Back in the Saddle

Ahoy all! My first post in a while, anxious to start up to some degree again. School has been dismissed for the year, so my stress level has dropped dramatically. It is all about goals this summer; I have plenty. They always say you have a greater chance of accomplishing goals if you write them down so here goes:

1. Get in shape! (This means doing something physical every day!)
2. Be musically active. (Piano, Flute, Ear, Composing, etc...)
3. Get enrolled in classes and do well in them.
4. Go on a couple small trips with friends and spend time with them.
5. Get organized!

Well there. Now I'm sure to accomplish them all. Additionally, they say that everyone should have half-an-hour a day of prayer, contemplation, or meditation. I think blogging kind of fulfills that, don't you? Anyway, more substance to come later.

PS

I thought it was worth mentioning that its calendar-changing day (my favorite day of the month). It takes a few minutes for me because I have four calendars, but it is always exciting.

Goodbye Pagliacci, Hello Giulietta E Romeo.

RTA

Current Events

Well you are in for a treat. I have a long list of interesting musical and extra-musical happenings recently.

I'm proud to say I've been expanding my musical palette recently. A lot. A few days ago I attended one of my favorite concerts this year and yesterday another! The first was the recital of Mike Giles of Iowa State University. Featuring music composed entirely by himself for a chamber ensemble of guitar, bass guitar, drum set, and alto saxophone, the concert was fantastic. The concert would be labeled jazz by most, but the resemblance ends with the similarity of improvisation, as Mr. Giles would certainly agree. Staying entirely away from traditional forms was the focus of Mr. Giles and he pulled off the illusion deftly; combining what I thought was an amazing display of musicianship and camaraderie from the entire ensemble with fantastic compositional ideas from Mr. Giles to create a very interesting musical experience; the highlight of which, for me, was the evoking of moods and imagery greater than the sum of its musical parts. I cannot speak highly enough of the performance or compositions and I can only hope they will be available online soon to share with others. The music is accessible enough to inspire others to listen to something outside their normal box, but creatively intelligent enough to steer clear of being like everything else. Mr. Giles musical mind and goals are very inspiring to me and much of what he does is very close to what I want to do. He will also be performing with the Iowa State University Wind Ensemble (of which I am a member) on our upcoming concert, as featured alto saxophone soloist for Libby Larsen’s very interesting “Holy Roller.” I’m very much looking forward to it.

Secondly, last night I attended a fantastic and out-of-the-ordinary concert at the breathtaking Temple of the Performing Arts in wonderful downtown Des Moines. This concert featured non-other than Mrs. Sonja Giles on flute, as well as several members of the Des Moines Symphony, including Sandra Wacha (flute), and Barry Larkin (percussion). Yes, this Sonja Giles does happen to be the wife of the aforementioned Mike Giles (a talented couple). She performed George Crumb's An Idyll for the Misbegotten on amplified flute with the assistance of Mr. Larkin and two additional percussionists. She did an absolutely fantastic job on this very difficult to perform well piece, and established a mood that I can only assume Crumb would be very happy with. In addition to this great performance I got to see a very interesting and elaborate entertainment with William Waltons “Façade.” This piece featured a fantastic speaker, Jane Cox, reciting lines of poetry overtop William Walton’s musical score. With titles like “Long Steel Grass,” “Tarantella (Where the satyrs are chattering),” and “Flourish-Came the Great Popinjay” the whole affair created a very fanciful setting, augmented by the wonderful hall of the Temple, whose molded ceiling with stained-glass was perfect for the occasion. This very interesting piece was a very nice change of pace for entertainment and I thought it was a great experience.

Following the mentioning of these two wonderful musical experiences I would like to throw out an idea of mine. I have developed my word and definition of sorts for what I regard as a common and reoccurring theme (though perhaps unintentional) in modern art (both musical and visual and otherwise). You should never use this word the way I do because that is not the accepted definition of the word (though if you try to find a definition, you'll find that its usually a very hazy interpretation indeed). Speaking extremely broadly, I think that the term "neoromanticism" could describe a trend that can be defined by the ability (and goal) of a work of art to evoke an idea, feeling, or place, greater than the sum of the musical (or otherwise) parts. In the visual arts, this could mean hinting at a much greater space or situation than bound between the borders of, for instance, a painting. In Mike Giles recital, for example, this would mean creating (for me) a very declamatory and then also naive feeling in “The Adventures of Caramel Rick.” In Alice in Wonderland its the creation of a (surprise) land of wonder. Obviously, this idea is far too broad to be of any practical use; but I do think it is interesting to think of this idea of modern art fabricating an entirely imaginary (and amazing) feeling.

