Pittsburgh Jazz

I've always loved jazz music. There's just something about a nice jazz tune to tap your feet to! Yesterday I went downtown in Pittsburgh and watched Leroy K. Wofford, who is a jazz and blues musician who grew up in Pittsburgh. Every Tuesday night, the city puts on a jazz performance. Here are some photos...

Leroy and his band performing in Pittsburgh Cultural District.

My sister and I downtown at the jazz concert.

Here's a short video of Leroy and his band. Enjoy!

iTunes Visualizer

When I first got my computer, I was setting up my iTunes and accidently hit a button and interesting, moving shapes started to fill my screen. I later found out how to use the iTunes Visualizer, which is just cool effects to whatever song you are listening to.

Recently, I've been looking at my visualizer a lot. The visualizer can work for any music you are listening to, but I personally like to listen to Dubstep or electronic music. One of my favorite artists is Pretty Lights.

You can download full albums off their site which is here.

Here are some cool screen shots I took of my iTunes Visualizer.

I thought the Visualizer gave a really interesting affect to the music I was listening to. Since I was listening to electronic music, I thought the space-like and colorful qualities fit the music well.

Finally set up my station :)

So since I've been doing work, work and MORE work, I decided I would get my clarinet practice corner ready so I can practice there. I practice in my room, but throughout the school year, my chair kind of was covered with boxes, clothes, and bags. So today, I decided to clean up my room, clear out my boxes, and get my practicing chair ready.

So above in my chair I play my clarinet in. Usually I would practice while sitting in an upright, hard chair, but those chairs always make my back tired-- especially when I practice for up to 2 hours! So in this picture you can also see my wire music stand. It is convenient because it folds up and I can take it wherever I need it!

This is my tuner. (Yes it has a tweety bird sticker on it!) But throughout the years of playing clarinet, I can't stress enough the importance of being in tune. Usually, I tune after I play a few scales just to make sure my clarinet is warmed up. Then, I tune and adjust my instrument so that I am perfectly in tune. The longer you play an instrument, the warmer it gets, since you're blowing warm air into it. So if your instrument is cold, your pitch will be flat (low), and if your instrument is warm, your pitch will be sharp (high). Being in tune with the tuner is not always what is important though, especially while playing in group or a band. It is important to listen around you and blend with the people sitting next to you, even if they're slightly out of tune-- at least you'll all be out of tune together!

Here is my bin of clarinet music. It's filled with sheet music, folders, and books I've accumulated over the years.

Of course! The most important part of playing clarinet-- reeds! You have to have reeds in order to play instruments such as clarinet, saxophone, and the double-reed instruments such as the oboe and bassoon. I usually buy two boxes of reeds at a time and test out all of them to find one that sounds excellent. A lot of times, only one or two reeds sound good out of the whole box!

How do we do it??

So tonight at dinner, my parents and I had an interesting conversation about music and dancers. My sister, Christina, is a dance major and my mom danced with Ohio Ballet when she was young. It was surprising how many connections I made between dancers and musicians.

The conversation started because Christina is taking a science course over the summer. Now, Christina has always been an incredibly intelligent person (and I mean genius!) but she is going to school to get a professional dance career. I mentioned my thoughts on why Christina decided to focus her career goals on being a dancer when her academics could get her so far.

But, what my dad was questioning, was how do dancers and musicians remember what they are doing? He was wondering how we could perform, whether music or dance, without forgetting what we are supposed to do.

This conversation struck me as interesting because I never really thought about it before. Since I've been playing clarinet since the summer before 4th grade, I don't have to think about each note before I play it. The same thing with dance-- Christina has been taking dance classes since she was a toddler, so remembering the moves is just second- nature and she can remember without a problem.

I guess I never really thought about it before, but from an outsider's eyes, they may question the fact that being a musician (or a dancer) takes time to improve and you remember things as you move up in difficulty. (So obviously, I didn't start playing clarinet concertos in 4th grade; I started with learning fingerings for notes, simple scales, and have been working my way up ever since.)