ONE TWO three FOUR five
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)
Day Seven: Four turn offs.
Day Eight: Three turn ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.
I don't have a lot of regrets. I've been very fortunate in that almost every shitty situation I've been in has resolved itself into something that made it worth getting through; I have had no life-shattering moments (yet). So most of these are small things. Mostly.
1. I wish I'd never taken AP Physics. It was stupid of me. I didn't even take the exam, and only the extreme goodwill of my teacher prevented it burying my GPA in "will never get a scholarship" land. I feel like if I'd swallowed my pride and taken honors instead, I would have gotten a lot more out of it; my current physics class is right at my level, and so much more makes sense now. I find physics fascinating, but since I knew I wasn't going to do anything with it on more than a conceptual level, I would have been better served focusing on other things.
2. I wish I'd not been too awkward to get a dude's phone number. This was back in freshman or sophomore year - right after a Chamblee production of something or other. Might have been Forum, might not have been. I was firmly entrenched in a crush at that time, which would end up panning out well, but after the show I was introduced to this dude whose name I no longer remember. I was really, really fucking awkward at this time in my life, but for some reason this dude and I really hit it off. It was one of those, "Whoa, we are on the same wavelength to an extent that is strange considering this is our first meeting and also we are totally giving each other the 'you are not so bad-looking' side-eye and I want your number." I know he was thinking this. He knew I was thinking this. This was literally the next step in this conversation. ...And then we got interrupted, and both of us were too awkward to pick it back up after that crucial moment. I've never seen him since.
Yes, I know. Nothing would ever have happened. But. I can't help but wonder if I missed out on some magical Disney romance when I didn't get that guy's number. |D
3. I wish I'd not waited so long to tell my mother I was bisexual. I just wish I'd been smarter about how I came out in general. I mean, yeah, there's no good way to come out, but there's also a lot of really bad ways, and I picked a pretty bad one. 2008 might have been better-- or anyway, less hellish, both for me and my mother-- if I'd thought this out better.
4. I wish October 18, 2008 were not significant in my memory for the reasons it is. Even when I was living through the year that followed that day, I never quite managed to justify to myself what I did. Yeah, I learned from it; but I will always wish I'd found a way to learn that didn't involve hurting the person who was most important to me as badly as I did.
5. Once, I inadvertently insulted someone by jokingly bringing up a dead family member... who they'd lost. It was pure stupidity, not maliciously intended at all, but nevertheless I would pay so much to return to that day and not say that. My stomach still kind of shrivels in shame and misery when I think of it.
6. I wish I'd never broken the law when I had my driver's permit. I feel really dumb about that now, like, "Come on, you couldn't have waited three fucking months?"
And now that that's done, I am going to need to geek at you. Hard. Music jargon incoming.
So the Strangely Domestic Quartet (yes, that's our name) has been working on the same piece for a few months now. It is Henry Cowell's String Quartet No. 4, written in 1936, more commonly called the United Quartet. It is very much a modern style piece, and atonal (which is music lingo for "makes no fucking sense"). Cowell wrote it as an attempt to marry modern atonal music to the more popular conventional classical; he was trying to give a very non-mainstream style mainstream appeal. It combines a lot of ethnic influence (primarily African and far-eastern) with the American modern style.
I wish I could find it to show y'all; but apparently no one has recorded this piece in any way that can be procured for free on the Internet. But if you, for whatever reason, manage to get ahold of it, give it a listen. Please.
So the United Quartet operates in fives. The pattern emphasizes the first, second, and fourth parts of the five. ONE! TWO! three. FOUR! five. LOUD LOUD soft LOUD soft. This is the base for the whole piece.
And then the layers start.
There are five movements. First two start loud. Third starts soft. Fourth starts loud. Fifth soft. So the five is evident in the overall structure of the quartet. Then, within the first movement, the moving line changed parts five times, dividing it into five parts. And first two sections are loud, third is soft, fourth is loud, fifth is soft. And then, within each one of those five sections, the variations in the dynamic, no matter what level it's on, will vary-- loud loud soft loud soft. FORTISSIMO FORTISSIMO forte FORTISSIMO forte. mezzopiano mezzopiano piano mezzopiano piano. And then, within each individual measure, the accented beats are the same-- ONE TWO three FOUR five. The melody changes instruments, but at all times, at least two instruments are playing that cruel, barking backbeat-- ONE TWO three FOUR five ONE TWO three FOUR five.
