The Story of Crosasaurus Rex

Hello Hello!! Tonight I performed 'The Story of Crosasaurus Rex' for the Music 143 class. I don't have the video footage from the actual dealio ready yet, but I'll tell ya what happened: I showed videos on the screen while I sorta stood there/acted it out. There was a little story line that went along with it. Here are the three videos I used, one of which you've seen before and two are totally brand new!!

Drum Circle!

Today was the most AMAZING THING HAPPENED EVARRR OMG!!

RAs put on monthly programs to benefit the residents of the building. Typically these programs have an educational or social theme to them. This month, my program was a Drum Circle! With help and funding from Community Government, I got my friend and teacher Matt Savage, the UNC Marching Percussion instructor and nationally known drum guru, to lead a drum circle with residents. We set out about thirty chairs, and Matt brought enough drums and other percussion for upwards of sixty or seventy. He brought everything from djembes to cowbells to paddle drums to tambourines - it was incredible. Everybody had a great time letting loose! We estimated that within an hour of drum circle, between seventy and a hundred people played drums at any point (many people stopped by for a few minutes and left), and just as many or even more enjoyed the music and danced from the building. A lot of people showed up, including a reporter from the Daily Tar Heel.

That's Matt in the center. I'm in the bright yellow shirt and

light blue hat on the bottom part of the circle, on the outer row.

This was super exciting to me because the reaction was so absolutely positive. Many of the Community Government members and other RAs told me this was the best turnout to a program they had seen! I think that what added to the program's success was it's easy-going and loud nature. People walking from Ram's Head to any other south campus dorm passed us, and could join if they wanted to. It was so epic.

After the drum circle was over, I went up to Matt to thank him for putting on such an awesome event. I was so overwhelmed with the success of the event that I could barely even say anything; I think I said "Thank you so much for.... that was.... I just... I'm soo.....ecstatic that I can't... I can't even make good sentences!!!"

What was amazing to me was how everybody knew exactly what to do once they got started. Yeah, people were shy, but once they started playing, the rhythm took over. Everyone was able to find and keep the beat. Even with so many people playing, the music didn't rush or drag. Matt did a great job of communicating with the group what to play, even though he never actually explained what he meant. For example, when Matt jumped, everyone knew to hit the drum really loudly - he never explained, everybody just knew. As a 'grand finale,' Matt had everybody stand up and come into the center while drumming - it was this intense jumble of human connection, because people in the group didn't necessarily know each other, but all were contributing to the same music. It was such an exhilarating experience not only to be a part of but also to be able to put that on. I hope there's a next time!

Where the Wild Thangs At?

Fall break is this weekend, and I've got fun stuff to report!

Thursday was the first full day of break, and it was spent almost entirely with the marching band. I woke up about half an hour late (again) to a distressed call from my section captain and close fraternity brother, Dave. I got there in time for the sound-check in the stadium, which consisted of standing in place while the sound technician got things set up for the band, Liquid Pleasure, that we were backing up at half-time.

Afterwards, my buddy Schmitty came over and helped me loft my bed. We put the mattress just as high as it would go! See, I hope to counter my oversleeping problem by hiding my bed from myself. I rearranged my desk and drums and other stuff in a very space-efficient way. I also discovered how to plug my amp directly into my computer for recording purposes... do you see as much potential as I do?!? Exciting things to come.

After that I went to the football game, which went fine. ESPN was filming the game and I almost (did) missed a step-off watching the spider-like Skycam gizmo zip over my head! The half-time show was pretty cool, we hosted the Chapel-Hill rooted band Liquid Pleasure. They're a party band that's made it pretty big along the East Coast, and have been around for almost thirty years. They did vocals while we played the rest, and it was a pretty good show. They came out in Carolina Blue sequin coats, which was simultaneously awesome and comical! Oh yeah, and there was football there, too. It was a really good game... for the other team. I don't really know first hand what happened because - let's face it - I'm only there for the band! Yeah.

The next day (Friday) my bed proved successful, as I forgot to turn off my 8:00 alarm: I stayed up since getting back in bed would be more effort than it was worth. I had a nice, uneventful day... I went to Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe, a place I'd wanted to go for a long time with another RA, Anish. I went to the gym for like the third time in my life ever with Bruce, after which we met up with Noah and a guy I hadn't met before to eat at [B]Ski's, where I proceeded to make lame jokes to the waitress.

Mom picked me up that night and we checked into a hotel in Raleigh. We were going to go camping, but the weather was just too depressing for that. Today (by which I mean Saturday) we spent the day at the NC Museum of Natural Science, which was AWESOME!! I LOVE going to museums with Mom, we're both as nerdy as a high-school science teacher and her offspring!

Oh wait...

CROSASAURUS REX ATTACK, AAAGGHHHH!!!!!

