I'm getting a little worried...

Smart Michael wouldn't worry about this until he finishes his school work, but that's not the Michael we know and love... [That one is a little more narcissistic]
At the end of the summer I had sent out my permissions requests - there were two. I heard back promptly from one and I'm still waiting on the other. I had sent a request for confirmation that my request was being processed and I received that over 10 weeks ago. The whole process is supposed to take 6-10 weeks total. I'm fairly certain that it had been in processing for 5-6 weeks when I sent that request. Moral is: it's been about 15 weeks and I just want to know already.
While I really want a yes, I would actually prefer an email on Monday saying, no, rather than having to wait any longer. Basically, I need to get the bulk of this composition done over my Christmas break. I knew my time line and I made sure to send out requests with extra time. As in - I sent a confirmation request with enough time that even if it magically disappeared, I would have time to file a new one.
Right now, I'm at the point where if I don't hear within the week, I need to cut and run and pick a new poem altogether. Of course, I send the most recent email tonight, Friday night - so that I get to wait all of Saturday and Sunday and then maybe have a response on Monday, if I'm lucky!
With all the copyrights issues in general, it's a wonder that ANYONE would be willing to use any previously written words!

Anyway, I've bitched enough for the night, back to work.
By the way, things are going well with my work so far. I've spent all afternoon/evening/night... working on orchestration and I'm making good progress. Tomorrow I'll continue, but work more on my own compositions, be they electroacoustic or for piano trio. Therefore, I will be going to the school tomorrow, and actually leaving my apartment!

Who was I kidding - of course I'll find time to blog: that's what keeps me sane!

Electro class - went surprisingly good. For the protools section, it seems like I've spent endless hours and still only gotten a lukewarm response to it. I had only spent a few hours preparing the keyboard sections for class today, and yet, the feedback was super. While this is not good for motivating to continue the hard work, I will pull through. The basic consensus was that I should take some of the ideas of the keyboard stuff and relate the protools more to that. In the end, I have about 1 week to pull it all together and then it will be spectacular!

Tomorrow I'm giving the final test to 2 of my 3 sight-singing classes. This term has wrapped up so quickly. I'm glad that once this test is over, I'm done for the term, I just have to hand in the marks.

Things coming in the mail - Since no-one has sent me anything in the mail, even though I published my address on facebook and email... I had to start ordering things online to make use of my mailbox...
Today I got a USB keypad for my laptop. Sibelius uses those keys for some functions, so now I can use the program more efficiently.
Yesterday I got a book that I ordered used off of Amazon. It was a library book - complete with markings, stamps, and catalogue number and label. I've bought books from libraries before and they are always clearly stamped 'discharged' or 'discard'; this was not. This got me thinking - Who would steal a library book and then sell it for profit?!? I saw the opportunity to make use of my US/Canada long distance freeness and I looked up and called the library in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (I love their accents).
In the end, they are a small library and not-computerized so they don't have a record of having or discarding the book. The lady seemed to be in disbelief that someone would call about that, and thanked me for informing them, but told me not to worry about it - that they most likely wouldn't have use for a book like that anyway.
It was a bible thumper Evangelist bible college library. They put me on hold and it was the namesake evangelist talking about the devil and stuff like that; between that and the accents, the phone call was totally worth my while!

A week and a day until I fly back to Winnipeg, I'm excited! Mostly to see friends and family, but also mostly because then I'll have finished with school work for a while ish (I know it's a lie, but let me believe it just for a while).

Wow!
This term is ending so quickly. So much to do, so I'm not sure how much I'll be posting in the next little while. Orch and Comp will be hardcore until monday and tuesday, respectively.
I have my last electro Class-class tomorrow, we are presenting our pieces the following week, so it's not as much of a class. If there are major things to change from that presentation, I'll try and get them done in the few days before I leave for Winnipeg because after a month of not touching it, I'm not sure how familiar I will be with what I wrote... at the same time, I will need to play it at the end of the year, so it needs to be detailed. I basically want it to be finished before I leave. I am going to the lab tonight. While most of my work has been focused on the ProTools playback element, I'm going to focus tonight on the performance element - using the keyboard - this makes up the outer two sections of the piece. I also need to do a fair bit of work on the ProTools, but argh, time management...
Long story short, I have a heck of a lot of work to do this week!

