PASIC

Well, among other things happening these days is PASIC. Finally, I'm starting to get ready for the convention, and as always, it's very exciting. A week from today I'll be traveling to Austin to go hear about 50 concerts, see 20 lectures, and meet all kinds of people, not to mention check out all the newest percussion equipment. This year is especially cool because I will have a bunch of my friends there. There's about 6 or 7 people from UNM coming and about 16 from UA. I'm really looking forward to having a bunch of people around that I know.



In other news, school is happening. I just had a concert on Sunday, and I've still got a few left. It's really weird to realize that the semester is beginning to wind down, we only have 6 weeks (or so) left! This semester has definitely flown by, and I think at least partially because it's still 90 degrees outside!


Well, I never posted this, so here it is about 2 weeks after I originally wrote it.

As soon as you think it's over...

Well, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is I got hired to play the next cycle with
SASO, the bad news is that effectively destroys all possibilities of free time between now and the end of the semester. Hooray for having a job, it's been very difficult trying to find some kind of work here. As far as I can tell, I've moved to the top of their sub list. This is the last cycle of the year, but they've got a couple more in the spring. Hopefully I'll get more students soon as well.

In other strange news, I made a myspace page. I know, I know, you don't have to say it. Any way, I did it for networking purposes, so we'll see how that turns out. If it doesn't do what I want I can always just delete it. It happens to serve another purpose as well, I can post concert information on it so that's what I'm doing. Mom, that's for you, since you asked me to let you know when my concerts are, I will keep that updated and all you have to do is go and look at it.

Here's a story Amy thought I should post. I have a friend at UA who I recently found out was at the National Paper Rock Scissor Championships in Las Vegas, which sounds very impressive. I was talking with Dr. Weinberg when my friend (Carlos, if you want a name) walked by and Dr. Weinberg wanted me to challenge him. Well, long story short, I beat him 2 out of 3. I guess I'm really good at paper rock scissors. Who knew?

PASIC is in three weeks! It's my favorite time of the year. I'm thinking about trying to live-blog during it, but I'm guessing that's too much work. I'd post it on my other blog anyway. Oh yeah, I got that up and Derek wanted the link. I haven't done much with it yet, but I think I will. What I really need is my own website where I can have all of this in the same place. Maybe I'll set one up at Thanksgiving when I can talk to Dad about how to do it on our family page. I am definitely looking forward to Thanksgiving as well. It'll be good to see all my siblings again, and the rest of the families too. Too bad I don't know my travel plans for sure yet.

Also, does anyone know of any freeware office type programs besides open office? I was using it for a while, but I can't get it to open on my laptop anymore. I need it for my mac, so pc specific programs won't work.

I think I've also decided to do another recital in the spring sometime, more details as I figure them out. I think for one other big project I might try and do some kind of decent recording of some stuff and put it up on some sites. We'll see. Let me know what you think.

Last, I'm still going to try and figure out a way to play my current music on each post, but I don't know if I can do that or not. Here's the info anyway, I suppose you can always check it out at the iTunes store. Stefon Harris "Evolution"

Breathing room

Finally, my busy couple of weeks is over. I had 3 concerts and a test during the last two weeks. I played with the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra and had some fun, but it sure took up a lot of time. I got paid for it which is great as well. Overall it was pretty easy except for the 4th movement of Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony. I played crash cymbals. Go listen to the end somewhere and you'll know why it's hard. I also played a piece with the UA Philharmonic. That was really easy (just triangle on the Carmen suite) but it also took up some time. Anyway now I'm back to normal school stuff.

There was some good news from last week though, I got a 98 on my test! This is good because I only got an 85 on the first one and I want an A in the class. Pretty soon I need to figure out a topic for my research paper for that class, it's going to be exciting.

That's about all that's happening, or already happened with me. Now I'm getting excited about PASIC!

Christmas

So I'm looking at Amazon.com and looking for things to add to my wish list for Christmas. Now this always includes things I'm pretty sure I won't get so I decided to add a PS3. The only problem is I don't know which one I should add. Is 80gb's going to be enough? Let me know what you think. Also, I'm wondering if I should get a PS2 before they stop making them entirely since they are ruining backwards compatibility. I know Derek and Damon were talking about that a while ago. Also, I want to know if there's any new awesome video games out that I should think about adding as well.

Graduate Workload

So I'm taking one real class this semester. It's online so we don't ever actually meet. I'm really enjoying it, but I'm curious how typical my workload is. For those of you who have been in school, how much time did you spend on homework in a week for your hardest (graduate) class? I'm only doing maybe an hour a day, but the work is starting to ramp up and I wondered how it is for other people. I think I'm reading about 100 pages a week for it. I'm enjoying a fairly easy semester so far, I just need to start practicing more. I only practice about 3 hours a day right now and I should probably do at least 5. Here's my schedule in case anyone's curious.

Monday
Masterclass 11-12
Lesson 1-2
Steel Band 4:30-6

Tuesday
Wind Ensemble 2-4
CrossTalk 4:30-6

Wednesday
Wind Ensemble 2-4
Steel Band 4:30-6

Thursday
Wind Ensemble 2-4
CrossTalk 4:30-6

Friday
Fundamentals class 11-12

In case anyone's wondering what my percussion groups are, here are a couple of links:
CrossTalk
Steel Band

Politics

Due to popular demand (really just Damon and Derek), I will now post about politics, in particular, my opinions about what Dad has taught me.

