23rd April 2010

Today we had a review of our tasks. First, Mr. Herry asked us to submit the 16-bar jingle draft. I'm not too sure if he really asked us to do so the last class, but I may have forgotten. If I remember correctly, almost all other students didn't do it either. So, Mr. Herry gave us some time to create a 4 bar intro of it. We needed to use 4 instruments, so I picked Guitar, Piano, Flute, and Violin. I just made a simple melody which fits with the triads, but I'm not too sure if it sounds good (I'm not even sure how it sounds). After making the intros, we submitted them for checking. We then saw Mr. Herry check our reflection blogs' videos. It was quite embarassing to see yourself play. After that, we did some more rehearsals. This week's pretty busy as there is a Personal Project due date on the 27th.

20th April 2010

Today Mr. Herry showed us several advertisements in preparation of our assessment, making a jinle music advertisement for a business product. It's a collaboration between Business and Music. Some of the ads and videos we watched were: Orchestral music for videos, Pond's advertisement, World cup song (Waving flag), Roscoe's chicken and waffles, and rolex watch. We also watched a funny video about how music should fit the product lyrically (Viagra and "You Raise Me Up"). After lots of laughs and applause, we learnt quite a lot of things about advertising, of how music can help build up the mood and atmosphere. Afterwards, we all went to show the class how much each groups have advanced. I don't feel that our group is making too much progress.

Second week practice videos

Tuesday (Tremolo practice)

Saturday (Evocacion practice)

These videos are quite short compared to the first week's practice session.

16th April 2010

Today we had our music test. Since we had more time to prepare, I was more confident before we started the paper. However, my confidence got a dent on it when I heard Mr Herry announce that we only had 40 minutes for 40 questions. I thought to myself that I couldn't do a question per minute (I'm still slow on notation). When I opened the sheets, I was greeted by a plethora of history questions. Thankfully, most of them were quite easy. One of them, however, struck me hard. We had to write a short biography of our favorite musician from our genre, and my memory sadly failed me. I didn't remember much detail of Duke Ellington (birth date, death date, etc.). Instead, I wrote what I could, including some awards he got. After finishing the history section, I moved on to the notation section. Luckily, I somehow finished the whole paper, before time was up, too. There were dominant 7th chords, major 7th chords, minor 7th chords, 9th and 11th chords. Turns out there was a pattern I could manipulate, so I finished early. I felt very relieved when I finished the paper.

13th April 2010

Today we unexpectedly had our singing assessment. It was unexpected because the Facebook message said that today we're going to have our test. Thus, I didn't really prepare much for the singing assessment. Thankfully, the song we sang was "I Got Rhythm", which coincidentally also had very simple lyrics. This helped me memorize the song quite fast. Moreover, the catchy tune also helped. My name also starts with "K", so I had quite a late turn. Before the assessment, I got quite nervous, but after I started singing it helped a bit. This was mainly due to the "I got my man" segment of the lyrics, which still amuses me. It was a fun experience, and we enjoyed each other's performances and dances. There were some terrific movements on the stage back then.

First week practice videos

Mr. Herry asked us to upload videos of our practice sessions, 2 a week, so here are mine:
Thursday's (Kiss From A Rose practice):


Saturday's (Tremolo practice):

P.S. You can hear snorting sounds? That's my brother

9th April 2010

Today we reviewed our questions. These questions are based on our individual booklets, and are grouped according to our genres. For example, the Swing questions are mixed up. We saw the other class's questions, and also from our own. Then, we were supposed to choose several good ones. Copies of questions should be avoided. After looking over, we only got 10 questions. We were peer-quizzed on the questions we picked. One group would be asked their questions by another group. My group did fairly well, answering all our questions correctly. After the peer-quiz is done, we sang "I Got Rhythm" all together. The "I Got My Man" part still succeeds to amuse me.

6th April 2010

Today is the first music session of the term, and we were still in the holiday mood. We started off with a short recap of last term's theory lessons, mainly the chords. We learnt new chords, such as the 9th and 11th chords. After the recap, we were handed our individual booklets back. I got 7/8, quite a satisfying mark. The music ACP kids also got their reflections back. After the distributions, we started grouping among ourselves for the performance. We did it by gambreng, a type of lottery frequently used to decide things by chance (although some steps may be taken to manipulate results). I was in one group with Jessika, Bayu, Andri, Ian, and Tiffany. Then, we drew lots to decide the song we're playing. Our group got "This Love" by Maroon 5, the most modern song among the others (All of Me, Fly me to the moon, etc) Afterwards, the 4 music teachers drew lots to see which group they will supervise. Our group will be supervised by Mr. Sadrakh