time and place I
Upcoming show:
Friday, July 31, 2009 – 10pm
Smoke and Barrel Tavern
Fayetteville, AR
performing with The Oneups.
more information [here]
Back to practice…
July 28 2009 | games and music and performances and travels | No Comments »
subcars
[image to be added]
I didn’t mean to miss this little site’s birthday two days ago. I didn’t forget! However, my own computer died of what I suspect is exhaustion after all this traveling (and the parts still ahead) so now I rely on my sister’s until warranty things settle. If not, then I shall just have to finally get a Mac.
So happy three year birthday to pocket universe! We are becoming much more consistent with the postings! But again, as I do every year, I promise again to be better to you than the previous year. Whatever that entails, I’ll let you decide.
In travel, I write from Houston by way of various adorable small towns in Michigan, Chicago, and New Orleans. Everything has been incredible. When I have a stable connection, I’ll be posting accordingly about the journeys. But for now let’s just that say that food has been a very surprising and unexpectedly significant, though accordingly lovely, part of every major stop.
Now for an amaretto (with ice cream?) in honor of dear pocket universe and many more years to come.
July 22 2009 | food and travels | 2 Comments »
glancings
[image to be added]
I just wrote up a beautiful post with links and everything to my upcoming schedule performing with my quartet (formally known as the Clarke String Quartet, but we’re not even sure sometimes) as part of the [Pine Mountain Music Festival], but somehow, between here and the “publish” button, it disappeared entirely.
Thus, just know these few things: greetings from St. Louis! We embark on our long drive from here to Michigan tomorrow. St. Louis is my first stop in a series of travels this summer for me, incidentally, all around Mid-America. (I’m not complaining.) The timing just worked out beautifully as such.
I’ll try to keep this blog updated and get that schedule here again, though you can also go to the website’s [calendar] and just look for “Resident Chamber Musicians” anywhere on it.
June 23 2009 | music and travels | 2 Comments »
failed to connect
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 »
particulars pressure
The gmail music player produces better music file sound than my winamp.
Today, here is the music of a quintet from [Eminence Symphony Orchestra] (previously mentioned [here]) and Final Fantasy miscellany. Still thinking of finding the direct path to joining them. Still thinking of how I can turn into [Hiroaki Yura].
If you weren’t aware that these melodies were from video games, an anime, and a soundtrack to a novel, would you have thought that they were composed for such? Be honest…
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.)
+ [Dash] (Romeo x Juliet) – Hitoshi Sakimoto
- performed by members of the Eminence Symphony Orchestra
- Short, but very fun to play. I don’t remember it from the series at all, but this version is charming and has an odd ending.
+ [The Fall of Darkness] (Kirite) – Yasunori Mitsuda
- performed by members of the Eminence Symphony Orchestra
- Kirite is an irresistible album. I recently arranged this piece for Select Start and was sincerely afraid that we would read through it once and then forget about it. After all, from a market standpoint, the piece is risky, being from an unfamiliar not-video game. However, the opposite happened and after two readings, they actually really wanted to put some solid work into it. So we’ll see how far this goes!
+ [Estrelas] – Nobuo Uematsu featuring Risa Ohki
- from the Final Fantasy: Love Will Grow vocal album, sung to the melody of “Gilbert’s Harp” from Final Fantasy IV
+ [Cosmos] (Dissidia : Final Fantasy) – Your Favorite Enemies
- Yet another strangely resolved piece. Interesting lyrics.
June 05 2009 | Uncategorized and games and music | No Comments »
gotta give something
While going over past posts in order to organize the [new page], the fact came to my attention that as much as I write about music and performances on this site.blog.webspace, I’ve never actually posted up any recordings involving myself.
Don’t get used to it. There are more through [myspace] anyway.
Here are some personal tracks, edited a little by yours truly, unless otherwise noted:
+ [Title] – from Megaman III
- A large majority of my recorded sound is through [that band] I play with. I really like this recording, arranged by David Yasensky, guitar.
+ [Green Hill Zone. Marble Zone] – from Sonic the Hedgehog
- Because that first one is a bit short. Also arranged by David and featuring solo work by Kanako “Kiki” Sueyoshi, violin, on the second melody. You can get our CD for free on our [website].
+ [Boy Aims for Wild Fields] – from Secret of Mana
- I talk a lot about [The OneUps] here and should write a post of their music someday soon. But for now, this is a collaboration from a [MAGfest VI] rehearsal back in 2008, featuring OneUps bassist/keyboardist/producer/monkey trainer [Mustin] on bass and musician extraordinaire [Kunal Majmudar] on drums. The beginning is a little shaky as we try to find a decent tread.
