What I've been up to
Jul. 10th, 2004 12:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariFor the past week or so I've been amazingly productive. I guess I'm past that first part of the summer in which I traditionally goof off like crazy and I'm now into the part where I get stuff done.
I've been working steadily on finishing up my sextet "St. Govan's Head". Sometimes it's much harder to write the accompaniment-background material than it is to write the main foreground material. Nevertheless, it's coming along. I'm actually a little impatient to finish. I'm happy with my work on the sextet, but I'm getting excited about my next project: a series of short "character pieces" for solo piano along the lines of Chopin's Preludes or Satie's "Sports et Divertissements". Probably more of the latter than the former, actually.
At work, my workload has been perfectly balanced between busy and mellow: enough to fill the day but not so much that I have to run around like a chicken with my head cut off.
The grad school research has been going well. I bought a lot of CDs of music by the composition professors at the places I'm interested in. So far, I've liked what I have heard. Even the stuff I haven't loved is still work I can respect. I now have a list of 7 schools to apply to: Northwestern, Peabody, U of Missouri at Kansas City, U of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, U of Michigan, U of Oregon, and UC Davis. Now on to the part where I start communicating with the departments and professors and start working on setting up visits and interviews. I've made a good beginning with UMKC already.
I've been working on some pretty difficult piano music. I love the challenge, and it makes me feel all buff and powerful when I'm practicing.
Other Kenjari and I saw "Spiderman 2" last night. I was really impressed. Sam Raimi does a really good job with this sort of thing. His visual sense is well suited to this kind of action-packed material. The movie also does a great job of balancing and integrating the dramatic elements with the action sequences. I also liked the way the characters had more to them than just "superhero", "supervillain", "romantic interest", etc. I especially liked the way Doc Octopus starts out as a basically good person without any really obvious villain tendencies. And Alfred Molina was a good choice for the role.
And of course, for those of us who are kind of geeky, there are some added delights. First comes Bruce Campbell's cameo as a snooty usher. Then there is the homage to the Evil Dead movies (the scene where Doc Oc breaks out of the hospital). Plus, Stan Lee makes a very brief appearance. And I'm enough of a geek to have recognized him even though he's on screen for only about two seconds.
I've been working steadily on finishing up my sextet "St. Govan's Head". Sometimes it's much harder to write the accompaniment-background material than it is to write the main foreground material. Nevertheless, it's coming along. I'm actually a little impatient to finish. I'm happy with my work on the sextet, but I'm getting excited about my next project: a series of short "character pieces" for solo piano along the lines of Chopin's Preludes or Satie's "Sports et Divertissements". Probably more of the latter than the former, actually.
At work, my workload has been perfectly balanced between busy and mellow: enough to fill the day but not so much that I have to run around like a chicken with my head cut off.
The grad school research has been going well. I bought a lot of CDs of music by the composition professors at the places I'm interested in. So far, I've liked what I have heard. Even the stuff I haven't loved is still work I can respect. I now have a list of 7 schools to apply to: Northwestern, Peabody, U of Missouri at Kansas City, U of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, U of Michigan, U of Oregon, and UC Davis. Now on to the part where I start communicating with the departments and professors and start working on setting up visits and interviews. I've made a good beginning with UMKC already.
I've been working on some pretty difficult piano music. I love the challenge, and it makes me feel all buff and powerful when I'm practicing.
Other Kenjari and I saw "Spiderman 2" last night. I was really impressed. Sam Raimi does a really good job with this sort of thing. His visual sense is well suited to this kind of action-packed material. The movie also does a great job of balancing and integrating the dramatic elements with the action sequences. I also liked the way the characters had more to them than just "superhero", "supervillain", "romantic interest", etc. I especially liked the way Doc Octopus starts out as a basically good person without any really obvious villain tendencies. And Alfred Molina was a good choice for the role.
And of course, for those of us who are kind of geeky, there are some added delights. First comes Bruce Campbell's cameo as a snooty usher. Then there is the homage to the Evil Dead movies (the scene where Doc Oc breaks out of the hospital). Plus, Stan Lee makes a very brief appearance. And I'm enough of a geek to have recognized him even though he's on screen for only about two seconds.
