yay...engs 21 proposal done! presentation done! didn't go too well, but it's done. now gotta finish drawing the tree for art. bleargh. also gotta submit d-plan by tomorrow. man.

*here's a picture of my tree that I proudly hang in my room now.*

  posted by moliluo @ 4:57 PM

 
man, the snow sucks. just got back from what i originally planned as a tennis match. yeah, the match got cancelled, but went out photographing scenery and stuff with dan. tried different techniques and stuff, so that was worth the cancellatin of the match :-)

  posted by moliluo @ 3:15 PM

 
finally blogging again after over two months without blogging
wow...so weird to start blogging again.
anyway, pretty busy day today...taking pictures at women's tennis meet in a few minutes, then gotta crank out some more of the engineering project, then meeting with group from 4-6 (i might go to cluster council meeting first), then hw and dinner, then work from 8-10 then finishing up hw.
went to see kronos quartet performance at the hop with janna last night. they were very skilled technically but lacked a human, emotional side to tehir music--perhaps this is due to my unfamiliarity with modern music. unfortunately, the program fell out of my pocket some time right after the performance, so i cannot blog the pieces they played, but the first one was really cool. i think it was called cat-o-nine tails and the program notes described it as a 15 minute piece that encompasses 50 short thematic movements. it was quite interesting, as the piece basically surveyed a broad spectrum of string music, and the composer interwoven harmony and dischord, such that amidst much dischord, harmony arises for a few brief seconds only to break down to dischord again. the constantly changing lights complemented the music very well and provided another dimension of feeling to the music. the techniques were very interesting in that they explored many kind of sound a violin can make...including a lot of stuff i teach my student never to do, such as play with the bow over the bridge, behind the bridge, or on the neck between the left hand fingers and the scroll. the composer also played with the gritty sound that a string instrument makes, which was quite cacophonous to the ear but refreshing in its deviation from normal smooth-flowing notes.
the structure of hte second piece was pretty cool in that it combined modern music techniques to the format of a chaconne, although i think the 'cello player could have played hte bass line with more emotion.
then the piece that made its world debut last night, the fourth piece whose name i cannot recall at this time, was fascinating in its development. for the first minute or so, the 1st, 2nd violins and viola exchange these long, dragged notes as if expressing something languid while the 'cello drones on a low C, then the intro blossoms with the 'cello switching to an A, i think, while the other three instruemnts develop their themes, then suddenly, the climax dies down back to the orignal state and this repeats with the instruments swapping parts and builds in ravel's bolero style, getting louder and more complex near the end.
the second half of hte program does not make as deep an impression in my mind as the first half did, probably because the second half had pieces that were a lot more harmonious than those of the first half. i thought it was interesting that a lot of the pieces had a baroque style to them so they sounded, at times, very much like something vivaldi or corelli would have done.

  posted by moliluo @ 12:05 PM