Archive for the 'waffle' Category
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First post of the new year (both Western and Chinese) and it’s now March. Life has gotten itself on an interestingly skewed track again and as soon as the confidence to put some persona of myself in the public returns, I’ll be back here more. I miss this semi-sanctuary and everyone one around it, but disrespect and ignorance HURTS, and recovery is hard. Self-reflection has become almost as routine as a shower. Finding the courage to enjoy performing music – without fear, without inhibition – again is the first great obstacle. Family is beautiful.
So though there there’s been considerable slackage here, the reading list is still being maintained; not that there has been much time to read lately. The old habit of reading alongside a meal has been passed up to either not having the proper time to put towards this, to newspapers, or to having meals with kind, mostly new acquaintances – which is typically a good excursion too. In the meantime, every so often, something is written on the [Twitter] about the musical events around. And instead of reading literature, a few hours a week are spent reading a score alongside its recording. This activity is nothing entirely new (see previous posts on music) but lately it’s been happening on a kind of weekly basis.
I probably won’t include scores in the reading list though given that the manner of study is quite different from reading a book. I may start keeping list of performances, however, because I keep forgetting to sign into the myspace to update it.
This week’s composition of fascination is Michael Nyman’s String Quartet No. 2, particularly movements 3 and 4. I found the other three quartets somewhat underwhelming, but full of good intentions to complement the good writing. However, String Quartet No. 2 appeals to me in the same fashion as Bloch’s String Quintets and Gorecki’s String Quartet No. 3 – the intense but balanced exploration of culture, rhythmical architectures, and a certain kind of desperation and triumph pervading throughout.
Last week was Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major. That piece pretty much explains itself (especially if Martha Argerich is at the helm.) The second movement of the concerto is heartbreaking and unexpected while the overall intricacy and detail of the entire concerto is stunning. What was almost as surprising, however, was the ratio of string to wind players that were familiar with the composition. Apparently, many standard wind excerpts are taken from the concerto (The bassoon solo in the third movement is particularly impressive. During our next rehearsal together, my bassoon teaching assistant friend casually performed the excerpt for me on the spot – by memory.) but to many of my string colleagues, the piece is unfamiliar. I wonder which other pieces can be placed in this category.
March 07 2010 | music and musings and waffle | No Comments »
Why are we ever anyone but ourselves? When would we be? Why?
Agonizing is a luxury.
November 10 2009 | musings and waffle | No Comments »
The tiny trouble with constant fascination with fairly obscure works is that, well, they’re fairly obscure. Finally, after many loops, I finally have a copy of Joaquin Rodrigo’s Sonata Pimpante in my hands (to share…thank you, fantastic library ordering system.)
Then, it was a quest to find out what “pimpante” meant. Since Rodrigo is Valencian, I figured it would be Spanish, but all the online translations returned the original word, and my Spanish-speaking friends just made jokes so thank heavenly bodies for Google. “Pimpante” is Italian.
Lively.
The lively sonata.
—-
for the mood: distressed
tracks: (all files uploaded onto zshare.net. Music is rightful property of the artists. I don’t own any of these…Please buy their music and support them)
+ [Melody] – Nobuchika Eri
- I don’t know what she’s saying but the song is heartbreakingly pretty fluff.
+ [Me Muero] – Utada Hikaru
- Critics like her latest English album a lot more then the previous one and this track is particularly well done, but I still stand by my opinion that her first major English release was brilliant in its own right.
+ [Falling Away with You] – Muse
+ [River] – Tatsuya Ishii
- This is exactly the song you want someone to sing when it feels like nothing else in the world can go wrong.
June 17 2009 | music and waffle | No Comments »
We should probably never forget that most of the things happening in our lives don’t actually concern us; that in the end, what is meant to be will be, and that most of the time, we really don’t have control over it either. Mostly because we can’t control humanity i.e. each other. Just ourselves. …right?
And more often than any of us would probably want to admit, we just don’t appreciate what’s already in front of us. In fact, we completely ignore it because want something else so badly and are blinded by that. Here, in these cases, do you persist even when there’s something just as, if not more, wonderful staring at you in the face? Would doing so mean surrendering, conceding – could it connotate weakness in giving up or strength by facing what is really true? How much do you have to hurt yourself in order to get what you want or go the “right” way…or maybe even possibly both?
For once, I’m starting to think I know where those shoujo manga writers are coming from.
Last episode of Battlestar Galactica tonight.