+ [The Vagabond] – composed by Tyzen Hsiao; rearranged by Maho Azuma and me; performed by Maho Azuma (flute), Christine Lee (piano), and me (violin)
- Back a summer or two ago, Select Start was asked to perform in one of the university cultural assemblies. Sadly, the majority of the members were out of town so we re-arranged this tune for anyone still in town. Tyzen Hsiao is one of the more prolific Taiwanese composers, and the piece just worked out nicely overall. This was recorded during a later Select Start rehearsal, which accounts for the background noise that I apologize profusely for… The three of us are looking for another opportunity to re-record it in a silent setting.
+ [Eternal Harvest] (from Final Fantasy IX) – Christine Lee, piano
- So this one isn’t me at all but I have to pass on this recording whenever I have an excuse to because it’s so pretty. Christine is a rather significant inspiration in my life. For starters, she played my junior recital better than I did and then decided to go and be a doctor after all. This is from the very first Select Start CD ever.
May 31 2009 | games and music | No Comments »
off tracks [2]
Last exam of the semester. What a crazy semester this has been. A very indie list.
Exam: Analytical Techniques
Progress: dismal
Tracks: (all files uploaded onto savefile. com. Music is rightful property of the artists. I don’t own any of these…Please buy their music and support them.)
+ [Fire] (radio edition) – Kasabian
+ [My Mirror Speaks] – Death Cab for Cutie
+ [Live To Tell The Tale] – Passion Pit
May 12 2009 | music | No Comments »
off tracks [1]
Spring term final papers mean discovering music unrelated to the one at hand. Here are some of the ones that were a little more distracting than others.
Happy 70th post and no sleep.
Composition: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K. 219, mvt. 1
Pages written: 2/at least 6
Sections written: 2/4
Progress: still optimistic
Tracks: (all files uploaded onto savefile. com. Music is rightful property of the artists. I don’t own any of these…Please buy their music and support them.)
+ [Imitosis] – Andrew Bird
+ [Fado] – Yoko Kanno featuring Maaya Sakamoto
+ [Hysterics] – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
+ [Big Jumps] – Emiliana Torrini
- This song has become something of an anthem lately. Torrini is kind of fantastic.
April 30 2009 | music | 2 Comments »
von hier an nicht mehr schleppen: tone fixture
Classical music is tremendously distracting. Lately, nothing has helped me procrastinate as much. I’m on Spring Break, by the way. I have a lot of music to catch up on in my field, embarrassingly enough (Next endeavor is violoncello works? The Mozart violin sonatas? Beethoven string quartets? String trios?…probably trios…I really don’t know trios.) but these three in particular keep getting in the way of progress…and to some extent – dangerously – eating and/or practicing (Which is essentially the same thing, right?) (Just kidding.) (Maybe.):
+ Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F, BWV 1047 (with Brandenburg 3 in G coming in close…)
- Allow me yet another suspension of belief in stating that while simultaneously listening to these concertos and reading over numerous reviews and recaps of the Battlestar Galactica series finale that have popped online since its airing, somehow all the elegant yet simple complexities and details of both these compositions went hand in hand. Douglas Adams once wrote that he was convinced that Bach wrote the Brandenburgs when he was happy and I completely agree.
+ Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 5
- A few weeks ago, the university orchestra stumbled rather hilariously through the symphony as the conductor’s way of stressing how unforgivingly difficult this piece is (We perform it next month…I use the term “perform” loosely right now.) Last night, the Miami Symphony Orchestra put on a rather nice performance of the Mahler 4. Even more so than Brahms, Mahler is an interesting fellow indeed. There are so many ways to go about the guy. But he does write a mean melody, and I’m prepared to experience a lot of headaches and bright lights, or vice versa.
+ Robert Schumann: Piano Quintet in E Minor (aka the ~30 minute piece that I have been listening to for the last hour and a half)
- A successful quintet performance is a truly definitive marker of achievement. Five is a hefty number. Getting two people to cooperate and agree on the same page of thought for any period of time is already a difficult task. Any more with no mediation is asking for trouble. This is probably why I avoid playing quintets these days, though they may be my favourite ensemble setting. That could be another discussion sometime.
Last semester I accidentally stumbled across Lin-Cho Liang, Joseph Kalichstein, William de Rosa, Adele Anthony, and Roberto Diaz rehearsing this piece and the Brahms Quintet in f minor (another perennial favourite) for their Festival Miami concert. Watching them work (in stealth, as no lowly graduate student/stalker skipping work should dare disturb actual musicians) was addicting, but I am still stunned, after all these months, by the resulting pure, uninhibited music at the next night’s concert. After the performance, Mrs. Anthony commented to me that they had only worked on both pieces together for a day. I almost gave up on music right there and then, if she hadn’t also been very encouraging. Thank you.
And now time to actually let that fourth movement end…
Also, as a side maintenance note, I’m going backwards again soon to re-editing lots of old posts. My writing should evolve, but you readers shouldn’t have to suffer with all the old awfulness. Or reading this at all. Shoo.
March 23 2009 | BSG (and such) and music and travels | No Comments »
racecar yay
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March 21 2009 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments »