Thursday, January 24, 2008

Scratch That...

So forget what I said about lack of passion... I dunno what happened, whether it's just because I pushed myself back into things, or because of all the underclassmen I've been meeting, but seriously, I'm having my expectations pushed way up here & loving it! My classes are challenging (particularly Jazz Improv, which I'm in the advanced section & Piano for the Classroom Teacher - everything I could hope for in a piano class...)

MIDI Band is rocking this year!! I definitely miss Sam Crawford a lot (he was the guitarist last year, and I worked with him on some other stuff... that kid is such an inspiration... he took a leave of absence to go work on music and do the things he needed to) ... on the other hand though, there's such a diverse combination of kids in MIDI Band this year, and I've improved a lot thanks to the jazz improv class (and my metronome work!!). We start out classes with a free improv session now & have talked a bit more about the theory of some stuff and doing projects with electronics... it's all quite cool!!

Speaking of Jazz Improv, it's really pushing me... got lots of theory and practicing to do for that... we're writing solos & working with modes... it's basically really amazing... I'm so lucky to get to study with Jay (Azzolina) can't wait for Small Ensemble...

Chamber's going awesome too... Dvorak & Weber & possibly Rorem... if not, then Beethoven... either way, cool shit...

In other news, I'm working towards recording that cd (making up a set list & hopefully recording all of it in the next week or two).

I've been playing a lot of Rock Band lately - it's amazing!! It's great to play a video game where the focus is music performance, b/c I can play and work on my music skills at the same time (not to mention, it's fun!!)


Recent Music Purchases:

I started a list recently to keep track of what's going through my musical consciousness... here's some stuff I've bought recently:

CD:
Blackfield - Blackfield II
Yes - The Yes Album
Queen - Night at the Opera
Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz

DVD:
Blackfield - Live in NYC
Black Sabbath - The Last Supper
Testament - Live in London

Book:
Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal - Ian Christe

Queen & Testament are the only ones I haven't gotten around to listening to yet... otherwise, I'm really enjoying everything else I've picked up... gonna need to get some staff paper soon... I watched the Sabbath DVD the other night - man was that a trip!! I feel like I learned so much about what their music actualy is & about music itself from watching it!! And Blackfield... Let me say, I love Steve Wilson & Aviv Geffen... they're both amazing, and so is this project ... the songwriting, the lyrics, the music, the production, everything's perfect about it... it's been so great to watch the DVD of the concert I was at & to listen to the album almost non-stop...also, they have a really cool cover of "Thank You" - by Alannis Morisette...' I'm gonna go find thereal version at some point...

Finally, as recommended by Jordan Rudess (because he's that damn cool & actually posts on his forums.

Artist: Kiln
Album: Duster

Great electronic music... http://www.ghostly.com/1.0/ghostly/gi56.shtml


Actually last finally... I had a solo gig last thursday.. it went well, I got a few people interested in my music... unfortunately, there was barely anyone at the restaurant b/c of the snow... hopeflly I'll do another one soon...

2 comments:

Emily said...

Let's hope you have Black Sabbath:Black Sabbath! "Killing yourself to live" has one of the all-time best opening riffs! It sounds like you have a richly musical life. Any thoughts of where you're headed post-graduation?

Mike Lunapiena said...

I do have their self-titled of course, though I'm pretty sure that song isn't on it... (just double-checked it's on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, which I actually don't have... I need to fix that...)

My plans post graduation are to take a year off & take lessons, form a band, work as much as I can in music performance (and possibly do some production work to, even if it's just my own stuff).

After that year, I'm planning on applying to grad. school for music performance... at least that's the plan now... they (plans) have a tendency to change.

This actually hits on something I was gonna blog about: reconciling my affinity for Pop music (particularly songwriting) w/ my brain for Classical... guess I'll be writing that up soon.