Now for a few short and more random comments:
1. my favorite idea in the movie Jarhead was the ethereal world created by the burning oil-wells.
2. saw V for Vendetta today, it was a very interesting political commentary. Quite the dystopia, which leads me to…
3. interesting website about dystopias: Exploring Dystopia
4. all composers mentioned in today’s blog are quite controversial or avant garde or contemporary or whatever you want to say. I’d like to state that when I was first exposed to these certain types of music, I was turned off by their lack of accessibility, but now I have found a happy medium of accessibility vs. creativity.
5. interesting website about very crazy music (check out these scores): “from beautiful to strange"".

Still early in the night, back to the grinding-stone,

RTA

Vandalism . . . Art?

There's been some tom-foolery in my dormitory recently. I thought I might share with you the hilariousness of these mischievious acts.

Case 1:

Robots:

These friendly characters were found in an elavator after spring break:

Personally, I like them. You may be wondering what that red V (which strangely looks like V for Vendetta) is. It seems to be some sort of calling card.

I also found it here:


That's right. Looks cool, but doesn't it hurt a little bit too?

Maybe not.

At any rate, the shenanigans didn't stop there. Today I was idly wandering and came across a Stonehenge-like achievement. I found the chairs and tables of Dungeons to be crazily tilted, knocked over, and stood up. This chaos intrigued me. I pass it unto you and deem it...

Craphenge (its like Stonehenge only a lot crappier).














Enough of my tom-foolery, I'm out for the evening. More substance to come (enough of this sub-par writing!

RTA

Small Success

Hey all, unfortunately just another quick post to let you know I am having some small success working on my web site. You can see the "pre-beta" version here. There will be many more additions and changes (you'll notice the links and about me page don't even make any pretenses of being finished). Unfortunately I have been too swamped to sufficiently finish or make a lot of touch-ups yet. Hopefully this weekend I will have the time and I'll be able to make a blog entry worth reading. Let me know what you think of the site. Its still in its seed stage but it will soon be growing. Thanks a lot!

*sigh* A few minutes into tomarrow already!

RTA

May Flights of Angels....

Well I haven't much to say tonight. Classes resume tomarrow and it looks like its going to be a LONG one. Will try to write after a long day tomarrow but no promises. Had a lot on my mind, so hopefully I'll have the opportuity soon. Well,

until next time.

-RTA

Progress (II)

Yet again, as the day is quickly fading I figured I'd scribble a little down before retiring for the evening. I reread my post from yesterday; it sounds a lot dumber today. But (and if you read it you will know this) its better to have it all out there I suppose. Anyway, if you look carefully you'll notice a new addition to the blog here, a new link to my webcam! It's pretty neat, though I'm not sure how great of a webcam it will make, and I really don't know what to put it on at night; I'll try finding something interesting. My webpage should be up soon; I will keep you posted. I apologise for the lack of substance in todays entry, I just am too tired! Though a webcam should be mildly entertaining. Oh, as a side note I noted that the timestamps are all wrong on my page... I'll try to fix them after this.

It's actually 11:54 (23:54) right now.

RTA

Steven King and I

Yet again, in the last remaining minutes of the day, I’d like to relate to you some personal information. I picked up a new read today at the very nice Barnes and Noble in Des Moines. On recommendation from my brother: The Gunslinger by Stephen King. So far it is very good. I’ve only read one page of the book, but that’s not what I mean.

First of all, the cover art is really great. Michael Whelan did a fantastic job establishing what I would call a neo-romantic (I'll define it later) atmosphere with that cover. However, that’s not what I mean by its good so far. I have never read anything by or heard much about Stephen King, and so I have nearly no preconceived notions about him. This gives me a relatively fresh view of him, and so far I really like what I’ve read in the introduction and forward of the book. As I was reading the introduction and forward of The Gunslinger, some things really struck me and reminded me of things I have thought about recently and figured they were definitely worth mentioning. Ergo, here are some things to think about, maybe you can listen and implement some of these things to your unique human situation. Oh, lastly, I feel I should mention the book is not a horror book, but rather an epic in the spirit of Tolkien (read on to understand more).

Stephen King, on Epic. A long quote from the introduction (forgive me):

