IHS WISE PROGRAM - Narrative Essay/Bibliography/Research Commentary

     So basically, I have decided that for my narrative, I'm going to tell the story of the lesson I learned/do some more in depth reflection. For my presentation though, that's going to be entirely demonstration of research (mostly macro?) because I know I didn't demonstrate a lot of that in my journal overall. I feel like my journal might be very similar to what I might put in my narrative, but... we'll see?

Inspiration & more - Today's Obsession: http://www.youtube.com/user/SunnyChoiMusic

    I love how every time I feel like giving up on playing something, I can just go on youtube and find my interest back into playing piano.

    Sunny Choi is an amazing piano player who plays interpretation covers of songs that are released. She plays songs like "Just The Way You Are" by Bruno Mars and "Jar of Hearts" and even Lady Gaga. I think she covers all songs that are recent/new/played on the radio.

   This is just an example, but they're all amazing, and I love how she uses her whole entire body in her playing. It's almost as if she's flowing with the song. I wish I could achieve this magic. Haha.

Wohooo!

   Tong Hua is doneeee! I thought this song would be so much easier because of how slow it was, but some of the chords are crazy impossible. Haha... I'm so glad I got over the ending bump. Even though I can't play it perfectly, when I hear myself hitting the notes and I feel them flow together and I hear them resembling the actual song, I get really really happy. Even though it's still "broken", I can imagine myself playing it perfectly with all the notes flowing smoothly. I think it's kind of weird that I feel this way, and it's sort of an embarrassing, but oh well. I just hope I can get this song perfect in the next week.
    I don't want to reveal toooooo muchh here because I want it to be a special performance when I play it for my presentation, but since I haven't really had practice with audience in performance, I am planning on playing the song for an audience to practice either this Friday or this weekend. I'm contemplating whether or not to just go to church and play it for a bunch of strangers as like a... "test". Hahaha.

Thoughts after the sample...

   So I was Carrie's student evaluator, and I've got to say, it was amazing. I've always loved her slam poetry, and hearing everything again was just an irreplaceable experience.
   I'm kind of scared because I'm not exactly READY to present... because I don't know what I'd do. However I'm really excited to get everything done. Carrie's presentation was really well done, and you can tell she had a lot of practice too. Her voice was strong and her message was clear, and during every minute of her presentation, I was actually wondering how horrible it would be if I couldn't do any of that. What if I trip? Or fail? Or the piano won't work? There's so many 'what if's' and I kinda got overwhelmed.
   Aside from that, as Carrie's evaluator, I read her journal, and I found her style of writing really great. I wish I had done that for myself before, but it's too late now... yeahh.

童话 part 4

  Yeah... I'm still on the third page because I decided to try to play through from the first page, and it didn't really work out... but I still have time to prepare this for my final project!

Journey without Mrs. Miller

   I guess it's really time to talk about this, because I definitely should do it at some point. It's been quite some time (more than two months?) since I've broken away from lessons with Mrs. Miller. I think it was still around the middle of March when I first stopped, and I must say, there are teachers for a reason. I used to think that having someone there wasn't actually necessary, because I my entire jump start to piano...[I've decided to expand on this in my actual presentation instead of communicate it here!]

童话 part 3

Okay, so I worked on this song a lot but I'm still on the third page. Some of the issues I had before kept occurring. I still have problems with transitioning and such, and it's slowing me down a lot. Right now I'm only practicing reading through the notes, and playing everything at a super super super slow speed, but I can't wait to play everything at the actual (still slow) tempo.