Not so painful...

The second week of the MITC Lab was not as painful as I had anticipated--Prof. Edwards broke up the tasks to make it easy enough for a person as bad at computers as I am.
One of my favorite days this week, however, was the library day on Thursday. I had no idea that so many things dealing with copyright stuff was illegal. As a musician, I of course understand the significance of needing money for all the work that you do (and since we don't exactly make a lot of money to begin with...) but as a consumer, having a cd and dvd burner on my computer (and programs such as itunes) certainly makes it easy to "steal" information. I'm guilty of doing it on quite a regular basis but I understand the importance of buying cds because having several record labels that hold a monopoly on the industry is bad news for me as a pianist. On the other hand, I think it's ridiculous that there are people that go around schools and try to find people that have photocopies of music. I don't have the funds to buy every single book that contains a piece that Claude wants me to play--although I'd love to becuase having music is a great thing...but I simply can't afford it. This is really a hard topic to talk about because there are so many factors that go into it....

I Liked It!!

I really enjoyed this rotation. It was really fun and not too difficult. At times it was frustrating because I picked up on things fairly quick, so having to sit through the instructions was a little tedious, but then of course there were times when I would have a brain-fart and not remember how to do something so simple! The finale part was really interesting. I like the idea of Hyperscribe because I find it hard to play something, then have to remember how to notate it. So it's nice to be able to have something do that for you. I also enjoyed the Dreamweaver section. It was just a lot of fun. The whole craze with Facebook and MySpace these days, it's great to learn how to make your OWN website that's not pre-formatted!

MITC is ok with me

The MITC unit was a good unit for me. I thought that it made alot of since and that it was relevant for life as a student and a musician. Not to mention that I enjoy technology to some extent. It has always been sort of a hobby/fascination for me. So how about that library day this time around though. That was kind of scary. I can just see some guy in a hat walking on to the stage after your performance and fining you $100,000 for making a copy of someones music. I thought that was probably the most useful library day we've had since we got here. For me, I had thought about the fact that taking a cd and ripping it onto your computer was illegal and of course downloading music from the internet without paying was illegal but I had never really thought about written music up until that point. Anyways, I thought that those were some good facts for the future of a performer.

Well, now that the rotational half of our first year seminar is over, it is now time to enter into the world of persuasive analysis of music- Professor Spiegelberg's Writing about Music class. Personally, I'm excited. I've always wanted to be able to take music and work on translating my feelings and emotions about music that I hear. This hopefully will give me the ability to better describe and argue points about music, and become more fluent in music terminology and its use.

In the MITC Module of our First Year Seminar, I was also able to explore my creative writing in our personal biographies. Enough said. You get my drift.

Finale! I mean...finally!

Ok, that was intersting...I did all of that at work. We are supposed to write about what we learned, right? Well, quite honestly, all of this was old news. If only I could have tested out of that. Sorry if I'm being blunt or insensitive, but in my opinion that was really pointless. I'm glad it did helop some of you, but there are those of you who are stuck in theory asking, "Why am I even here? I've been doing this since I could read music?" That's the same thing I have felt this entire rotation. Well, now that I've been hars, everybody enjoy the break!

AN AWESOME POST THAT YOU ALL MUST READ

Here I am; at home-at last!
Smiling cause I am not in class.
What a week, it sucked so bad,
'cept for the tight b-day I had!
I turned 19 on Tuesday morning,
The FYS class was rather boring.
While the lady was nice and helped us learn,
The Finale program I wanted to burn.
And Dreamweaver thing was cool but pointless,
Like seeing my icon Bob Marley Jointless.
Yet more rewriting in class; I was gritting my teeth,
I told myself, "dude, by the end of the week,
You'll either be crazy, running about,
or blind by gouging your own eyes out!"
I made my own web page, it was real tight,
But I have no clue how to get to the site.
The test was today, it was not real hard;
like seeing Peter Griffin sucking on lard
In the Family Guy episode I saw last night;
It was really cool; it was the SHIITE!!!
The word I used wasn't a bad word; no...
it's used to describe certain muslims, ya know?
Anyway, I'm out to Edgewood Lake;
I HOPE THAT YOU ALL HAVE A TIGHT FALL BREAK!!!

Spice

I've really liked all the rotations we've been doing! This last one we did was good because I learned the basics to creating a homepage, which is really cool because I've never done that before! I have to admit, I really like this whole rotation thing. At first I wasn't sure if I would end up liking it, but I realized that I do because it really offers a little bit of everything, which is nice. Variety is the spice of Life!

Well...

The MITC rotation was so informative. We learned loads of information in a short time and became familiar with such technologies as Dreamweaver and Finale. It is so important as musicians to be very well-rounded; we should not only learn instuments, but technology and other aspects of the business. As musicians in this century, knowing as many skills as we can is not only favorable in the market, but expected. So, I hope that everyone learned and had fun, because I sure did. I especially loved the fact that I could just play the piano line on the keyboard and Finale would notate it. Well, I hope that everyone has a good Fall Break; I know that I really need it. Right now I'm beginning it by listening to Pavarotti and Freni's Boheme, and it is awesome!

Done and over with

~I also want to get this done and over with because I have other things on my mind right now~

When I heard that I'm creating a webpage, it brought back memories of high school. In my senior year, I created a webpage for my English class. It was pretty interesting for the first time. Now this week, when I found out that we're creating a webpage, I thought it was going to be the same thing. Creating a webpage in the lab gives me more opportunities to be more creative. So, my first impression on this week being boring changed because I like to be creative with my webpage :). Guys don't forget to check mine out when it's done.

Since the excitment over fall break is mounting (along with the stress levels), I decided to go ahead and get my blog done early...before I forget.

I am finding this week a little easier than last week. I don't know if I'm getting used to using the technology, or if the web pages are actually easier than Finale. Unlike Finale, where I know it'll be useful, I'm not sure when I'll ever have to create a web page, but it's still interesting information to have. I'm excited to be able to read everyone's bios! While we found out a little about each other in Professor Foy's rotation, we didn't find out much personal information. I hope more of our personalities will come out in the web pages- if it's only our favorite color combinations.

I think that's all for now. I hope everyone's musicianship hearing went well!!