Almost Halloween!

Here it is, the day before Halloween, and I'm sitting at a computer in a lab on campus finishing yet another project.  I don't know about anyone else, but it always seems that about this point of the semester is the time when you feel like you do nothing but homework in the vain hope that one day you will be free.  Let me know if that day ever comes for any of you.

I mentioned in an earlier post how I'm not the biggest fan of Halloween, though I will admit that I agreed to go to a friend's party tomorrow and I am a little excited to go.  I wish I wasn't expected to dress up (I have this mentality on costumes: if you can't do it well, why bother?) but it should still be way fun.  Maybe I'll post a picture or two of it later, should I actually think to take any, that is.

This song has nothing to do with Halloween, however, so hopefully that's not too much of a downer for those listening to it.  It's my first attempt at orchestrating for near full orchestra (no percussion yet) and it took me ages to complete this project for my class.  It's a rendition of Debussy's Sunken Cathedral which I feel sounds amazing on piano already which made this project tricky.  Hopefully it sounds good.

There were some who were wondering about getting copies of some of my pieces, particularly the last one, so if you want any either email me or, if I already know you, message me on Facebook and I'm more than willing to give you the pdf of anything.  Thanks!

Sunken Cathedral - Claude Debussy (Segment - Arr.)

Stress Relief for the Holidays

Yet again it seems as though the holiday season is upon us.  Although I'm not the biggest fan of Halloween at least I can appreciate the time of year it rings in.  Yay, Christmas! :)

Not that everything is always so joyous and wonderful.  Just this week I failed to pass on my recital preview at university which is a major disappointment.  That doesn't mean I won't graduate because I do get to try again though I don't know when at this point, but it also doesn't change the fact that it hurt a bit.  Mostly I've been trying not to think about it.

However, I will mention one thing that I've blogged about before: how great my friends are!  As soon as I got the news my friends became the biggest support to me and it meant so much that they were there when I needed them!

With all that going on I haven't been much in the mood to practice voice quite yet so I've filled my time fulfilling an obligation I committed to a couple of months ago.  I have a friend who was recently assigned as her church choir director and she asked if I could do an arrangement of Joy to the World and O Come All Ye Faithful together and, until now, I haven't had much time to do it.  Guess what I did this week instead of practice? ;) It's been a good stress relief and I hope that I did what she was hoping for.  If not I suppose it will be back to the drawing board.  The parts are mainly derived from the LDS Hymn book and it's not anything amazing, just simple and intended for a congregational choir.  As with most pieces I post here, I'm sure this will sound much better in real life.

Joy to the World / O Come All Ye Faithful - Arr.

Mid-term Madness

You know, it's hard to find time to blog or do anything not stressful when you're in the middle of your last year of college.  Weird, right?

I am always left amused when I sit back and realise that each of my professors has the idea that, to "help" us feel less busy, they are lighter on the homework at the beginning and end of the semester and pile everything at mid-term.  As "good-hearted" as this may be, the problem is that when everyone is doing the same thing it doesn't really work as they intend.  Instead the students are left with two or three weeks in the semester in which their lives feel like they're about to unravel because EVERYTHING IS DUE AT ONCE!  The result?  One of my classes didn't happen for me on Tuesday and one assignment became ignored completely.  I am okay with this.

Even with all of this going on, Halloween is upon us.  I don't actually care for Halloween very much.  I appreciate the candy and sugar portion of the holiday, but I could live without everything else.  Especially the costumes.  There's a reason I've been a "model" and a "nudist on strike" the last couple of years.  I just don't care anymore.  Some people do and I'm so glad that they do.  They can care on my behalf.

Having said that, this song is my latest project from my Orchestration class I was talking about last month.  This time we were supposed to do a string and woodwind version of a piece from Bela Bartok's Mikrokosmos.  I thought it sounded kind of creepy in a cool way so I tried to stay true to that while orchestrating.  This is the closest I get to Halloween.  Enjoy!

Mikrokosmos No. 150 - Bela Bartok (Stgs & WW Arr. Segment)