Coffee Klatch

So I’m considering heading back to grad school. Academic librarians are typically expected to have two Master’s degrees–one in Library Science and one in an area of specialization. Some fields like Science or Music practically require it since quite a bit of specialized knowledge is needed.

Since I work at a university, I get free tuition for taking a class or two per semester. When I think about taking classes for an actual degree, I have to look at what graduate degrees Butler offers and what interests me. Along with what I’d be qualified to take. Can’t exactly jump into a Master’s in Biology without a B.S. in the discipline.

So I’m looking at a Master of Music degree. I’m thinking either in Music History or in Composition, and I’m leaning toward Composition. We have three great Composition professors at Butler and, since my B.Mus. was in Theory/Composition and I’m still composing and arranging music today, it seems like a logical choice and one I would enjoy. Plus, the Jordan College of Fine Arts at Butler University has an excellent reputation.

We’re talking 30 credit hours, including a thesis. For composition, this means a score and recorded performance of “an original work in a larger form.” Plus an oral defense, of course. Taking 1 or 2 classes a year (and maybe something in the summers), that will probably mean 2-5 years. That’s not so bad for pursuing a Master’s degree while working full time.

(Yes, I did go through all the coursework and Comprehensive Exams for my PhD in Education, but it’s been a few years now and I’m out of the program, ABD (all but dissertation). Chalk that up to experience. At least I’m still able to use all that I learned since I’m still working at a university.)

Current music: Halloween, by Mannheim Steamroller

We normally think of the musical scale going from A to G (or from C to C, whether or not they’re shining). When we add the flats and sharps, that accounts for all the notes in our Western well-tempered tonality. But did you know that other letters have been used besides A-G?

In Europe, the letter H is often used instead of B. Since B♭ is used more commonly than B, when they say ‘B’ they mean ‘B-flat.’ H, the next available letter, is then used to designate the regular B.

When some composers have wanted to write a piece based on a theme of someone’s name that didn’t include just the letters A-G (or H), sometimes they’ve recycled through the available letters again, so H=A, I=B, J=C, K=D, L=E, M=F, N=G, O=A, and so on.

Don’t even get me started on solfege!

(Want to check out an interesting ear trainer online? Visit http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/ear_trainer/)

A local DJ is trying to break the world record for longest radio program by one personality. Mat Albro has been on the air since 12:01am on Monday. The current record is 135 hours by a DJ in Italy. As I understand it, this is sanctioned by Guinness and all that, so when he breaks it, he’ll be in the Book (along with “from Indianapolis”). The programming is a variety of things, focusing on classic rock, and it’s interesting to see the kinds of songs he’s playing after more than 4 days with no sleep.

He’s been able to take the radio station’s van (with someone else driving) out to local restaurants and other places, broadcasting live from there, which I’m sure helps as well as making things more interesting. To find out more about it or to see how he’s doing, visit http://wklu.net/. You can also listen live at http://wklu.net/listen.html. He’ll be on the air (hopefully) until at least Saturday afternoon.

Right now there’s a group of deputies administering some tests to see what sleep deprivation is doing to him. Similar to testing for sobriety. Pretty funny. He says he’s waiting for the hallucinations that he’s heard about to start kicking in. Ha!

For what it’s worth, he is drinking absolutely NO coffee, caffeine, or energy drinks. He’s got someone helping him out who IS taking little naps and drinking coffee, and he apparently looks horrible!

There’s also a link on the website to send him words of encouragement. Help him out and send him a note or joke or something. I did.

Go Mat!! (Oh, and you can follow his perspective on this event on his blog.)

The first piece I ever heard by Johan de Meij was his first symphony, entitled “The Lord of the Rings,” whose movements were:

1. Gandalf
2. Lothlórien
3. Gollum
4. Journey in the Dark
5. Hobbits

It was quite interesting and they type of symphonic music to which I really enjoy listening. The music was quite evocative, conjuring up (pardon the pun) images of the characters from the books (and now movies).

A few weeks ago I worked my Tuesday evening shift until 10pm and was driving home listening to the local classical station and heard music that was interesting enough that I purposed to sit in the car when I got home until the piece was done so I could find out what it was and who wrote it. That’s only happened to me a couple of times before. Anyway, the piece ended right before I got home and I found it was the Symphony No. 3 by Johan de Meij, called Planet Earth, with only three movements:

1. Lonely Planet
2. Planet Earth
3. Mother Earth

That night I looked online to try to find a CD of this piece and it took a while because he just wrote it last year. I eventually was able to find ONE recording by a Dutch orchestra (go figure! they were the ones who commissioned and premiered it) and I emailed our Music Librarian to recommend buying it for our library. She did and it just got finished processing this week. Yesterday I got to hear the whole thing for the first time and I really enjoyed it. I don’t want to give much away, but it’s got big, majestic sounds and delicate, quiet sounds. You definitely want to have the sound up solid when you listen to this, whether on headphones or in a room.

Johan de Meij’s composition style seems to combine elements from Respighi, Holst, and Stravinsky (all of which I like). He made good use of choir (no words, just voices) a la the “Jupiter” movement from Holst’s The Planets. You can read a brief bio and see a list of all his compositions at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_de_Meij. You can’t find this third symphony on Amazon yet, but the rest of his works you can. The third symphony is available here.

