Rain

Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying to-night or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be towards what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.

By Edward Thomas

***

DDs: Joan of Arc, Christopher Marlowe, Peter Paul Rubens, Voltaire, Wilbur Wright

Painting

With some free time on my hands, I drafted a painting, about a week ago. Here's a watercolour sketch of it (ignore the anatomical inaccuracies, this version's mainly to plan out colour scheme)

And a charcoal sketch on the actual canvas.

So far, I've washed it with an underlayer. Until I searched the house and found out that most of my paints have dried out (after having them for 5+ years), and that I do not seem to have a white.. -____-, and obviously, as seen on the draft, white is pretty important. So now, the painting is on hiatus until I can go out and get more paint. Which won't be for a while.

Anyway, I will be periodically posting the progress of this painting.

The medium's probably going to be in acrylic. (I need to get turpentine, for oil)

There's really no message/anything interesting/informative behind this post, just felt like sharing some art.

* * *

BD: Hồ Chí Minh, Malcolm X, Pol Pot

World Hepatitis Day

Maya and The Great Train Race

The other day, on one of my youtube loops, I came across a great composer, who happened to also be a flautist, thus composing absolutely fantastic songs for the flute =)

Ian Clarke

To play his music, I think, requires great virtuosity, a lot of practice, etc, etc. And they're just so pretty to listen to.

Maya - Two flutes + Piano
This is one of the songs, that could make you cry.
And I really, really, really, want to play it. (I even have two flutes and a piano! Just no one to play it with >.<)


A live performance of Maya - these two are amazing.



The Great Train Race
This one... just... holy crap, I have no words for it.

William Tell Overture - Finale

by Gioachino Rossini
Alas, what our school plays for hurry up music, every single morning.
(Unsurprisingly enough, it actually works. We've watched people's walking speed dramatically at the sound of this song. Conditioning much?)
So, not wanting to do anything else the other day, I found several different interesting versions.

Original, orchestral version:


The version that gets played on Fridays (without lyrics. I'm pretty sure it's by the same band)


A choral version


One man band!


Korea Brass Choir - where Beethoven have false endings, they have false beginnings XD


Organ version - oh man, I would love to get my hands on one of those...


A more comedic approach


Harmonica version! A must watch


And finally, Kazoos - some serious effort was put into this


See, people have so much fun with this song.

* * *
BDs: Claudio Monteverdi, Pierre Curie
DD: Emily Dickinson
International Day of Families, Mercuralia

You

My first animation!
Done for IB SL art class 2009.

It originally started off as a film/stop animation, but the dried leaves/photographs failed on me. So I decided to draw the frames out instead. And as I have been told, that is called animation.

The frames are mostly hand drawn, some are merely moving red drops on the leaf, you can tell the difference. This contains 8 frames per second (the fastest I can get windows movie maker to go, and I couldn't find another animation program), and a total of.... however many seconds is in the video. So yes, a couple hundred of frames.

Most of the work took about a week, the rest are just fiddling through a few months. The idea, came up with and finalized on a bus ride home.

Music is improvised on my poorly tuned piano (which is actually beneficial for this piece), and recorded w/ my mp3 (thus the crappy quality, which also works w/ the film). So some of it doesn't EXACTLY match the animation, but it's close enough.

The leaf, is basically representative of the human mind. Yeah.. you guys can figure out the rest by yourself.

You


This is like the... 'bloopers' section I guess.

The original leaf, unfortunately the idea didn't work too well. Got a cool effect in the photograph though.

The leaf breaking; I think this is my favourite/proudist part of the film.

This film was a LOT of work, but in the end, I really enjoyed it, and I like how it turned out. And for the first one, not too bad.

So recently (well, more like the past year or so), I've been wanting to do short films - either actual short films, or stop motion/animation (but with actual people and objects, instead of puppets). The only problem is - no idea what to do the film on. Can't think of a good plot/story line =____=.

But soon, I shall start brainstorming and working on it! =)

* * *
BD: Sigmund Freud, Victor Grignard
International No Diet Day,

Nocturne in F Major, op.15, no.1

Just a little something for this calm, rainy May evening.

Chopin - Nocturne in F Major, op.15, no.1

Personally, I'd like the song to be a little slower, but then again, only sight reading it.


* * *
BD - Karl Marx
DD - Sun Ce, August Wilhelm von Hofmann

ARCT

My song list for my ARCT in Piano Performance
(Which I should start focusing on... or my theory credits will expire in ... 2-3ish years... I don't know why, but they do expire <.<)

The repertoire requirements are as such:
(The numbers in the front are the percentages that they're worth)
20 - One selection from List A: Works of J.S. Bach
25 - One selection from List B: Sonatas
15 - One selection from List C: Romantic Repertoire
15 - One selection from List D: Post-Romantic and Early 20th-century Repertoire
15 - One selection from List E: 20th- and 21st-century Repertoire
10 - One Concert Etude

Theory Co-requisites:
Counterpoint (Grade 4 Counterpoint)
Advanced Harmony (Grade 5 Harmony)
History 3: 19th Century to Present (Grade 5 History)
Analysis (Grade 5 Analysis)

I have finished all of my theory co-requisites, which took a lot of time and costed a pretty buck, so now I must get the stupid performance exam done >.<

List A:
Johann Sebastian Bach
English Suite no. 1 in A major, BWV 806
-Prelude, Sarabande, and Gigue

Each English Suite is made up of several different dances, Allemande, Sarabande, Minute, etc. Luckily, we only have to do 3 of those dances. And I can't find a suitable youtube link for these dances - so lets just say, that they're very.. baroque and Bach sounding.

List B:
Ludwig van Beethoven
Sonata in C minor, op. 13 (also known as the Pathétique Sonata)

(The entire sonata is around 20 minutes, so the video is cut into the three movements [Youtube doesn't alow 20min songs])

Movement I


Movement II


Movement III


List C:
Johannes Brahms
Ballade in D major, op. 10, no. 2


List D:
Claude Debussy
Préludes, 1 - La danse de Puck (no. 11)

(Also, check out the Michelangeli version, it's brilliant, but doesn't allow me to embed)

List E:
Sergei Prokofiev
Four Pieces, op. 4 MAS - Diabolical Suggestion


Concert Etude:
Frédéric Chopin
Etude op. 10, no. 12 (also known as the Revolutionary Etude)


And here you have it, my goal for this century =.=
It seems like an impossible mountain to climb.


* * *

BD: Alessandro Scarlatti, Heinrich Gustav Magnus, Donatella Versace
DD: Leonardo da Vinci