Then . . . I saw a film directed by Sergio Leone. It was called The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and before the film was even half over, I realized that what I wanted to write was a novel that contained Tolkien’s sense of quest and magic but set against Leone’s almost absurdly majestic Western backdrop. If you’ve only seen this gonzo Western on your television screen, you don’t understand what I’m talking about—cry your pardon, but it’s true. On a movie screen, projected through the correct Panavision lenses, TG, TB, & TU is an epic to rival Ben-Hur. Clint Eastwood appears roughly eighteen feet tall, with each wiry jut of stubble on his cheeks looking roughly the size of a young redwood tree. The grooves bracketing Lee Van Cleef’s mouth are as deep as canyons, and there could be a thinny (see Wizard and Glass) at the bottom of each one. The desert settings appear to stretch at least out as far as the orbit of the planet Neptune. And the barrel of each gun looks to be roughly as large as the Holland Tunnel.
What I wanted even more than the setting was that feeling of epic, apocalyptic size. The fact that Leone knew jack shit about American geography (according to one of the characters, Chicago is somewhere in the vicinity of Phoenix, Arizona) added to the film’s sense of magnificent dislocation. And in my enthusiasm—the sort only a young person can muster, I think—I wanted to write not just a long book, but the longest popular novel in history. I did not succeed in doing that, but I feel I had a decent rip; The Dark Tower, volumes one through seven, really comprise a single tale, and the first four volumes run to just over two thousand pages in paperback. The final three volumes run another twenty-five hundred in manuscript. I’m not trying to imply here that length has anything whatsoever to do with quality; I’m just saying that I wanted to write an epic, and in some ways, I succeeded. If you were to ask me why I wanted to do that, I couldn’t tell you. Maybe it’s a part of growing up American: build the tallest, dig the deepest, write the longest. And that head-scratching puzzlement when the question of motivation comes up? Seems to me that that is also part of being an American. In the end we are reduced to saying It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I, too, have felt this unique pull toward epics. There is something spectacular about the sheer immensity of the scale of some stories, music, movies, and art. I think this is part of the reason I am lured by the Ancient Greek tradition and culture; if you look at everything it seems to be monumental. Even the poses of statues give off an air of vastness. The fact that there are mountainous gods and there tremendous offspring roaming the Earth in the stories of the time is quite a colossal concept. I don’t mean to imply that things must be physically large or encompass decisions that affect all of humanity, because I certainly believe that an epic can be derived from the life of a small and relatively unimportant person (example: movie: “Rocky”). At any rate, for some reason, I have always dreamed of writing the kind of music that just makes peoples jaw drop with immensity; my dream is to have someone shake in awe of the sheer power of a piece, to be hit in the chest by the gargantuan, monolithic, and monstrous sound. In some ways this epic concept can make you feel small, but in my opinion, the reason it is great isn’t that it makes you feel small, but rather it makes everything else seem so big. It may sound cliché, but I really think there is something to that.

Stephen King, on Notes:

I once had an outline, but I lost it along the way. (It probably wasn’t worth a tin shit, anyway.) All I had was a few notes (“Chussit, chissit, chassit, something-something-basket” reads one lying on the desk as I write this)

I had to laugh at this one just because I’ve come across notes that apparently were intended to be helpful or have some meaning at some time but that seemed very trivial later. Example: I found an “idea for a short story” on my computer the other day that read “guys are looking for something, guy hides it in a box of Malt-O-Meal.” How on Earth this could have even appeared to be a good idea (or even a complete idea) at one time is unexplainable to me.

Stephen King, on Attack:

. . . but my method of attack has always been to plunge in and go as fast as I can, keeping the edge of my narrative blade as sharp as possible by constant use, and trying to outrun the novelist’s most insidious enemy, which is doubt. Looking back prompts too many questions: How believable are my characters? How interesting is my story? How good is this, really? Will anyone care? Do I care myself?
When my first draft of a novel is done, I put it away, warts and all, to mellow. Some period of time later—six months, a year, two years, it doesn’t really matter—I can come back to it with a cooler (but still loving) eye, and begin the task of revising.

I really think this is a good approach. Too often for me, I get too sidetracked by everything that I actually get to the point where I’m not even focusing on the thing I’m trying to accomplish. While practicing flute, I ask myself “is this as good as my peers?” or “is this getting better?” I recently realized thanks to Mike Giles that that just isn’t what it’s about most of the time. It more important that I do what I can, in the way that I can do it, and that is a hard concept. Looking back does prompt too many questions; the thing that really matters is that you’re doing something right then to the best of your ability. If I’m writing music and I realize that people would hate it, I feel a really bad emotional sting, and I really need to persevere… beat on against that feeling, because otherwise I won’t ever write anything that is mine.

Well, the last minutes of the day have slipped by and we’re now in tomorrow. I’m fairly sure there are quite a few typos and unclarities (a word I just made up) in there, but so be it (see above paragraph on why I don’t care). Until next time.

RTA

Progress

With the last minutes of the day, as it winds down I'll just throw in some of what I have to look forward to. I did a little further work on my future website and hopefully it will be up and running soon. I decided on a layout and colour that gave me the best mental connotations (a nice blue and brown combination), and did some more thought on content for it. Hopefully I'll have it up and running soon.

Secondly, I just got done watching my 8th episode of "Smallville." I bought the first season without ever having seen an episode before because I liked the concept. So far I have not been disappointed; I like it very much and it only continues to get more riveting and complex. I highly recommend it to anyone.

Lastly, I look forward to putting some more "substance" on my blog soon. I've been brainstorming a little and I just think I have lots of stuff to write about and am very anxious to put some useful, substantial, and interesting information and views up. I am, however, trying to limit myself to one "article" a day, to avoid burning out.

Until next time.

RTA