The Saga Never Ends

I know there's a few of you out there who will enjoy the punchline of this story.

Last week I was on the bus and my glasses fogged up, I took them off and out popped my lens. No big deal, I put them in my pocket and since then I've been wearing my other pair, the RayBans; you know, the one's I've had for about 2 years now.
Long story short :
Punchline - Sitting with a friend at a recital on Friday, she looks at me and asks, "Are those new glasses?"

In conclusion - the world is still not ready for a person who owns and switches between wearing more than ONE pair of eyeglasses.

I just thought I'd let you all know that it's nearing 4pm on a Saturday afternoon and I still haven't showered or even changed out of my pyjamas. I might get dressed if I decide to go to the school to work on electro tonight. That all depends on how much of my orchestration project I get done today.
For those of you who know how indecisive I am, you can still only imagine how difficult orchestration is for me, not in the academic sense, but in terms of being forced to make decisions. Orchestration is making endless decisions and every one effects the other decisions you will have to make around it. The key is finding the important areas where the decisions are the most important and then working around that.
Nevertheless, I find it fascinating and very interesting to see how one little change can really open up so many doors to new possibilities that weren't previously there.

Weekend = busy with worky!

This week just flew by.
In electro class today, my prof commented that my piece had really come a long way since he last saw it. That made me feel good. Then he went on to make comments on how I can make it better. After having spent a lot more time on it this week a)it damn well better have improved and b) I was feeling anxious to hear his comments - what if it still sucked?!? Luckily it didn't completely suck, he had some good things to say - he just wants me to change the focus from events to developing textures.

The internet seems to think that I am now foreign... Google is giving me search results in Spanish, and craigslist seems to think I always want to go to Berlin... which I do, but it used to always go to the last city I had been to. Maybe this is its way of telling me to stop looking at apartment rates in other cities... Berlin is the place to go.

I just realized right now what a good influence my roommate is on me. He is always working/studying around the apartment, it makes me feel like I should do the same, so I do. He is gone for the whole weekend, so - alone in the apartment- I am lacking that drive to be as productive. Nevertheless, that drive has to be there, so I will force it into high gear. This is my second last weekend to do work.

AHHHHHH! I just looked at the calendar... not only is next weekend my last weekend to finish up these term projects, but in 2 weeks and a day, I will be flying back to Winnipeg!
I am almost one quarter finished my Master's!!

It's an odd sensation to be working with such momentum right now at the end of the term. It is momentum for the sake of momentum.... with no real end goal.
None of my term projects actually have to be completely finished by the end of this term. Orchestration needs to be finished by Jan 15th, meaning that I will basically be using the break to do the parts and score, so I do need to have a good sense of what I will be doing before I leave for the break. My composition doesn't need to be finished until the first week of February. For electro, on the last day of class, we are having a close-to-finished performance, but the piece won't actually be performed until the end of the year. At the same time, I will need to write another piece next term, so I won't want to be spending my time editing the first one, so I'll treat the end of this term as an actual due date.
After having just typed that out, I don't believe what I said before about no real end goal... these things TOTALLY have to be done in 2 weeks, yay for buckling down as of now!

Good Night!

Starting to feel real progress!

For the first time today, I felt like I was really in control of what was going on in the electroacoustic studio. 2 minutes of my piece is pretty much completely done and it was the finniky part - the middle section where I took the sound samples and sculpted them into a little 2 minute piece which serves as the middle section of the piece. I will probably have to revise this a little to allow for the performance aspect to be involved, but generally now I just have to make the outer sections which should mirror each other.
I did a lot of the prep work today using the keyboard and the digital effects editor that I will be using as the live performance element of the piece. For the longest time, I was not able to find a digital effect that had what I was looking for; today I did! On second thought, there's probably a lot of different effects I could use, there was a problem with the mixing board that was making me think none of the effects were working properly. Nevertheless, this one is good and has a lot of reverb. There are a few parameters of the effect which I can change in small intervals to make it seamlessly change from a highly processed to an unprocessed sound.