Here’s an interesting thing that I came across today–a website with meditation rooms. Several virtual rooms are available with soothing pictures and relaxing sounds. Themes include: Space, Winter, Floral, Forest, Water, and Zen, each with its own mood and energy level.

Visit http://www.lime.com/meditation_room to access these meditation rooms. You can also download them for your iPod or subscribe to them via iTunes.

When you’re getting stressed or tense from work or school or personal situations, take a few minutes to relax in one of these meditation rooms. Purposefully relax your shoulders and arms, letting the tension go while you let the sights and sounds of the virtual meditation room salve your soul.

(Nice, eh?)

This was just TOO funny! It’s an spoof on graphic novels that was on display in a library–Attack of the Zombie Librarians!

I love that! “They are smarter! They are stronger! They are HUNGRY!”

The SciFi one’s okay, but it didn’t make me laugh like the zombie one did. Sure does make you want to go to your local library and check out one of those starring roles, doesn’t it?

I have a rather large DVD collection. Not record breaking or anything, but larger than many people have. I’m up to over 250 DVD titles and that doesn’t count seasons of TV episodes like The Twilight Zone. Obviously the movies I own are going to be the ones I like most, but here’s a top 25 list of my favorites from my collection (at least for now). I found I wasn’t able to limit the list to just ten. For those who are interested, my entire DVD collection is listed at IMDb.

My Top 25 DVDs

1. Sahara
2. The Blues Brothers
3. Young Frankenstein
4. A Christmas Story
5. The Impostors
6. The 10th Kingdom
7. Shaun of the Dead
8. The Princess Bride
9. Pirates of the Caribbean series
10. Murder By Death
11. It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie
12. Timeline
13. The Untouchables
14. Indiana Jones Trilogy
15. The Lord of the Rings trilogy
16. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
17. Hook
18. Das Boot
19. Planet of the Apes (the original one)
20. The 13th Warrior
21. Groundhog Day
22. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
23. The Court Jester
24. Killer Klowns from Outer Space

25a. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
25b. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

For a movie to become a favorite of mine, it must have comedy, some action, a decent plot, usually good or memorable music, and especially must be clever. Except for Killer Klowns, which I like just because it’s goofy and kinda lame. Sure makes me laugh, though. Most movies have some of these features, but many miss out when it comes to cleverness. So when a movie is obviously clever and plenty of moments that make me laugh, regardless of whether it’s a comedy or something else, then it’s a winner with me.

For what it’s worth, I’ve also gone through my DVD collection and removed some of the movies. I specifically looked for movies with sex scenes and pulled them out, listing them on eBay. I decided that I didn’t want them in my house. For my sake as well as for my three boys. There’s already too much of that kind of thing assaulting men’s minds without purposefully keeping them in your house. That meant even getting rid of movies like Highlander and Flatliners, although I liked them in general. The movies could have done just as well without showing that kind of material, but since they chose to include it, I’ve chosen to exclude them. There are plenty of other quality movies out there that DIDN’T choose to include sex scenes, and so are more worth my money. I’ve made a couple tiny exceptions; for example, the Matrix trilogy has a a brief scene in the 2nd of the three, but I kept it for the sake of the overall story that’s spread over three movies.

Current music: Heart of the Castle, by Kenny Kleinpeter

A couple days ago I was driving to work going down 38th Street on the near north side of Indianapolis and was facing the usual elements of busy streets, stoopid drivers, and increasing stress. While stopped at a light I caught some movement outside my car from the corner of my eye. I turned and saw that the wind had suddenly sprung up and stirred some pink flowers that had been planted in between the sidewalk and the curb. When they reconstructed 38th Street they added some of these areas right in the sidewalk where flowers could be planted.

I stopped for a second and just looked at it (the light was still red). It wasn’t much, just some little bushy kinds of plants that had several pink flowers on the ends of some of the little “branches.” But in the midst of rude people and stressful driving, that momentary image of a few little pink flowers was like a pocket of beauty that radically changed my frame of mind. I drove the rest of the way to work with that image in my mind and a calmness and a more aesthetic sense in my heart.

It doesn’t take much for us to be distracted by busyness and speed and activity, but even so, it also only takes a moment to stop when the opportunity arises and take in a little of the beauty of God’s creation and get our perspectives back in line. If we’ll only notice and look.

Today found out about another online cartoon series that I’ve really enjoyed. It’s called bLaugh and it’s a comic strip that is specifically for bloggers. In fact, the cartoon’s subtitle is “The (Un)Official Comic of the Blogosphere!”

Here are a couple samples. If you like them, here’s a link to their RSS feed.

Current music: Soundtrack from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

I heard some interesting statistics today about book sales in the U.S. Last year, 1,446,000 DIFFERENT books were sold in the various bookstores around the country. That’s the number of different titles.

Now… how many of those books do you think sold more than 100,000 copies? It was a grand total of 483! Or 0.0003% (three ten-thousandths of one percent) of all the books sold.

On the flip side, how many books do you think sold FEWER than 99 copies? 1,123,000! 78% of all the different books sold in the U.S. sold under 100! Now, that’s not to say that all those books NEVER sold more than 100 copies. That’s just in the one year. But still, interesting statistics.

And if you’re in the process of writing that novel with the hopes of producing a best seller, just realize what a small percentage of books actually make it. Not to disillusion anyone, but at least to maybe keep you from resting ALL your hopes on that novel.