So the pattern is within the measures, within the segments, within the overall movement, and then within the whole piece. And that is just the layers inherent in one movement.
We figured out the full scope of this on Tuesday, after weeks of playing it, and had to take fifteen minutes out of rehearsal to recover from a severe mutual case of MINDBLOWNITIS. It's modern music-- it's atonal-- it sounds like it makes no fucking sense. But it does! In fact it makes more sense than most things conventionally believed to make sense! It is made of intersecting circles-- or pentagons, rather-- and now our quest is, in one listen, to make the audience get how fucking cool it is. It took us a month to figure it out, but damn it, the audience is going to come away being all "MAN THAT UNITED QUARTET HAS CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT ATONAL MUSIC," just like it did for us.
Atonal music gets a bum rap because so much of it is bullshit. Flinging notes at a page like fingerpaint - that's bullshit. But building music on that delicate pattern, constructing those circles - I'm sure that there's even more we haven't seen. We haven't dug into the other movements quite like the first. There's probably deeper math than even we understand. And Cowell wanted people to like it. It works on two levels - one for the ones listening to it, who might not know shit about music but who enjoy the sound (because it does sound good), and then another for the people playing it, who get to play with those patterns and draw out those fives and build those pretty circles-- I am so happy I get to play this piece. I am amped for every quartet rehearsal and genuinely excited for the performance.
Man, I wish I could find a copy to show you guys. I'll try to find one. The first movement is such a perfect prelude, and the second one is this voice crying out in the desert (and I get to pluck and bow at the same time and it's badass), and then the third is standing on a crowded street corner and closing your eyes and not moving (and is in two time signatures at the same time, whose beats by the way add up to five but operate in six), and then the fourth is this little comical thing that sounds like a Chinese restaurant (and we get to hit our instruments), and then the fifth should be played from underground or inside a pyramid or something, because it's slow and sepulchral and grows like echoes...
aaaaaaaand time for me to stop talking. But. United Quartet: A++ would play again, Endlessly.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)
Day Seven: Four turn offs.
Day Eight: Three turn ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.
I don't have a lot of regrets. I've been very fortunate in that almost every shitty situation I've been in has resolved itself into something that made it worth getting through; I have had no life-shattering moments (yet). So most of these are small things. Mostly.
1. I wish I'd never taken AP Physics. It was stupid of me. I didn't even take the exam, and only the extreme goodwill of my teacher prevented it burying my GPA in "will never get a scholarship" land. I feel like if I'd swallowed my pride and taken honors instead, I would have gotten a lot more out of it; my current physics class is right at my level, and so much more makes sense now. I find physics fascinating, but since I knew I wasn't going to do anything with it on more than a conceptual level, I would have been better served focusing on other things.
2. I wish I'd not been too awkward to get a dude's phone number. This was back in freshman or sophomore year - right after a Chamblee production of something or other. Might have been Forum, might not have been. I was firmly entrenched in a crush at that time, which would end up panning out well, but after the show I was introduced to this dude whose name I no longer remember. I was really, really fucking awkward at this time in my life, but for some reason this dude and I really hit it off. It was one of those, "Whoa, we are on the same wavelength to an extent that is strange considering this is our first meeting and also we are totally giving each other the 'you are not so bad-looking' side-eye and I want your number." I know he was thinking this. He knew I was thinking this. This was literally the next step in this conversation. ...And then we got interrupted, and both of us were too awkward to pick it back up after that crucial moment. I've never seen him since.
Yes, I know. Nothing would ever have happened. But. I can't help but wonder if I missed out on some magical Disney romance when I didn't get that guy's number. |D
3. I wish I'd not waited so long to tell my mother I was bisexual. I just wish I'd been smarter about how I came out in general. I mean, yeah, there's no good way to come out, but there's also a lot of really bad ways, and I picked a pretty bad one. 2008 might have been better-- or anyway, less hellish, both for me and my mother-- if I'd thought this out better.
4. I wish October 18, 2008 were not significant in my memory for the reasons it is. Even when I was living through the year that followed that day, I never quite managed to justify to myself what I did. Yeah, I learned from it; but I will always wish I'd found a way to learn that didn't involve hurting the person who was most important to me as badly as I did.