I listened to a lot of Scriabin today, and over the weekend. While reading scores, I have listened to and studied(somewhat) all 10 of his piano sonatas and the his first two symphonies totaling nearly 4 hundred pages of music. I also listened to his piano concerto, his fourth symphony and his symphonic poem "Prometheus". I think I am now much more aware of his style in general. I realized that the sound which I had long associated with Scriabin is that of his early works, of the Romantic period. However, the sound of his 'chord of mystery' which characterizes the Scriabin that most musicians think of and refer to, doesn't appear until later in his output.
The development through his musical output is astonishing. His influences of Chopin and Debussy are obviously there, but one also hears his own influence on all of modern pianism. I can now trace the line of Debussy to modernism in piano writing that I never really understood before.

In terms of my own composition. After the reading session, I applied the notation changes and added in tempo markings and now I have quite a detailed score. I think I have a good balance of enough detail, but not stiflingly so. I also started to re-evaluate the piece itself. My prof's major comment was that the piece lacked counterpoint - looking at it, I agree. I had tried to emulate the rhythms of speech/conversation, but I guess I forgot that dialog is never limited to back and forth - my musical depiction where the two voices never cross really doesn't represent that with any realism. My initial thought is that I will be able to fix this with some additions, then I will have to reevaluate that and see if it needs some structural alterations as well.
Aside from the dialog element, I had earlier left a more 'pure music' section with a blank area so that a secondary melodic line could interweave there, but I was at a loss for words when it came to filling in that blank. I feel a little refreshed about the piece after this weekend, so that should sort itself out when I get to a piano next.
I still have to do some work for my orchestration meeting tomorrow, while the listening I did will surely benefit what I learn in the course, I still have to have the work to show for what I've learned!

Yesterday was a long day. Rather than an electro class, I had a meeting with the prof. Basically I have been feeling really negative about the class because it seems to take me an inordinate amount of time to do anything. He as reassuring, as well as two other people I talked to during the day; letting me know that everyone takes excessive time at first. It's amazing how having your feelings validated can change your outlook on a situation. Now that I know it is pretty much a matter of spending more time, even though I knew that all along, I will spend more time more often in the lab. I will go today.
The big event of yesterday was the piano trio reading. They played from the version I had sent a few weeks ago so a lot of the finely detailed things had been fixed since then. However, they gave me some helpful feedback. The common thread between most composers yesterday was a lack of tempo markings and details. The trio questioned my use of 'free' notation - they found it hindering. This was something that I wasn't completely convinced with myself - it is difficult to find the balance of enough detail to give the performer what they need, while not nailing them down to the fine details. While I didn't get a cut in stone answer of how I need to notate it, I now have some good insight into how to approach it.
I wanted to go to the masterclass they were doing today with my piano trio, but I think I slept in too late. I had a very active dream night - it's interesting that my subconscious is so thinly veiled when I do have dreams.
I always dream about daily events. The main dream late this morning/afternoon was me going to the masterclass of my trio and talking to the Fibonacci players afterwards - the dream did not actually involved my trio's players. In my dream, as I talked to the violinist, she commented on how unfortunate it is that our school has such strong performers, but composers who don't even write tempo indications. Can you say Self-Confidence Issues?!? Nevertheless, notice that subconscious Michael wasn't willing to label Western's composers as bad, only pointing out that they don't write tempo indications.
Perhaps this is subconscious Michael trying to cope with the fact that no judgement was shown by the trio yesterday, only constructive criticism. I was probably expecting some subjective judgement, and now I'm trying to read some into it.... But there isn't any, so I will stop.
The moral of the experience with the trio is that I need to be more detailed in my indications. This has been something I've been battling since my very first composition lessons. I need to come to terms with the fact that while I want freedom in music, not everyone has the same definition of freedom, or means of attaining it.
I have spent too much time writing this already. Now I am going to write in some edits for my trio score and then head off to the school and spend the evening making electronic music!

Can you say snow?!?