Dad's main ideas
-The government should keep their hands out of our pockets
-Everyone votes their interests
-Law of second effects

First off, everyone votes their interests. In my case that means I'll become a liberal. This is because working in a government funded institution (a university, or even a symphony orchestra) I am expected to vote for anything that gives me more money which would be bond issues and more taxing of people that make more money than me in order to fund public institutions. Who knows, I might even join a union! (Yes, if I get a job in a symphony orchestra I will probably have to, and no, I won't really become a liberal.)

Next is Dad's real ideas. The important one is simple. The government is terrible with money and are inefficient and wasteful. Therefore we should make sure we give them the least money possible. I am in complete agreement with this. While the government is necessary to maintain and administer a few things (such as a legal system) by and large I have no desire for the government to waste my money doing things they don't really understand how to do. This is Dad's main idea, but he has a few smaller ones as well. The next most important one is people are stupid. This means that since the average voter has no idea how the economy works they'll vote for people who offer them things which don't really help but seem like they do. An example of this is a commercial I keep seeing here in Arizona. Someone (I don't remember who) says their big goals if they get elected are to raise taxes on the oil companies and lower gas prices. These, of course, are mutually exclusive goals. If they raise taxes on the oil companies, they will pass the increased cost on to us in order to keep their profit margins going. But my favorite is one I heard the other day. Obama's plan is to close the "loopholes" in the tax code for business, and then give tax breaks to "American" companies. This is funny to me because the whole reason businesses go overseas is because it's cheaper, so in the end a whole bunch of companies would leave. Moving right along in the same vein, the most important economic idea is the law of second effects. Not the immediate consequence of an action but the third or fourth one down the line. Taxes have an immediate effect, but they also have a second and third effect as well.

Now this leaves some interesting things to notice. First of all, Republicans and Democrats both want to raise our taxes. This doesn't bother me a ton right now, since I don't pay any (we make less than 15k a year) but it will when I get a "real" job. Also, I've been pondering some issues lately regarding my faith and politics. For example, the climate issue. Wether you believe climate change is real or not doesn't matter. As a Christian, I believe that we have been told to be good stewards of the Earth. This brings up some interesting problems, especially since it costs more money to recycle. It also brings up energy, should I be more concerned with renewable energy? I also don't think the government should force us to spend money on charity. That includes things like welfare, medicare and the like. Programs that help out the homeless, or whatever other charitable endeavors are wonderful and necessary, but the government should definitely not be the ones to administer the program. I also don't want to pay into a Social Security program that won't work when I'm eligible to benefit from it.

So here's my bottom line. The government is a wasteful spending giant that has way too many unnecessary programs and outdated ideas (welfare, social security, etc.). Everyone wants to raise my taxes and, after the new bailout plan, manage the economy. Last time I checked, we supposedly had a free market, not a controlled market (yes Dad, I know, regulations about airplanes and stuff...). I don't know who I'm voting for, but at this point I'm looking at third parties. I'd probably vote Libertarian if I thought we didn't need a military, but who knows. Anyway, I think that's the important stuff.

Mom update

After some mental debate, I have decided to have two blogs. This one will be what I will call from now on "mom updates". These will be updates to make my mom happy. My other one will be about percussion, but don't worry, I'm sure there will be plenty of percussion stuff still on this one.

So here's what's been happening in my life.
-I got sick.
-I got a student.
-I got a gig a playing with the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra.
-I'm tired.

That's really about it, but for those of you who want details (Amy), here are some. I got a cold that's been going around school but I'm mostly better now. I was also referred a student by my professor. My student goes to one of the local high schools and we are working on rudimental snare drumming. Also thanks to Dr. Weinberg I got a gig with the SASO. They called me up and needed somebody for Tchaik 4 (Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony, if you didn't know) so I'm playing the big hand cymbal (or crash cymbal) part as well as some minor parts on other pieces. It's definitely nice to start getting some kind of work since I've had no success in finding a job. The last point is pretty self-explanatory.

I'm really enjoying Arizona and the UA, but it was 93 degrees outside today, and that's just obnoxious. Thankfully by the end of the month we're supposed to be about 81 degrees on average.

If anyone knows a way for me to post music I'm listening to (or playing) on one of these let me know. I'm not sure if this blog is capable of streaming either video or audio, but it would be cool if I could vlog a little bit.

Coming up, my oversimplification of Dad's political philosophies.

Technology

The other day I was thinking about technology, and I was thinking about music, and then I started thinking about technology and music, and then I started thinking about pedagogy, and eventually I started thinking about music, technology, and pedagogy, and how they could be linked. Somehow this lead me to think about how I could use technology as a tool to teach percussion, and the possible integration of technology into a pedagogical system. Since I've never read a book on it, it might even become my doctoral thesis project, though I probably shouldn't post about it online or someone will steal my idea. This is a very broad topic, and can cover things from iPod's to digital video cameras to youtube to the amazing slow downer and other more complicated tools. There are many very powerful tools out there for musicians and they all can be useful in different ways, particularly in pedagogy. Blogging or podcasting, or internet radio is just one more way for technology to apply to a specific field, in my case, music. Anyway, that's another reason for starting a blog. This idea may ultimately end up being a catalyst for starting another blog, but we'll see.

So here's a blog...

So thanks to the influence of my siblings, wife, and the general internet community, I've decided to start a blog. We'll see how this goes. I don't really think anyone will be super interested in it, but I guess I'll find out. There's something strange about keeping what is essentially a public journal, but it's easier to find out what's going on and undoubtedly a good way to vent about things. I will probably end up talking about a bunch of random percussion and music stuff which will include whatever I'm up to at the moment, but that's likely to be it. Anyway, the first attempt at blogging is off (soon to be followed by a post explaining my reasoning for finally jumping on the technical bandwagon), we'll see if I keep it up to date.