5. Once, I inadvertently insulted someone by jokingly bringing up a dead family member... who they'd lost. It was pure stupidity, not maliciously intended at all, but nevertheless I would pay so much to return to that day and not say that. My stomach still kind of shrivels in shame and misery when I think of it.
6. I wish I'd never broken the law when I had my driver's permit. I feel really dumb about that now, like, "Come on, you couldn't have waited three fucking months?"
And now that that's done, I am going to need to geek at you. Hard. Music jargon incoming.
So the Strangely Domestic Quartet (yes, that's our name) has been working on the same piece for a few months now. It is Henry Cowell's String Quartet No. 4, written in 1936, more commonly called the United Quartet. It is very much a modern style piece, and atonal (which is music lingo for "makes no fucking sense"). Cowell wrote it as an attempt to marry modern atonal music to the more popular conventional classical; he was trying to give a very non-mainstream style mainstream appeal. It combines a lot of ethnic influence (primarily African and far-eastern) with the American modern style.
I wish I could find it to show y'all; but apparently no one has recorded this piece in any way that can be procured for free on the Internet. But if you, for whatever reason, manage to get ahold of it, give it a listen. Please.
So the United Quartet operates in fives. The pattern emphasizes the first, second, and fourth parts of the five. ONE! TWO! three. FOUR! five. LOUD LOUD soft LOUD soft. This is the base for the whole piece.
And then the layers start.
There are five movements. First two start loud. Third starts soft. Fourth starts loud. Fifth soft. So the five is evident in the overall structure of the quartet. Then, within the first movement, the moving line changed parts five times, dividing it into five parts. And first two sections are loud, third is soft, fourth is loud, fifth is soft. And then, within each one of those five sections, the variations in the dynamic, no matter what level it's on, will vary-- loud loud soft loud soft. FORTISSIMO FORTISSIMO forte FORTISSIMO forte. mezzopiano mezzopiano piano mezzopiano piano. And then, within each individual measure, the accented beats are the same-- ONE TWO three FOUR five. The melody changes instruments, but at all times, at least two instruments are playing that cruel, barking backbeat-- ONE TWO three FOUR five ONE TWO three FOUR five.
So the pattern is within the measures, within the segments, within the overall movement, and then within the whole piece. And that is just the layers inherent in one movement.
We figured out the full scope of this on Tuesday, after weeks of playing it, and had to take fifteen minutes out of rehearsal to recover from a severe mutual case of MINDBLOWNITIS. It's modern music-- it's atonal-- it sounds like it makes no fucking sense. But it does! In fact it makes more sense than most things conventionally believed to make sense! It is made of intersecting circles-- or pentagons, rather-- and now our quest is, in one listen, to make the audience get how fucking cool it is. It took us a month to figure it out, but damn it, the audience is going to come away being all "MAN THAT UNITED QUARTET HAS CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT ATONAL MUSIC," just like it did for us.
Atonal music gets a bum rap because so much of it is bullshit. Flinging notes at a page like fingerpaint - that's bullshit. But building music on that delicate pattern, constructing those circles - I'm sure that there's even more we haven't seen. We haven't dug into the other movements quite like the first. There's probably deeper math than even we understand. And Cowell wanted people to like it. It works on two levels - one for the ones listening to it, who might not know shit about music but who enjoy the sound (because it does sound good), and then another for the people playing it, who get to play with those patterns and draw out those fives and build those pretty circles-- I am so happy I get to play this piece. I am amped for every quartet rehearsal and genuinely excited for the performance.
Man, I wish I could find a copy to show you guys. I'll try to find one. The first movement is such a perfect prelude, and the second one is this voice crying out in the desert (and I get to pluck and bow at the same time and it's badass), and then the third is standing on a crowded street corner and closing your eyes and not moving (and is in two time signatures at the same time, whose beats by the way add up to five but operate in six), and then the fourth is this little comical thing that sounds like a Chinese restaurant (and we get to hit our instruments), and then the fifth should be played from underground or inside a pyramid or something, because it's slow and sepulchral and grows like echoes...
aaaaaaaand time for me to stop talking. But. United Quartet: A++ would play again, Endlessly.