March 20 2009 | BSG (and such) and waffle | 1 Comment »
I’m not used to being friends with rockstars. In fact, the situation is entirely weird sometimes. Granted, [The OneUps] aren’t exactly rubbing shoulders with those people appearing on the VMAs, but [Wil Wheaton] [isn't exactly someone you get to chum around conventions with everyday.] Coming off of yet another fantastic performance at [Penny Arcade Expo], the boys didn’t skip a single beat and released their second album – a two-disc affair known simply as Volume 2 – on September 2.
For some fans, this album could not come out fast enough. No one denies that the wait was well worth it.
But as I listened to the work of my friends and tried to be as impartial as possible, I could only marvel at the serious work that they have accomplished in the year (and then some) since we [first met] and wonder what the heck I did to even deserve a mention in the liner notes of such a significant achievement (in the history of video game cover music, at least.) These guys won’t stop at just fantastic, and I, as a musician, have to thank them for that, their inspiration, ambition, and – of course – music. I am incredibly lucky to call these guys my friends. With this album and their most recent show, The OneUps have claimed the full right to be ridiculously proud of themselves. For a little while, at least.
As for the album itself, let’s just say that as I listened to it during my search for a new bookbag, I drove worse than I ever have, parked better than I ever have (which is saying a lot), and for the first time that I can ever recall, found myself contemplating a lingerie section (I did not purchase anything from that store.)
I haven’t listened to the second CD yet, and probably shouldn’t do that when I drive out later tonight.
Many thanks go to the lady of zabe.net for her adorable photography. Volume 2 is available through the OneUps’s [myspace] and website. Rumour has it that the guys are already sketching ideas for Volume 3. Congratulations.
September 12 2008 | games and music and waffle | 1 Comment »
I hope that many years from now, when I am legally “old”, I will still have the spirit and energy I have today, and be as in love with that person (who and wherever he may be) as the day we recognize those feelings.
September 24 2007 | musings and waffle | 2 Comments »
Another summer has passed and sometimes things just don’t want to happen. For example, this post. I can’t motivate myself to write about anything these days….
Significant events have happened over the last month, however, towards which this blog should pay tribute…
First, please allow me a moment of ridiculous sentimentality as the first event is a wedding and the half-week leading up to it. I have never considered myself a very emotional person, but every so often, people get the better of me. Lauren, a one of my dearest friends and one of my guiding lights my freshman year of college, had an absolutely gorgeous wedding, despite the 100+ degree Farenheit weather it occurred under and in which we had to play. Seeing her and her husband (also a friend) devote themselves to each other was just the icing atop a cake of celebration. After all, paying witness to two people pledging themselves to each other for life is actually really quite beautiful.
But perhaps the most emotional moment came three days before the actual wedding itself when the violist of the wedding quartet and I threw a surprise bachelorette party for Lauren. We had spent the previous day contacting as many of the younger female wedding attendees as possible, telling them to arrive at the apartment at around seven. Then we lured Lauren to the apartment under the guise of listening to us rehearse her wedding music. At seven, when people started arriving and we admitted to Lauren what was going on, she burst into tears.
I am very hard pressed to think of another recent moment when I have seen someone so moved by happiness. But I get at least three more chances to catch and experience this all over again by the end of next summer, if not an entire year now that my roommates just got engaged to each other last week.
That being said, congratulations to you all who have managed to find your someone. Truly, you are lucky people.
While on the topic of luck, happiness, congratulations, and more happiness, I extend yet again another congratulations to [The OneUps] for their incredible performance at the [Penny Arcade Expo] (PAX). Apparently, the boys knocked everyone dead and I could not be happier (and a little jealous) that they were given the chance to experience such an embracing venue, playing in front of thousands of people, and the thrilling rush of being such rockstars. They may think they’re just “normal dudes” playing video game music, but these guys – both individually and as a unit – really are something amazing, and their music shows.
So far as my own shows go, my band played a very nicely run [Nerdapalooza] event the day after The OneUps’s killer show, but I rode on their high for a bit, especially since the guys were being wonderful enough to help sell our CDs at PAX and Mustin was filling me in every so often on how sales were going. That was quite exciting as well. Our show went well enough for how darned humid and hot thirty-forty people packed into a fifty-by-twenty (or so) foot room with no air conditioning is. Some videos are available for viewing [here] (a little scrolling is required…sorry)
Finally, I had the fortune this past week to attend a fantastic show by Miami Afro-Latin funk band [Suenalo]. The cohesiveness and energy of Suenalo’s sound is unbelievable. I highly encourage everyone to check out their music.
