Why I hate 99.9999999% of politicians

Ok let me explain  few things…in our government we have this great idea called a system of checks and balances…so the legislative branch (a.k.a the senate and the house) are in charge of drafting legislation.  The president (currently Obama) has the ability to veto a bill if he doesn’t like it, but he cannot actually write and submit bills to the senate and house to be passed.  Finally the supreme court can overturn laws as being unconstitutional.

Now that we’re up to speed, I would like to pose a question.

Why are the current democrats in the senate complete ignorant of the way our government was intended to be run?  And honestly its not just the democrats, its the republicans and the independents as well.

Well senator Dianne Feinstein of California…I will explain why Obama has not became totally involved in domestic policy and has only called for a bill rather than sending a bill to you dumbfucks himself.  He has not sent a bill because it is not in his power to submit bills to senate and ask they be passed.  He can write a bill and get a specific senator to represent it and submit it to congress.  But that was not the intention of the system of checks and balances.  Its your job to write the bill and pass it…its Obama’s job to call for a bill to be passed in congress so he can sign it into law.  So stop complaining and actually do the job you ran for.

Also to republicans…the filibuster was not intended to be something you use all the time.  Cool it a little bit on the filibustering…if you’re not talking about the law you shouldn’t  be allowed to filibuster.  You can read the law to the senate…but a fucking cookbook…what the hell!

Finally politics should not be about who can we blame our problems on.  When I read about democrats or republicans celebrating because something has happened that will allow then to cast the other party in a bad light and point fingers I just lose what little faith I have left in humanity.

Politicians…stop worrying so much about getting reelected. I mean half of you have been in the house or senate for an eternity…Start taking care of the needs of the American people or if you prefer me to put it more bluntly…do your fucking job.

Darkened Chambers

I finally got the recording of my piece from the SCI (Society of Composers Inc.) concert last semester.   “Darkened Chambers” is scored for prepared piano, 2 french horns, 2 clarinets, and narrator.  In this piece I wanted to create the feeling of a space bigger than it really is, so I placed the clarinets to the sides of the audience, which caused them not to pick up very well on the recording.  And I placed the french horns on either side of the stage in the wings, most of the time they pick up on the recording pretty well.  The piano was center stage and the narrator was behind the piano.  And the best part is the piece is intended to be played with all the lights in the theater off…ideal conditions would be pitch black but that wasn’t possible because nobody had the music memorized.

So what I did was turn off all the lights in the theater and I sent the music in a .pdf file to everybody and we used our laptops to see the music during performance.  I took the text from “House of Leaves”

That’s essentially what the program notes and performance conditions were…basically I just wanted to write a fairly trippy piece just to prove I could.  All in all I would say mission accomplished.  I had my first live performance at college last semester with this piece and while it was completely more stressful than it really needed to be in the end it was fun and a very good experience.

Lots of thanks to Evelyn, Ashley, Blair, Ryan, and Alyssa for working with me and learning the piece.  Its a little bizarre, but give it a listen anyways, I think you’ll enjoy it.

Darkened Chambers

Clarinet Choir!!!!!!

So I just finished my big project for the break! I think the tile of the post makes it obvious enough but it was a clarinet choir piece!!!!

I wanted to write something jazz influenced but not necessarily a swing chart or anything.  So the piece actually only has very short swing section near the end.  The title is “Don’t Gotta Rhyme”, which comes from a few different things.  First was the fact that I didn’t want to write a typical jazzy piece and “Don’t Gotta Swing” was a little too obvious.  Second, I was reading “Push” by Sapphire, probably better known as the movie “Precious” while I was writing this.  One of the main character’s poems has a line that read DON’T HAFTA RHYME. Gotta felt better to me than hafta did but that’s where the actual title comes from.  The last reason for the title was I was going through all my old things and looking back through high school, and I realized another inspiration for the song was my belief that there is more than one path to take in life and still reach success, “Don’t Gotta Rhyme” is that idea of we don’t have to fall into the norm to succeed.

I’m back at school now and the University of Miami clarinet choir will be reading this piece in rehearsal tomorrow, and there is a good chance we will play it at our spring concert.  So hopefully I will have a recording by the end of the semester…but until then I present the score and midi rendering of “Don’t Gotta Rhyme”

Don’t Gotta Rhyme.pdf

Don’t Gotta Rhyme.mp3

Looking back

So a little late but…I survived!!!  My first semester in college is over and I did more than survive, I excelled.  I came home for Christmas with a lot of good grades, and hopefully a bit more compositional skill, and improved ability as a clarinetist.  So all in all a successful endeavor.

The  most important thing that happened this semester was I changed my second major to english literature, obviously my music composition major still holds.  I’ve been trying to decide why I want to major in english literature.  And to be honest I have no idea.  I always tell people that I just like reading books, which I do, but that isn’t why I’m majoring in english I can read books without a B.A. in english (cue “What Do You Do With a B.A. in English” from Avenue Q).

And of course that train of thought got me started on being all existential. I mean why do I do any of the things I do.  Life can’t be an endless stream of meaningless decisions. I realized that  I do what I do because if I  didn’t I would have no purpose.  People don’t define the purpose of actions…actions define the purpose of people.

This kind of got off topic, but oh well…I like where it went.

Update some compositions from the past semester

So I didn’t do too much writing this past semester, but I really like the little that I did write.  So I’m gonna go ahead and write a little about each piece and upload a .pdf and a midi rendering for all of them.

The first piece that I finished this semester was the second movement of my suite for wind ensemble “Celestial Sphere”.  The whole piece is a depiction of the night sky.  And the second movement specifically is just a peaceful starry night.  I actually use “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” for a second although I think I did a good job of disguising it.  Lastly it features the celesta, which is always fun

Celestial Sphere-II

Celestial Sphere-II copy

Another really short piece I wrote is called “Drifting”.  It was an assignment for music theory lab.  I had to use only notes in a C major scale, and it had to be scored for up to four instruments in my class.  So I picked 2 Bb clarinets, a Bassoon, and a Cello.  The piece actually turned out really well, and worked surprisingly well in actual performance.  I may try and get a recording of it this semester.  Until then awful midi will have to suffice.

Drifting

Drifting.mp3

Some other pieces that I wrote this semester (but will not include in this post)  Are a piece for prepared piano, two french horns, two clarinets, and a narrator titled “Darkened Chambers”.  That piece was a bit of a trip and I’m not sure if I like it enough to save it, but it was still a very good way to start off my first semester.  The other piece is entitled “Blurbs” and it is for a viola duet.  I really like “Blurbs”  I like it so much I plan on writing lots of sets of blurbs.  And I’ll post that piece as soon as I get the recording of it from last semester.

I’ve got a lot more that I’m working on and I’ll probably post about my past semester soon, but until then.  Hope everybody had happy holidays.  Hopefully the new year brings lots of amazing new music from everybody!