Hi! You can call me El, Lib, Libby, some variation of my username, I really don’t care. Use whatever pronouns you want with me, get creative! I identify as asexual, aro-spec, sapphic, and queer. I’m also very much in favor of reclaiming slurs, so simply know that I am a faggot and a dyke :)
Minors, interact with caution. First of all, take your age out of your bio and don’t advertise the fact that you’re underage. That’s dumb. Also, if you try to follow me and I can tell that you’re a minor, I will be blocking you. That being said, I’m not your parent and I can’t control what you do. You can reblog my posts and engage with me about topics like music, politics, or sfw fandom things. Do not DM me if you’re a minor—I am absolutely not comfortable talking privately with you. Send it in an ask, please and thank you :)
I post very eclectically, and I’m not always great about tagging things. The few things you can expect from me are my one piece posting (under #one piece yapping, #libby watches one piece, and #libby reads one piece), various music things like compositions, practice videos, or just my thoughts (under #back on my music bullshit with practice videos under #practice log), political posts (under #politics or #us politics), and anything I find extremely funny (under #top tier posts). I’ve also been posting a bit more about The Summer Hikaru Died (光が死んだ夏) with the anime coming out and all, so those posts can be found under #hgsn posting. All of my original posts are tagged #libby shouts into the void, and I try to be consistent with tagging trigger warnings (formatted #tw [topic]). Anything I write will be tagged #libby writes things, though you can absolutely just follow my writing side blog if you want to see that stuff.
Other fandoms that I’m always down to talk about, regardless of how often I post about them, include The Apothecary Diaries (薬屋のひとりごと), bare: a pop opera, Batman/Batfamily/DC Comics, BBC Merlin, Bungou Stray Dogs (文豪ストレイドッグス), Check Please! (omgcp), Dan and Phil (the middle school hyperfixation turned up in the middle of the night and shot me dead), DanDaDan (ダンダダン), Danny Phantom, Dead Boy Detectives, Frieren (葬送のフリーレン), Haikyuu!! (ハイキュー!!), His Dark Materials, Miraculous Ladybug, My Hero Academia (僕のヒーローアカデミア), the Owl House, Percy Jackson, Pokémon, Precure, Princess Tutu, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Sailor Moon, She-ra (and the Princesses of Power), Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor, Winx Club, Witch Hat Atelier, and Wizard101 (I’ve played on and off for over a decade now). I’m always looking for more magical girl media, so please give me your recs!
Topics and/or hyperfixations (outside of the previously mentioned fandoms) include bra-sizing, soundtracks/compositions/leitmotifs, contemporary music, Japanese (which I’m learning), and poetry/writing (my very barren side blog is @elluminiswrites and you can find me on ao3 under elluminis).
I’ve been practicing every day, just haven’t been making recordings. x__X; Today, played Grieg’s Holberg Suite first movement (Praeludium) in string sectional. It’s a lively piece with some beautiful, soaring parts for first violin, and fun to play together. Didn’t sound horrible for a first readthrough. Requires a lot of bow control and finger dexterity to play up to speed, so I’ll be working on this.
✔️ Practice Days 037-046 // ❌❌ Two Missed Days
Almost halfway through the marathon, though I fully intend to continue the habit of practicing every day even once the hundred days are up.
I still can’t get over how much I love Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Blu. By the end it sounds like a crazy march and makes me think of the colorful art style of Paprika for some reason. Ahhh I just love it. Not sure what makes certain pieces stick in the brain like this, but it’s stuck. :P And I love how he and Joe Hisaishi conduct from the piano.
So, I’m taking piano lessons through The Great Courses. It’s a video lecture series that comes with a text booklet of lesson summaries and practice exercises. It’s difficult because you have to pace yourself and be patient and not move on to the next lesson until you’ve mastered the previous lesson’s content, but it’s a good series with a really solid instructor.
I’m on Lesson Seven right now, getting ready to move on to Lesson Eight, and the thing that I’ve been working on this week is chord progressions: picking up my left hand and, without looking, setting it down someplace else and just trusting that it’s going to land on the right keys.
The hard part is that I used to be able to do this, like, a decade ago when I was learning piano the first time, so it’s frustrating trying to relearn and not being as good as I was (I was never good, but you know what I mean). I’m definitely improving, but it’s slow going. Tonight was pretty vicious. I was trying to go slow and not make mistakes and think about where my hand was in relation to the keys as I moved through the chords and where the notes were in relation to one another.
It was a sonic massacre.
It was so bad that I thought, “Forget it. I have nothing to lose. I’m just going to play it as fast as I can!”
And then it was perfect.
Just like that. As soon as I stopped overthinking it, my hand knew where to move all on its own. I played the song back to back four times through pretty much perfectly, and I thought, “What the heck is happening? Didn’t I suck just two literal minutes ago?” I guess I finally broke the muscle memory barrier, so I wasn’t able to play at first because I was thinking about it too hard. XD
Incidentally, I was reminded of a segment that these violinists on YouTube, TwoSetViolin did. Apparently, if you can play a song fast, that does not necessarily mean that you can play it slowly. I actually stumbled upon TwoSetViolin on YouTube last January while I was searching for a piano cover of something I was wanting Adrien to play. I watch their videos periodically when I need a really nerdy good laugh. ^.^
I started working on Bach’s Prelude to Suite No. 3 and my chair test cuts for Capriccio Espagnol so I can be ready for school in August. Because I haven’t been able to afford lessons this summer, I asked some of my friends from school for tips on fingerings and I’ve determined there’s 3 types of Violists:
1. The ones who hate 2nd position and will do any string crossing they have to in order to avoid it.
2. The ones who live and breathe by 2nd position, and will use it every chance they can (even over 3rd position). And,
3. The mutants with hands big enough to stay in 1st.
