Blog #4, 4/14

Hello World,

Back to my standard Helvetica font!  Yayyyyy!!!!!!

Besides that, this week I will begin to work on my video vlog (which I'm pretty sure is like one of these blogs except it's recorded and has specitic things that are supposed to be covered), as well as do more research and do more work on the thing I am making.  Hopefully I can finish the outline of it by the end of the cycle so that I can work on other stuff later.

Oh yeah and earlier I said that I would be making two pieces but that obviously isn't going to work.

Research

(Terraforming Mars is a fun game yet I don't even play the real version but the card game instead)

I have all of spring break of doing nothing to do stuff.  Yay!  Now here I am on the Monday after a definitely very productive spring break. -_-

1. https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2012/01/25/stuck-on-a-song-how-to-finish-that-composition/

Ok this article says "stuck on a song" (which, again, is inaccurate).  Despite the vocabularic inaccuracy, it is exactly where I am right now.  I am stuck at around 2/3 or 3/4 of my piece and I need some ideas to finish it up with.

*reads article*

Ok I have now read the article.  It has some ambiguous and general hints, which I can definitely use, but may not be too helpful.  Maybe I'm just lazy, I'm not sure.  I'll do that later though.

2. https://www.quora.com/How-often-do-you-get-stuck-after-composing-a-few-bars-of-a-new-piece

Ok ok fine I know this isn't a reliable source but I read Quora a lot and I guess it's good to get input from random people on the internet sometimes.  There are some insightful stuff in there, but overall, it does not have much good information; the norm for Quora.

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2k7pZlf_vE

Finally I have a video!  Yayayay

So the guy is using a real classical piece to get his point.  I'm not sure exactly what it is; is it to end quietly, or just to end in the same way as the rest of the piece?  He's saying a lot of things about the pedal, but I feel like it is specific to this piece only, as not all pieces are the same as the one he is using.

4. https://yousician.com/blog/outro-the-ending-of-a-song

Here's another webpage but it seems like it won't work for me as I am not songwriting.  Bleh.  I'm getting a lot of bad sites today.  (Not bad sites but just bad for me)

5. https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-a-melody

Wow I only have one video so far, that's really cool, all my other blogs have had tons upon tons of videos.  It's by Masterclass too, which could be really cool (as people who run masterclasses have coolness) or bad (as the super good people often act like you know what I mean I don't know how to explain it right now my mom is telling me to go upstairs and sleep aaaaahhhh).  Anyways, it's not another outro thing but more on just the melody.  I guess I technically don't need it anymore because I have enough melodies but it could help with coming up with something to finish up with.  And a lot of the stuff actually in there is mostly stuff related to things I have already read, but it could be helpful.

6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjQeT16H9LQ

So here's a nice short video about writing harmonies.  There's an interesting part about using high and low notes, which I guess would be helpful except that I don't really have the time nor commitment to work all that into my piece.  It also says that it is more important to focus on where the piece is going than where it is coming from, which is kind of ambiguous but is kind of helpful.  And other than that it's mostly just really basic stuff, but it's for concert band, which has like a million instruments, so it doesn't really apply to what I'm doing on piano.

  vs.   

(I just looked up random pictures but you get the idea, concert band music =/= piano music)

Ok, I'm thinking too much about Terraforming Mars now, let me go get distracted and look up Terraforming Mars for the next half hour.

Also here is a picture of me playing at a piano recital from a year ago or something. Hahahahahahahahahahaha

Real Doing Stuff

Look I have videos! Yayyy!

...actually I was going to use the videos for more of a visual component in the blog post but they are too big, and there's no way I can go re-record again.  So sadly I will just have to give you another bitly link even though I put in all that work to record myself using video...

https://bit.ly/40g0vs4

https://bit.ly/41uQjNl

(two takes I don't remember which is which)

(And yes I am wearing a bible quizzing shirt.  Yes it is cold in the basement and I am too lazy to go get a long sleeved shirt)

(As you can see it's not really that polished yet; I blank at random places, hit wrong notes often, and have extremely inconsistent tempo, but I'll keep working on it, and when I am set with it maybe I will put another post with the completed piece on here but I probably won't)

Anyhow the lack of work this week just means better procrastination.  Or I can just say "I was busy".

Thanks for reading this goodbye see you never probably

Commented on Chace Kim, Shaurya Sinha, Christopher Rowan