Before we went to the Museum, we went to this awesome place called Big Ed's, where I drank a bit too much coffee (it was sooo good!) At the museum this made my tics rather strong. I was a little nervous with all the little kids around for two reasons; either a rare coprolalic outburst would create a very awkward situation, or - more likely - I would whack one of them in the face with my audio-tour! No worries though, the angst of the TS was far outweighed by the sheer magnitude of visiting a huge science museum with Mom! Did I mention she's a high-school science teacher?

After the museum, we decided to go relive a bit of my childhood by going to see Where the Wild Things Are (spoilers ahead). It started out fine, by showing a harsh reality that the protagonist (Max) lived in. There was perhaps a bit too much with this reality - a stressed out single mother with a boyfriend who didn't know when to keep out of a tense family moment, an apathetic sister hanging out with like, four dudes... yeah. So whatever, I was waiting for the good part where he hangs out with all the Wild Things. After a terrifying (yet clearly imagined) boat-trip to the island, Max encounters a group of Wild Things who are frustrated with their current situation. They make him his king, everything seems close to the book, and I'm getting excited with this real-life rendition of happy childhood memories. Unfortunately it took a really dark turn and instead of being an imaginative escapist delight, it became a chilling reminder that human faults and imperfections are inescapable, even in one's own imagination. The book ended with things wrapping up in a positive ending, but the movie ended with things in a pile of depressing loose ends. After the movie, Mom and I went to Borders to read the real book again and restore my childhood.

So after our adventures in Raleigh, mom and I took a trip by the Food Lion to get some ice cream (which we devoured at the hotel) and now she's asleep and I'm blogging. Tomorrow we're planning on going to a state park or something along those lines to make some of the camping food that she brought but that we ended up not using. I'm really happy now, things are going well.

Thanks for reading!

Me

Half a Pachelbel

Today was the first day of RA training, and it went quite well in my opinion. I got to meet my coworkers for the next year and start building relationships with them. After the training was over, three of the more musically inclined guys made their way to my room, where we proceeded to jam. We had a drumset, two guitars, and a mandolin going (all of which were my instruments except for one of the guitars). The guy playing the mandolin was new to the instrument but picked it up with surprising speed - the man's got good string sense!

We all doodled around a bit with various melodies and chord progressions, but we locked together on one in particular and had a really awesome groove going. The chords were C, G, Am, and F repeated. In the key of C (which it was,) this is reffered to as a I V vi IV progression. The C chord, being built from the first note in the scale, is symbolized by roman numeral I; the G chord is built from scale degree 5 and is symbolized by roman numeral V, and so on. This can be heard in a great deal of songs, like "Don't Stop Believin" by Journey, "Let it Be" by The Beatles, "Sk8er Boi" by Averile Levinge... you get the idea. People refer to this as the "Pachelbel chords," but this is wrong.

Pachelbel's Canon is I V iv ii IV I IV V. In the key of C, that would be C, G, Am, Dm, F, C, F, G. If we compare the first four chords of Pachelbel's canon to the other progression, you see that they're the same except for the last chord. However, this is somewhat forgivable because a Dm and an F chord are the same except for one note (D minor is D,F,A; F is F,A,C). The real issue comes in when you realize that "Don't Stop Believin'" and the other songs have four chords, but pachelbel has - count 'em - eight! That's right, what many musicians think of as the "Pachelbel progression" doesn't even have the right number of chords! For a song that uses legit Pachelbel, listen to "Graduation" by Vitamin C. That doesn't really count though, because she (they?) actually has Pachelbel's original piece playing in the background. It's a very nice tribute, but you can see how that's not quite what we're going for.

Luckily for you, you've read this blog and you know the truth. Therefore, the next time one of your musician friends tries to impress you by saying "You hear that? That's Pachelbel!" You can turn around and say to them "Oh yeah? Then where's the other half?"

Monkey Love

The name of this blog is "Music and Tourette's," but so far the majority of my posts have been Tourettical and not musical. So! Here's a song I made not too long ago for Charlene. Be sure to watch through the first thirty seconds, because that's when it gets interesting!

Awesome Recording Studio

Ben and I in the recording studio

So my aunt and cousin came along with my mom to visit me this week . My aunt (Jean) and cousin (Ben) are from Cincinnati, OH so it was really awesome that they came. Ben is 15 years old and he and I are good buds. So anyways, our moms rented out this guest house type thing near Jordan lake.

Me doing my best to keep a pitch and remember the words!

Little did they know at the time that the guest house that they rented was half-house half-recording studio! After we talked to the guy who owned the place and he found out we were both musicians, he left the studio unlocked for us to play around with whenever we want. It was stocked with a full drumset, a grand piano, a double-keyboard set up, a Fender Stratocaster and a few mics. Ben sat down at the drums and I grabbed the Strat and we had a rockin good time. We played things like Hotel California and Mad World as well as random stuff we made up on the spot. We didn't actually record anything, we just played the instruments and had a good time.

Ben rockin' out on the drums