Holy Moly!
Yesterday, it was the first time it was actually snowing, I had snowflakes all over my sweater - made it look all sparkly, however, I never expected it to stay. Muchless did I expect it to look like it does this morning.
I am terrible with estimates of how much snow in terms of centimetres and whatnot, but there is a thick layer of snow covering the ground, the trees, and the cars outside - it is now, visually the middle of winter. This is shocking and exciting.
I've been warned about the buses here when it snows, so I'm going to leave extra early today, enough time to make sure that I'm not late for class.
Today, the Fibonacci trio is playing my piano trio at the workshop. I am also going to an opera concert tonight - not an opera, but random selections from the repertoire.
Anyway, the snow has me filled with happy energy, so off I go!
I had time to snap a quick photo:

Today was just not my day for timing.
I intended to work on my electro piece for hours this afternoon. I got there at 3:35ish. The other guy in my class had the exact same intention, except at 3:30, therefore, I went home and did some reading and listening before I went back to the school in the evening.
I helped a friend with separating some tracks and burning a cd for an audition. I could have gotten it all done in about 15-20 minutes on my laptop, but I was forcing myself to do it on the school computer so I could get better at using protools. This was a mistake - it took well over an hour. and seemed needlessly complicated.
Anyway, after I finished that, I started working on my own project. Slow progress. I started to play around with some of the sounds, creating sounds that do not sound like the original. This was kinda the moral of my last class. The prof's comments were that some sounds were useful, but when they sound too similar to something concrete, it will be difficult for the listener to divorce those connotations from that sound.
I think I've changed directions with the piece. I'm going to have the interface/performance element be interactive via the listener. It will take advantage of that connotation element. Nevertheless, I need to spend more time in the lab and with the sounds - so I will go again to the school tomorrow.

I had completely forgotten.
This is not just another day that was randomly named by some facebook group, or on the internet. The recognition of a day around the world for diabetes was a joint venture of the International Diabetes Foundation and the United Nations.
World forces are recognizing that diabetes is an epidemic.
They are trying to raise awareness amongst the general population.

The question I pose to everyone today is -

What do you know about diabetes?


The answer, whether you are diabetic yourself or not at all affected is -

Not enough.


I ask everyone to do something today to become a little more aware of diabetes. Maybe you will type in 'World Diabetes Day' in google and read up on events and the day itself. Read about the Unite for Diabetes Campaign or go to the World Diabetes Day website.

But don't limit yourself to the internet - your ability to effect positive change today is two-fold. Talk to other people - you can both inform yourself AND get other people involved just by asking them a)what they know about diabetes and b)to learn a little more.
Please don't treat this like a facebook request to send out an email or other intangible. Use your voice and words to talk to people.

Have a great day everyone!

Wow, long time without posting... I feel a little guilty.
The weekend was a blast - it was awesome to have Fi out here to visit, even though she killed my gnome. RIP Gnorman.

[Insert hour long pause here]

Wow, I just ended up doing a last minute extensive edit to my piano trio which will be played on friday - suddenly I don't feel like typing a blog entry... I'm going to go watch some TV and maybe I'll feel inclined in a little while.

Damn it - today was pretty much a total waste. It was icky out, so I didn't leave the apartment except to check the mail... and I did laundry, but that's just down a flight of stairs.
Not to be completely negative, I did do some good things today : I cleaned a bit, room looks bigger without clothes all over the floor. I did laundry. I got a little bit more of the piano trio notated into the computer - no new material written, but more has been specified in terms of notation.
Regardless of the weather, tomorrow I need to get to the school to a)compose at the piano b) do more electro homework and c) buy groceries.
I am achy right now, while I'm tired, I know that I won't be able to sleep. Legs hurt from the humidity. It's been raining all day, might have even snowed... it was supposed to be a mix of rain and wet snow.
My electro class is for sure not happening on Friday = good. I'm waiting for confirmation, but it will most likely be on thursday so I will have that completely out of the way for the weekend.

