose music? just curious...
I use a computer program called Sibelius. The two biggest names in music notation software are Sibelius and Finale. They are both good, but each has it's own pros and cons.
Cool, is there any specific software that's recommended for Mac?
Do they teach how to use those composing programs at Uni(when you take composing courses) or you have to learn on your own?
Both programs are available on Macs. I've heard that Sibelius keyboard shortcuts make a bit more sense on Macs, but who knows.
The programs have extensive reference guides - similar to programs like Photoshop. It's mostly a learn as you go kind of thing. When you want to do something, you spend hours of your time to figure out that one little detail... All the profs I've run into use at least one of the programs, so between them and other students at the university, there's bound to be someone that has had your problem before.
As much as they are able to do, computer programs are still very much limited in capacities - it's not financially viable for the companies to tailor the programs to the modern composers who are pushing the envelope of what notation means... it's aimed largely at bands, church musicians for services...
Anyway, those are my two cents.
I see. I think the situations are quite similar to uni (art)students who wants to do 3D graphics and stuff. I came across so many limitations for what I wanted to do in 3D programs, and yes, small silly thing takes sometime up to few hours to figure out...!!! I didn't enjoy that part. hahaha.
and you know what, I also think that most short cuts make more sense with Mac. Programs like Macromedia and adobe, they are so much easier on Mac than PC. But I figured out that with CS3 they solved that problems, there were more useful shortcut on PC version as well (but haven't tried the mac version yet, so who knows...)
But yeah, I do agree that most softwares are aimed for 'general' audiences and if you want to do something really specific, it's hard.
anyways, thanks for your tips!
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