Music Procrastination and Discipline

A 29 year old electrical engineer/violinist/wannabeproducer who's trying to take music a bit more seriously. Feel free to ask or chat!

[b-robinson]

The Halloweentown movies really were just one bigass fever dream.

[b-robinson]

Welp, my last post aged poorly....

Live updates: Supreme Court strikes down Biden’s student loan relief plan

Latest news and live updates on major rulings from the Supreme Court on student loans and service to LGBTQ patrons.

[b-robinson]

https://studentaid.gov/debt-relief/application

Hola hola hola

Sign up right here for that loan relief folks. Hopefully this will help with the inevitable server overload that'll happen when they officially release the non beta version. That's up to $10,000 of forgiveness for federal loans and up to $20,000 if you had any Pell Grants. That is per borrower too, so if your parents took out loans via parent plus, those loans are under their names and will also qualify for this forgiveness.

Also you can ask for a refund if you ended up paying off your balance before this legislation was announced. I believe you are valid for a total refund for any payments made since March 2020.

[b-robinson]

Fun Wedding Arrangement!

Hi,

Yes I told y'all I'd be back to post this at least. One of my besties approached me with a task of recreating their favorite movie song into something they could walk the aisle with. Boy was I honored and honoured. There was definitely a lot of procrastination from fear of failure, but once crunch time came, I buckled down and just trusted that the music would come through.

Check out the cool ass tiktok my other bestie made out of it!

music credits to the lovely @st33fo ❤️ #desiwedding #pakistaniwedding #bridalentry #ddlj #tujhedekhatoyehjanasanam #fyp

The song, Tuhje Dekha To, is one of the soundtracks of the movie, "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" (The Big-Hearted Will Take the Bride). The overall composition process started out with several listens of the original OST. From the start we all agreed that it would need to be slowed down since the original, while a love song, is a fast paced one. It has a very playful cat and mouse texture to the music (not gonna use the call and response buzzword I'll spare y'all).

I knew that the most important ideas I'd take from the original would involve the main chorus and the bridge. The chorus because that is the most recognized and catchy passage in the song. The bridge because I needed something to color the piece a bit. After that I wrote my own spin on an intro to the piece and a variation on the bridge that was original. Those original sections came about during improv. Whatever idea I liked, I'd write down for later. It's a mixture of violins, violas/pseudocellos and a touch of piano. One tool I had in my bag of tricks was the knowledge that pitching down the violin 24 semitones can transform that baby into Yo-Yo Ma's.

I'm and will forever be thankful to my friends for letting me do this.

Screencap of the goodies plus soundcloud link below:

[b-robinson]

Practice Sesh #45

Hello hello hello (those three hellos should make up for my long absence). I haven't been away from music at least which is nice, but I haven't been creating as much as I've wanted to. Thankfully, I got a recent opportunity earlier this year that ended up manifesting into something I was proud of. I recently worked on an arrangement for one of my best friend's wedding. I had so much fun recording and putting it together. It was a new experience creating an orchestral version of a Bollywood song. I'll put a link to that in the post after this one.

Wow that pic below is blurry as hell and I apologize. Kreutzer #31 was actually super fun to play even though it was 3 pages long. Felt more like a small accidental filled partita. At first it looked daunting but thankfully all of those accidentals work really well with each other. This one ended up training the eyes and reflexes in addition to dexterity in the fingers.

Here we have a much clearer pic of the worst etude in this book. Kreutzer 32 is probably the most difficult etude I've dealt with from an intonation perspective. It's Adante so you have time to play every note...and you have time to hear how shit everything sounds. The harmonies here are both consonant and dissonant (more dissonance because getting these in tune was not easy). The most difficult thing in these would definitely have to be the 4th, and 5th position double stop slurs. Those positions are not very comfortable on their own. Adding other notes to them makes them unreadable and unreasonable. I'd like to apologize to my landlord for having to hear me play this for a solid month or two.

[b-robinson]

Yuuuuup that hit. I'm doin alright, Steve.

[b-robinson]

Practice Sesh #44

Moved homes. Same city. Well needed vacations. Birthday. Learning how to live alone...

A lot's happened in the last couple months but we're still going at! Hope all of y'all are vaxxed and/or planning to get vaxxed soon.

Why am I posting this so damn late at night lol. Whatevs:

This was the second page of Kreutzer #28 which was fun to play. I think I mentioned last time that I enjoyed that this had a bit more versatility in the passages compared to the other etudes. Let's me stretch my fingers around a lot more. Important takes from this one was basically good bow control. Sliding up and down the fingerboard takes a lot of miles both on the strings and on the hair. Every millisecond you spend on a shift adds up on your bowstrokes.

Kreutzer 29 was a test of how far I could take my full bow technique. I learned the answer was not very far. Jesus at times I feel like there just isn't enough bow. But I can already hear the sighs of thousands of teachers just saying, no you have enough, just get good at bow control. I know know. But sometimes you gotta stop and just look at how outrageous some of these passages are...

The current Etude I'm going through right now is:

Finally hit the big 3-0 on Kreutzer. This one actually isn't difficult (since I'm pretty sure I've played this before in my past 😜), but it's nice to have some familiarity. Me 6 years ago playing this was a different person to now. I can feel a type of control over these notes that I didn't have before and that's very reassuring. It's like there are no surprises here and my ears have gotten better at knowing what I need to improve throughout these measures.