Despite a massive chunk of doing nothing in the middle of the day, today was a fairly successful day. In the morning I finished giving the SightSinging tests and then I went to the electro lab to do some work. I got the necessary samples into the synthesizer for my project. From there I need to play around and figure out how the samples need to be transposed and used so that they relate mumbly. I know what needs to be done, it's just a lot of listening and playing around in order to get things to the point of being usable.

I came home and internetted/napped/ate lunch from 1 - 4pm. Then I went back to the school. Originally I was going to go to school, work and then take a break for dinner. While I left my house at 4:30 for the bus, I didn't get to my bus transfer point until after 5pm... I literally could have walked in 15 minutes, BUT I waited for the bus out of spite. It should have been there right when I got there... Bastard Bus! Pissy, I went to Wendy's for supper and had a frosty, Yum!
Eventually I got to the school. I did got some composing done and then I went to the electro lab again, this time to do the listening assignment for this week. They were long pieces, but I enjoyed them. By that point, I was ready to go home, but then I stopped in the big class/room with piano in Talbot College and I ended up composing for another hour or so. I forced myself to fill in certain gaps before leaving. Basically, the opening dialogue of my piece is well, certainly not finished, but in formation.
The 'dialogue' sections are based on the rhythm and shaping of speech / language. I had marked the rhythm of these sections, but not notes. I had a few of the gestures notated with notes, but today I forced myself to choose notes and gestures. For the first time in the process, I allowed myself to just compose, like my prof had suggested, rather than planning everything and fitting the notes in as result of the plans. Especially for the piano part, it was great to be writing this at the piano.
Speaking of piano - I started relearning a piece that I played for my ARCT examination / undergrad auditions. Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No. 5 in E minor. It is a great piece and I want to be able to play it again, not just random snippets that I recall vaguely how to play.
I am feeling some of the contrast between how I used to play it and how I am trying to relearn it. I can feel it, it's blatant which areas I never really learned reliably the first time around. Applying some of the practice methods and technical skills I learned over the last few years will make the relearning process efficient and I will be able to play the piece super well with less than major effort. It was the first really big piece I ever played. Huge and Romantic and I played it with a certain passion back then, but I think now I'm a little more mature and wiser, and I think I will be able to do more with the piece this time around.
I'll be honest, I've been toying with the idea of entering a performance competition here. I need to find out some details about it. It wouldn't be much, I would just have to submit a recording of myself for the first round. I could use this piece as the second and third round piece if I even made it that far. Anyway, I'll see what my options are...

Gitch!

Since people have stopped commenting and assumedly reading, I'll write one of those "why the heck would be blog about That?!?" posts.

After I blogged this morning, I realized I should do laundry as I was running out of clean underwear. Then I realized that it's always the underwear I run out of first. I was suddenly hit by the universal truth - why wash if you can buy!?
I kid you not, if I won the lottery, high up on my list of to-do's would be buying new socks and underwear everyday. A brand new pair everyday?!? wow!
Off I went to my favorite underwear store - Giant Tiger!
Needless to say, I now won't have to do laundry for another week!
Although I don't think Laundry Day would be Fiona's idea of fun while she's here for the weekend.

I did a fair bit of planning today for my electro piece... After I teach tomorrow, I will be going to the lab to fiddle around with some of the plans I have. I'm actually really interested to see how my piece will start unfolding. Lately I've been working the wrong way in the lab - using random sound samples merely to do a function that I know the lab can do. What I need to do now is use the tools of the lab to explore what it CAN do that I don't already know about = explore!
I talked on the phone tonight, too much so I wasn't very productive. Focus Mikey, Focus!
Before I go to bed, I will try and input some more of my piano trio score into the computer

Good Night.

I just realized as I was lying in bed before getting up just how busy this end of term is going to be. At first I thought it wouldn't be bad because I only have the electroacoustic piece which is to be performed in class on the last day of term. but then, I realized that both my Piano Trio as well as my Orchestration assignment need to be handed over as soon as I get back from break. This means that the break will be spent making sure all the parts look nice and generally editing the pieces. I'm not even sure if I will have a class/lesson on them before having to hand them in, so basically, I need to have them finished before I leave London for Christmas.
At the same time, maybe I just need to accept the fact that this IS independent work and I shouldn't be latching on to what a prof might say.
The moral of this story is that I am going to get as much work done as possible on my own for everything so that I am prepared for whatever might change along the way.
For electro, we are supposed to have a relatively detailed plan for our pieces by next class - from there it will just be a process of doing the work and processing the sounds and setting things up for the performance. I want to get that done this weekend so that it's out of the way, then during the week, I can actually start to implement some of those plans!

