Comments | robinmckinley: Life lists

robinmckinley

Life lists

Mar 15, 2008 01:31

Do you ever write up a list of what you have managed to accomplish in a day?* I mean the exact opposite of the loud, scolding, overbearing list of things you’re supposed to get done. Achievement lists are one of those life strategy things, useful in a number of contexts: when you’re so low you don’t want to do anything and are only going ( Read more... )

perversity of life, gardening, hellhounds, homeopathy, bell ringing

Comments 45

taliabriscoe March 15 2008, 05:07:24 UTC

Oh. I thought I was the only one doing loud mental scolding and berating over the lack of things getting done, perhaps I shall try this new way of looking at things. :D

gwinna487 March 15 2008, 06:00:40 UTC

I love making lists. I've never tried making one of what I actually managed to accomplish during a day, though, just crossed those things off the list of what I wanted to get done in a day. Maybe I should try it - except any such list might be so pathetically short that it would make me feel worse rather than better.

I wish there were some way you could share your compositions with us on the blog! I play the piano too (though I'm not very good or anything) and I'd love to see them (and try to play them!). All this talk of how you're reinventing the wheel and amusing your piano teacher and so on is making me awfully curious. :)

(And what do Phantom of the Opera and Good Friday have to do with each other? Did I miss something?)

robinmckinley March 15 2008, 14:54:52 UTC

He plays the organ.

robinmckinley March 15 2008, 15:17:24 UTC

. . . sorry. Gah. Cavorting hellhounds. :) To continue: Remember the composing is BRAND NEW. I've been doing it, what, two months or something? Maybe as much as three? And I started out writing four bars of one-line melody to a GIVEN rhythm and only allowed CERTAIN notes to use. Given rhythms and given notes only stopped about a month ago--I mean when I could choose my own. *Last week* was the first time I was allowed CHORDS in the left hand. :) And I think my longest piece is about sixteen bars. Let me actually write something that someone who isn't my piano teacher might find interesting, and I'll scan it in and post it. I may test it out on Niall first. :)

southdowner March 15 2008, 07:25:35 UTC

So glad the plants came, and that you're feeling better than you were ( ... )

robinmckinley March 15 2008, 14:57:39 UTC

Maybe I’ll start feeding my hen scratches to the hellhounds. ***

No no no! Please don't! You know you'll only have to get them back or
explain to your music teacher, "Sorry, my homework's in the dog!" LOL

********* No, immediately AFTER my piano teacher has signed off on it . . . although you're right, that wouldn't really be safe either, because lately he's taken to telling me go back and write VARIATIONS on earlier things . . . hmmmmmm. :)

spindriftdancer March 16 2008, 02:08:27 UTC

Well, the variations are where the real writing gets done. You start with an idea, and then mess around with it until you fall in love with the way it sounds... and then you play with the harmony. Very rarely does something fall into your mind as a whole. Sometimes you start with a chord and then mess around with it until you get a chord progression, and then you add the tune. If you're not writing with words in mind then it's all about the notes and how you get from one point to the other. If you want to look at it this way, it's more like telling a story with sounds (tension, conclusion and echo).

Your teacher is sneaky(: Using the Socratic method for teaching composition...

robinmckinley March 16 2008, 10:50:54 UTC

It's a LOT like story telling, which, to the extent that I'm doing it, I think is *why* I'm doing it.

anonymous March 15 2008, 08:19:42 UTC

I don't write down my got-done lists, but sometimes reflect in a self-congratulatory way on things that actually did get accomplished, never mind all that other stuff that's still waiting. It sounds like you did very well indeed, brava. In spite the perversity of computers. You were probably paying the price of your easy monitor-and-webcam-installation ( ... )

robinmckinley March 15 2008, 15:04:40 UTC

So I am still one up on the list.

********** I hope you threw salt over some shoulder or other (I can never remember which one it's supposed to be, isn't the WRONG one supposed to be BAD luck?) when you said that OUT LOUD where other people can hear/read it.

If you are indeed writing pastiches, at least you are working from good models!

********** I measure my success by whether my piano teacher comes into the room smiling. At the moment, he's still smiling. I'm usually his first student of the afternoon and if he's not there I let myself in and leap on the piano and play as much as possible before I hear him coming in and instantly fall over from stage fright. Sigh. And he's such a NICE man. One of the side benefits of the composing is that it's WRITTEN DOWN. I can PROVE I did the work, you know? An awful lot of my playing is punctuated by cries of, I can play this at home!

spindriftdancer March 15 2008, 20:26:24 UTC

LOL! That's what I tell my teacher, too! She didn't seem to believe me...

ah, piano! anonymous March 17 2008, 21:28:51 UTC

Heehee... me too! Constant mantra "hang on. I just did this an hour ago at home and it sounded GOOD then. I DID practice, I promise." ...mhmm, okay, whatever you say...
:)
--Julia

(The comment has been removed)

robinmckinley March 15 2008, 15:29:25 UTC

***Find someone to talk to.*** Pain is very debilitating and demoralising! So is having 'flu' all the time! You are NOT crazy, or imagining things, nor, *my* guess is, are you going to die soon. But all of that is ***very ME-ish***. Although it's more out of the closet than it was a decade ago most doctors still seem not to know anything useful about it. You need someone who DOES know--including that it's immensely VARIABLE.