Posts

me and music

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     Wow, writing this last blog post feels kind of surreal. Looking through my past blog posts, I feel really proud that I’ve been able to relatively (!!) commit to the topic of music. It’s been really fun looking for out of the box connections and a little difficult sometimes, but I think there’s definitely been a few stretches. High school has really taught about the kind of things I value, both in my personal and professional life. But since I’m still trying to keep to the musical theme, I wanted to talk about what I learned in my twelve years of piano study, and how it’s really changed my entire personality. I’m really proud of the pianist that I am today. Sometimes, when I look through my past recordings, I don’t even recognize myself. I know the thoughts that were swarming my mind at the moment, but I can’t believe that the person in the recording is actually me. Piano’s taught me how to work. Many people have this concept of work meaning to pour hours and hours practicing and r
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stan the man

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     Since we’ve been reading Waiting for Godot, I thought it would be interesting to examine a different sort of wait, a wait for album releases. In music, there’s sort of a dichotomy on how artists tackle the wait between albums. Some artists work on music for more than three year. Others work on it in the background as they begin companies or other avenues of work. And finally, some artists manage to pump out of a new album every 1-2 years, working on it all throughout their tour. But in the era of streaming, where more music is worth more than good music, fans clamor for more and more music, begging artists to drop on Instagram, Twitter, and other social media apps. This mindset is extremely dangerous for the music industry, especially since we’ve been seeing more and more companies listening to the commotion, pushing artists to drop B-list tracks in an effort to momentarily appease the crowd. And while popular artists usually don’t feel the pressure to listen to this commotion, le
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An Analysis of A Diss Track

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While opening Schoology this morning, I happened upon a notification. Nathen Kovacs had responded to the Blog Post #5 Discussion. I was immediately intrigued at the title, "Some Epic Rap Diss Lyrics (And On My Sachin Response). It was at this moment when I knew I had to write an analysis on Nate's fire bars on Sachin. I myself, am a Sachin hater. I have known him for over four years, but I felt each one of the diss tracks he dropped was weak. But I have hope for Nate. Below, I will take apart some of the bars. "Flexin’ and I gonna pull up All with my dogs and you just a pup" This is a bar if I have ever seen one. I love this imagery of Sachin the little pup facing off against Nate and his squad of dogs. A suggestion I would make is to permeate this dog imagery throughout the album, put in something like “You go sniffing around for tough bars and sounds, Yet what you come up with is fit for the pound” Last time I checked you couldn’t push up  You a lil boy, I’m a grow
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Dr. Seuss, Trap Rapper

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There’s a really viral video of someone rapping the book “There’s a Wocket in My Pocket” by Dr. Seuss to Walk it Like I Talk It by Migos ft. Drake.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH7lNOm8Uc8&ab_channel=Dr.Seuss Looking back on this video, it’s interesting because Migos are known for popularizing the triplet flow. So in the song Walk It LIke I Talk It, the chorus goes: “Walk it like I talk it,” but is sung like “walk-it like-i talk-it” which creates a choppy yet catchy chorus, with the stress on the first syllable of each pair. The triplet flow is extremely useful in bringing lots of intensity in a song,  It’s kind of the new thing in trap, and many club songs, like Bodak Yellow (Cardi B), Panda (Desiigner), and Bad and Boujee (Migos), utilize this flow to create a clear rhythm to dance to. In fact, with the triplet flow, many artists simply need to rhyme two or three syllables across the triplet. But with Dr. Seuss, the triplet flow is easily applied thanks to how he writes his p
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musical links?

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Personally, I was an avid poetry hater for much of my life. Every time I read poetry, it felt like my brain was exploding. I went out of my way to avoid poetry. But besides in children’s books and English classes, poetry has managed to seep into our lives, despite most of the population’s active resistance. Many of commercial music’s most popular artists write poetry: Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Kurt Cobain, 2Pac, Eminem, and Alicia Keys. Writing poetry has elevated their level of lyricism; their words simply just sound better, easier and more pleasing to hear. And in a way, isn’t music a type of poetry? It’s a form of poetry akin to riding a bike with the training wheels on; the meter, rhythm, and cadence are given. For the past week, instead of actively avoiding poetry, I tried to search for poetry and found so much of it already present in my everyday life. There’s even a form of poetry, spoken word, which is basically a song without the music. And what about nursery rhymes? Or ev
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My, What Big Eyes You Have/Got H2O?

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The LOTR trilogy is probably one of my favorite series adapted to film of all time. It’s such a fantastical look at one of the oldest archetypes, the hero’s journey. But specifically, I want to focus on Gollum, the shrewd bearer of the Ring. Gollum spends his life hunting fish and stroking “his precious,” which Bilbo eventually finds and takes. Gollum is the catalyst for all of Bilbo’s swagger in confronting Smaug; sure, he had instances where his wit and cleverness helped him escape from situations, but with the ring, he finally had an advantage over his enemies. Bilbo’s cleverness in outsmarting Gollum and taking the ring is how he crosses the threshold in the hero’s journey. He now has this tool of great power that will allow him to continue to outsmarter larger and stronger enemies on his journey. Gollum provided him with the confidence and tools to meet the challenges he’ll face. Similarly, Gotama the Buddha is the catalyst for Siddhartha to begin his journey inward. It’s Siddhart
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thoughts

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  As the end of the year closes in, I begin reflecting on my past memories. I remember in elementary and early middle school, all I did was read. My mom got angry because I’d stay up too late to finish a good book or wake up early full of nervous energy to one that I fell asleep reading. But 12AP has really brought me back to that time when all I ever thought about was reading. It’s really brought something that I used to love back, and I find myself reading more outside of class. Whether it’s the independent reading selection or just enjoying a short story, I’ve definitely begun to read more than I did in the beginning of high school. And as a result, I think I’m pretty satisfied with my writing too. Now, it’s not so hard to come up with words for me to describe the things I want to talk about. And by trying to make every blog post I have about music has really allowed me to grab the thinnest of branches to reach. I’m satisfied with the work I’ve done with past semester with my blog,
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