I am very excited for next weekend. My friend Fiona is coming to London to visit. I really haven't been social lately, so her visit will be timely, she is a genuine FunMaster!
I will let the weekend serve as inspiration for me to get as much done this week as possible. My lesson is on the Tuesday right after the weekend, but Fiona is here until Monday evening. I don't want to be a bad/boring host, so I need to make sure that school work won't interfere too much with her visit. There's already going to be a big chunk of lame on Friday because I have class pretty much all day - nevertheless, that means that Electro will be out of the way and I can ignore it until the following tuesday/wednesday.
At the same time, the studio is really cool and I think Fiona would enjoy seeing some of the things you can do with it so maybe I can incorporate some work into that...
Anyway, I don't really have anything planned for her visit because, well, it's me AND its Fi. We're random and planning things would be LAME!

Ok, I've wasted enough of my Sunday morning blogging. It's time to go and do something productive, YAY!

musings at the end of a rather long day

Being at the university for 7am was rather early, but not the worst thing. The sun wasn't even up when I got to the university. It was cool, dark and unpopulated - just how I like it!

I got to play a bit for my choreographer and some of the dancers. It wasn't as inspiring as my initial experiences with the YoungLungs, but they are a very receptive group and things look promising. We're all going to start thinking about possible topics/subjects for the thesis project(long term), but there are going to be some opportunities to work on some smaller project during this year - a good way to get to know each other.

Two of my sight singing classes had their second test today. They did SO much better. Almost too much better. I was a little more lenient this time, but their skills were much better. It's not just a matter of seeing that the numbers are better for their marks, but I could hear the improvement. The students have actually been working and the classes have been going smoother. I'm a happy teacher!

Electroacoustic class was not so hot today. The piece I brought in for my listening example ... the prof labeled it 'compositionally weak'. It's not like I chose it specifically and loved it, I chose it because it was one of the few tracks of a suitable length off of a compilation album. One would assume that a work done by someone who teaches electro composition at a US University would be sound, but I guess not. The piece gave us some stuff to talk about, but I still felt a little down that I didn't make a good selection.
There are only two of us in the class, and it's pretty clear that I am the weaker of the two students. I need to spend much more time in the studio so that I might be able to come close to catching up, but the other guys has more electro experience. It should be encouraging me to do better, but I'm finding it a little frustrating that he always seems to be going that sizable step beyond what I am doing.

I took a nap this evening, but I'm still tired, so I'll go to bed somewhat soon.

I read for pleasure tonight, only 37 pages, but it's a start. I need to increase my reading speed because next term I will have to do a lot of reading for my academic course. Also, I should generally be reading a lot more than I currently am. I should also be listening a lot more and looking at a lot more scores. I should also be composing more. I should do more.

I should also increase the quality of what I am currently doing, rather than simply adding more quantity.

Michael, it's time to step it up.

Fickidy Fuch!
It's 10pm and I'm still not finished filling in the blanks for this composition excerpt. Once I finish that, I need to make sure the parts look alright and then save them as a PDF and send that off to the prof in charge.
I wouldn't mind and I'd just stay up really late doing it, BUT:
Tomorrow morning at 7am, that's right SEVEN in the MORNING, I am meeting my choreographer and dancers to get to know each other in terms of music/movement styles.
I wouldn't mind and I'd just come home and sleep after, BUT:
Tomorrow is a pretty busy day anyway - I am giving 2 sight singing tests. I have a listening assignment for my electroacoustic class (also tomorrow), which obviously I won't be getting to tonight. I have a few hours between classes tomorrow, so I can use the library to do that!

Anyway, enough wasting time on here - I have work to do!
While this is quite stressful, this is what I've been waiting for and excited for with grad school! May the craziness begin!