Oh yes and I started playing piano at the beginning of the pandemic. Or at least formally learning it instead of messing around with it when making beats and stuff. I'll post more about it as soon as I'm done with this adult piano learning lessons book. I'm close!

[b-robinson]

Saw this in a fb group I'm in and zoinks👀

[b-robinson]

Practice Sesh #43

I know I'm gonna be preaching to the choir here (considering this is a fairly progressive/respectful platform), but this past year filled with discrimination against POC/LGBTQIA+ has been pretty shit. It's been going on for a lot longer but due to the fact that we've just been chilling at home more frequently, we're soaking up more news and we see a LOT more. The racist rhetoric behind COVID-19 is just adding fuel to it too. As much as I can yell at my social media feed to stop being racist assholes, that won't do much since many in my bubble already know not be racist...so instead I'll urge you to be braver. I'm still working on trying to be more courageous in these type of situations too. Stand up for people out in public. Don't be a bystander. Yes, it's scary, but if you are physically able to do something about it, or galvanize others around you to help when you see somebody being physically abused/discriminated against/bullied and so on, DO IT. I've seen one too many videos of someone getting their shit kicked in by an idiot and NO ONE DOING ANYTHING BUT WATCHING. We see it on insta the next day then get mad. I know we tend to mind our own business when something isn't our problem, which is understandable in certain situations. However, it's not understandable when someone is on the ground pleading not to be hit.

Lemme say, Kreuzter 28 aint that bad. Sure there are 32nd notes but the tempo is grave so it's not the worst. It is pretty much the slowest. I have to work on getting those slurs clean. I can hit those arpeggios but it definitely gets a bit sloshy when I'm changing positions on the slurs on the way down. I feel like this one will be a fun Etude since it provides quite a bit of variation instead of the usual drilling of the same patterns.

Also. welcome to the family, Sonia:

After ten years on my previous violin (Martin), I've saved up a bit and with stimmy help I was able to move onto a newer violin. I hope to spend another decade and more with this one. The quality of sound is night and day when compared to my previous instrument. I'm loving it so far, it's just so clear and the sound spreads like butter. Can't wait to show y'all what it sounds like soon.

[b-robinson]

‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Franchise To Expand With Launch Of Nickelodeon’s Avatar Studios, Animated Theatrical Film In The Works

The Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise is set to get even bigger. Nickelodeon is launching Avatar Studios, a division designed to create o

Aaaaaand we back 😌

[b-robinson]

Senate Acquits Trump In Impeachment Trial — Again

Seven Republicans joined with all Democrats and independents to vote to convict the former president for inciting an insurrection, but the t

Idk whether to be surprised it happened, or surprised they did it in front of everybody after a whole ass insurrection at the highest building of legislation in the country. 🤡

[bhujangan]

Simple explanation of the bills that farmers in India are protesting - in TikTok form!

[jaaneymann]

hey non indians are encouraged to reblog this actually since what the indian government hates most is word of their terrible governing spreading outside of india! 

[djangelicchains]

For a more info, heres a video https://youtu.be/iHpZV7ro7lU

[b-robinson]

And once again I must remind myself that no, no you do not get a snow day off from work. Let the shoveling begin...

[b-robinson]

Crying

[twiststreet]

[black-nata]

“I was going to go lick a patient”

[b-robinson]

the shaaaaade

[b-robinson]

Also I’ve been learning how to skate during quarantine, and I landed my first shove it like a couple months back. 🥺 Maybe I’ll get a solid pop and add that to the name...

[b-robinson]

Practice Sesh #42

January feels like it started yesterday and ended in a flash for me. Safe to say, I think that’s how it’ll go for the rest of the year. Now that the previous idiot is gone, maybe our descent as a country won’t be as rapid. Still got A LOT of work to do...but progress is progress. 

In other news, last month I built my pc after saving up for it for a while! It’s my first build in 9 years! My first build was with my pops back in 2011, I was just a small boy with eager eyes. I don’t even think I attempted any cable management, I just wanted to play minecraft lololol. This time I did it alone, but it was alright cause I remember all the mistakes we made the first time around. 

My mom recently got a Cricut too and we’ve been messing around with it. I’m trying to get some vinyl work on the computer window panel to finish it off. Overall I am happy af. Now I can play games, make music, do whatever without placing that burden on my laptop which sounds like its dying.

Now to practice...

This is the second page of Kreutzer 27 and boy was it kicking my ass for a while. A few of the fingerings are just weird stretches and they’ll shove in several accidentals in there if you don’t pay attention. The most difficult section of this page are the first two lines. The shift is difficult to get in tune after creeping up, but after about a week just playing that portion over and over, I think I’ve got down easy. All there’s left with this is just the rest of the page which isn’t bad and has a few identical sections with the first page. 

As for plans on what I’ll supplement this with: I know I have a track I’d like to finish sometime soon. I’ve paused on that for a while just cause I was working on a couple of other things plus laziness. So hopefully I can get back on that. Speaking of which I got my first commission for a podcast opening theme so I’m pretty psyched about that. Honestly was a fun experience since I don’t make music like that, but I’ve listened to enough podcasts to have a good enough direction when tackling it. Hopefully I can listen to it in context soon when it gets rolling in a month or two.