And that’s that for now until I can think up something to write about again
September 04 2007 | music and waffle | 1 Comment »
Happy one year anniversary to little pocket universe! Yay! I’m so sorry I don’t take care of you…thank you for taking care of me T_T
Until I get around to arranging a musical post (It is, after all, high time for one of those again.) ponder this: If video game women are digitally enhanced to appeal to boys and make them play the game and/or make their gaming experience more enjoyable, why don’t muscle-bound males in video games make those games more appealing to women to play? What if there were an Ocean’s Thirteen video game? How well would that do?
July 19 2007 | games and music and waffle | 3 Comments »
When did asking someone to “hang out” take the place of people asking someone on a date? I can understand if it’s a method to “cover all the bases” but the asked could just as easily be turned off by the indirect nature and ambiguity of the question. Though I’m not so great at all this relationship stuff, I’ll say right out that this sort of wussiness just doesn’t seem attractive…
Now onto things that I’m much better at: video game music! The Korean MMORPG market has exploded over the past six years, if not more, and among this myriad of games are the two particularly and beautiful creations of Zera: Imperan Intrigue and Granado Espada. The visual artwork, both in-game and especially concept, of these two games are striking enough, but there’s something to be said for the music as well.
Because if I were to feature music from both games in one post, there’d be too many links, therefore I shall present tracks one game at a time.
The MMORPG Granado Espada first began testing back in 2005 but didn’t begin English beta testing until just last month. The story is set in the Age of Exploration and the world mirrors one of 17th Century Europe where instead of exploring the New World, the characters explore the newfound continent of Granado Espada. Composed by a collection of composers including SoundTeMP, S.F.A, Osamu Kubota, and DJ Tiesto, the music of Granado Espada is certainly eclectic with its range of pieces from symphonic classical to songs that would fit right in a noir film to straight up rock and plenty of vocal sampling for everone. However, the entire soundtrack is predominantly techno-trance-electronica based with backseat melodies scattered around its 126 or so tracks. They could play most of this stuff over the speakers at Abercrombie and Fitch and no one would think it was out of place. Others you could dance DDR to. A few entirely instrumental pieces are on the soundtrack but many are robbed of any musical effectiveness by their synthesizers. There are some extremely fascinating rock songs which sound like they’re sung in…German?
That is not to say that there are not some true gems on this soundtrack. There are pieces of both electronic and instrumental (and a blend of both) which are truly outstanding. Seemingly the most colourful compositions of the soundtrack, however, feature said electronic spreads with sprinkles of Spanish flavours – rhythms and cadences. There is some fantastic guitar work in some of these pieces. Though Granado Espada is supposed to encompass all European styles, from the costume and environment designs, I couldn’t help but think that it was entirely Spanish based at first. The overall tone of the soundtrack certainly assisted this idea. As undecipherable as some of these dance-beat based pieces might be, the fact is clear that no piece was written haphazardly. But listening to all 126 tracks was definitely tiresome. Maybe I didn’t even get through all 126…
More information on Granado Espada can be found [here]. All files are property of their respective artists. Please support the musicians and their music! All files uploaded onto savefile.com.
Enjoy!!
+ [Granado Espada]
- presumably the theme of the game, this piece is very Final Fantasy piano collections reminiscent. Both tune and composition are very simple and beautiful. For some reason, pieces like this are just so appropriate for video games of romantic nature. This particular piece has the added bonus of grace along with its romance. Sometimes, that’s a bad thing, but here it certainly is not.
+ [Vamos Bravo]
- This Latin-flavoured piece is full of flirt and charm. I most definitely want to find someone to cover this tune with someone someday as it just seems like it’d be so much fun to perform.
+ [Trollslottet]
- suprisingly addictive European folk-rock involving a violin and didgeridoo. I can’t tell what language this is in. Any help is appreciated.
+ [Rio Tranquila]
- I’ll be completely honest: I had trouble finding an outstanding piece in all the tracks that weren’t composed by this S.F.A. creature. This is no exception as it’s one of the few pieces where I felt the electronic sounds and instrumental sounds really lined up throughout the piece create a really gorgeous blend through the entire composition.
I listened to this piece on repeat for at least half an hour when I first put it on my mp3 player. I dig just about every melodic line of the piece. One day I’ll find some techno-geeks and a guitarist or two to play this piece with me. Any takers?
June 16 2007 | games and music and waffle | 4 Comments »
Let’s chase fantasies. After all, they’re only fantasies until they become real. They have every right to be taken as seriously as anything else.
Hello, rum and coke. You are so nice to me.
Here’s my very late new year’s resolution: think before you talk.
In new news, I have discovered the joys of sundresses on semi-hot days, especially when paired with sandals.
Now…why do I have this cut on my finger? It’s from before the rum and coke, no worries, but I’m curious all the same.
May 01 2007 | musings and waffle | 1 Comment »
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