Fun New Stuff
I'm feeling rather contented this evening. I went to concerts at Wyoming Seminary tonight and on Friday, and enjoyed both of them. Friday, the wind ensemble did Johan de Meij's Lord of the Rings Symphony (no connection to the music in the movie) and I really enjoyed it. I've always liked music written to tell a story (Pictures at an Exhibition, Debussy's stuff, Scheherazade, etc.) The students got the music for the first time on Monday morning and played it Friday night, so it was a teensy bit less than perfect (everyone didn't always start and end at EXACTLY the same time, mainly) but these high schoolers are amazingly talented. Tonight the jazz faculty did a recital. My favorite piece was really "world music." It was two musicians, one on percussion, and one playing the didgeridoo. (Warning: long section on the didgeridoo ahead; feel free to skip it even though I don't know how to set it up right.)
I'd seen the word before, but I didn't know what it was, and I'd certainly never seen one. It looked like the hollow trunk of a young tree, about as tall as the guy playing it, with a thick, shiny finish. He sort of hummed into one end, and it turned into an echo chamber, setting up a low, droning sound. Then he would do a few other sounds, and they would repeat. (In the last little section he did a couple little dog barks, and I just loved hearing them come out of this tree) After he got it going, he set it aside and it continued to make its noise, while he played other instruments. It was really cool.
My other new thing for the weekend is that I ordered a mini camcorder from Amazon. Ever since I first saw the little Flip camcorders I've been curious about them, so I read some of their reviews, but everybody this year seemed to be talking about the new Kodak PlaySport (it's waterproof to 10 feet, and is supposed to give better quality video). Then I started looking at last year's Kodak, the Zi8, because it has an external mic jack and a macro option to focus up close. Of course, though, these are little cameras, not the best quality, and I kept reading criticisms, so I spent yesterday reading reviews of slightly more expensive cameras. I'd read something and get really excited about a camera (Wow! Optical zoom! Optical image stabilization! Great low light performance!) only to be disappointed by the inevitable problems (Oops! It can't focus! It stops automatically after 5 minutes whether you want it to or not!) Eventually I figured out that any camera that addressed all my concerns would cost me about $1000. NOT going to happen. So I ordered the little Zi8 [raspberry colored :) ] and I'm very excited to get it and start using it. I want to be at least minimally competent at using it by the time I take my first videos of the little nephew - those first videos are so precious, and I would hate for them to be terrible quality just because I didn't know what I was doing.
OK, I'll let you go. Maybe someone could tell me how to hide the sections I'm afraid people won't want to bother with?
I'd seen the word before, but I didn't know what it was, and I'd certainly never seen one. It looked like the hollow trunk of a young tree, about as tall as the guy playing it, with a thick, shiny finish. He sort of hummed into one end, and it turned into an echo chamber, setting up a low, droning sound. Then he would do a few other sounds, and they would repeat. (In the last little section he did a couple little dog barks, and I just loved hearing them come out of this tree) After he got it going, he set it aside and it continued to make its noise, while he played other instruments. It was really cool.
My other new thing for the weekend is that I ordered a mini camcorder from Amazon. Ever since I first saw the little Flip camcorders I've been curious about them, so I read some of their reviews, but everybody this year seemed to be talking about the new Kodak PlaySport (it's waterproof to 10 feet, and is supposed to give better quality video). Then I started looking at last year's Kodak, the Zi8, because it has an external mic jack and a macro option to focus up close. Of course, though, these are little cameras, not the best quality, and I kept reading criticisms, so I spent yesterday reading reviews of slightly more expensive cameras. I'd read something and get really excited about a camera (Wow! Optical zoom! Optical image stabilization! Great low light performance!) only to be disappointed by the inevitable problems (Oops! It can't focus! It stops automatically after 5 minutes whether you want it to or not!) Eventually I figured out that any camera that addressed all my concerns would cost me about $1000. NOT going to happen. So I ordered the little Zi8 [raspberry colored :) ] and I'm very excited to get it and start using it. I want to be at least minimally competent at using it by the time I take my first videos of the little nephew - those first videos are so precious, and I would hate for them to be terrible quality just because I didn't know what I was doing.
OK, I'll let you go. Maybe someone could tell me how to hide the sections I'm afraid people won't want to bother with?