Harmony

In my previous blog post, I discussed the folk knowledge of convention: of what sounds right to our ears based on our society's music culture. An important part of our culture, is, of course, homophony, or the musical texture in which the various parts in a song support each other and create chords. The most common example of homophony is found in hymns.

Teaching cookies...and harp

I taught chocolate chip cookie-making. I learned a lot about teaching...and made some fascinating comparisons between teaching how to make cookies and teaching how to play the harp.

Teaching cookie-making.

Assisted Learning

Well, my teaching wasn't teaching someone something for the first time, it was more helping her transfer what she already knew into slightly different forms.

Whip Cracking!

Unknown to many people, the whip was the first man-made object to break the sound barrier. Hence the characteristic crack that can cause an acute ringing in the ears! Last year one of my roommates who had served his mission in Budapest, Hungary brought us into the parking lot one night and showed us something like this (imagine ear-splitting cracks):

For the Love of Photography

I love photography.

There's just something about it that speaks to my soul in a way no other art form can. A picture is worth a thousand words. Those words can be difficult to find. But finding the words to express to another individual how to capture an image can be even more difficult.

When Blaine asked me to teach him the basics of photography, I thought to myself Alright, cool. I can teach photography. As a dance teacher, I'm accustomed to hands on learning. I'm used working with others. I understand how to share what I know.

But that was dance. This is photography.

Allow me to introduce my camera:

This is not your standard point and shoot camera. This is a Nikon d50, a DSLR, and quite an old one at that. Still, it is my favorite kind of camera and it was on this camera that I taught Blaine the basics of photography. As I taught him, I realized that while it's simple to teach the technical side of photography (shutter speed, aperture, ISO, lens focus), the artistic side is almost impossible to put into words. Sure I taught him basic rules like:

Leading lines...

The Rule of Thirds...

And Depth of Field...

But photography is so much more than all those things. Photography is an experiment. Photography is something intangible. Photography is a reflection of the photographer.

In the end I handed my camera over to Blaine and we just walked around campus with me coaching him on the kind of pictures he could take and how he could make them unique to him. I gave him ideas as we went along and showed him through demonstration how I might handle picturing a particular subject. But I wanted to leave the artistic choices to Blaine. After all, photography is all about personal perception. It takes thousands of photographs to finally figure out. But with patience and several tries, anyone can be a photographer. Anyone can feel the love.

My brother was born on the dance floor!

Water--here and there, now and then

I went to China earlier this summer with BYU's traveling orchestra. It was a fantastic experience. We did all the stuff: hiked the Great Wall, visited the Forbidden City, shopped (bargained!) at the markers, ate Peking Duck, ate silk worm larvae...ah, never mind.

Anyway, overall, it was awesome. There were some less-awesome aspects, however. The beds are hard and flat. The public toilets look like this:

(Page break lol)

Crafty



My sister crafting (courtesy of
http://everydaytranscendence.blogspot.com)

My sister, Erika, can craft. I oftentimes read her blog and marvel at the abundance of adorable creations that freely flow from her artistic fingertips. Most recently, she has begun making custom baby onesies with personalized embroidery. She gives these onesies to friends, family, and even ward members.

So when my sister-in-law became pregnant, I knew I wanted to make something for her and her baby. That's when the lightbulb turned on. Make a onesie.

The onesie Erika taught me to customize started off generic, white, and without personality, but through the help of fabric swatches, a pair of scissors, and some embroidery floss, this tiny article of clothing transformed before my eyes.

This transformation started not with fabric, but with paper. First, we cut out paper shapes (mine was an elephant, hers was a heart) to be turned into pattern pieces. We traced the images onto fusible paper, which would later be ironed onto patterned fabric. To ensure our designs faced the correct direction when transferred onto the onesie, we actually traced the pictures backwards.

After tracing our designs we cut them out, leaving about a quarter inch of paper on all sides. Erika then showed me how to iron the fusible paper to patterned fabric we had previously selected. Once attatched, we trimmed off the excess paper-fused material, leaving only the pattern of the elephant behind.

From this point, the pattern could now be attached to the onesie. Each piece of fusible paper had a removable peeling that allowed the shape to stick to the fabric. We ironed the pattern onto the onesie for additional reinforcement, and although the garment could be considered finised at this point, Erika wanted to take it a step further by adding a finishing touch of embroidery.

A onesie similar to the one I made

Using embroidery floss, Erika demonstrated how to make a blanket stitch on the onesie. While the stitch should have been simple to execute, I greatly struggled with the stitch. Between the meticulous placement of the needle and the particular looping of floss, I could not get the hang of this bizarre stitch. My sister guided my hand time after time, and eventually, I started to pick up the technique of this finishing touch to the personalized onesie.

As I worked on the onesies with my sister, she started sharing with me stories of all the onesies she has made and the people they now belong to. She told me about deciding what kind of pattern to include on the onesie based on the parent's personality and requests. By making these onesies, my sister is better able to connect with others and show her love for them. She not only shares a beautiful material gift to her recipients, she also shares the gift of herself. She shares herself. She shares her knowledge. She shares her love.

Today, creating these onesies has become a quick and simple process for my sister. For me however, making that onesie required fierce determination and intense focus. As one who lacks the skillful hand of a seamstress, I won't pretend that my onesie turned out beautifully. I won't say it's the best handiwork, I've ever done. But I promise, my pathetic little elephant onesie came from the heart. And that's what matters.

Goin' Shooting - photos that is!

“ Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph." – Matt Hardy

My first tries at quality photos. I love the different shirts in and the symmetry of
them all under umbrellas and broken only by the
lone rock.

While everybody and their dog seems to own the latest fit-in-your-pocket camera or more recently the pin-hole camera that comes standard with a smart phone, these novice photographers lack the finesse from what makes a real photograph. They know it too. We all recognize an amazing shot from the typical Facebook gallery one. But what adds to an amazing photograph. This was my curiosity when I met up with Kacee to learn from an expert how to use a quality camera and the tricks of contemporary photographers.

Zumbalicious

This is Becky. She teaches Zumba.

She's stoked about it.

This is me. I am about to learn Zumba.

I'm nervous because I'm about to learn Zumba.

Fear

Anxiety. That's what characterizes the hours before ten o'clock every Monday and Wednesday morning. For shortly, I will be taking a "long walk off a short pier," a "short drop with a surprising stop," a "leap of faith." That's what it seems like when I go to learn springboard diving, anyway. Death by flopping.

Diving began centuries ago as gymnasts moved their equipment to the beaches during the summer months in an effort to beat the heat. Put enough competitive people that close to the water, and something is bound to come out of it. And thus, the sport of diving emerged.

Conventions

When was the last time you thanked your lucky stars for the conventions of Western music? 

The following clip might help you appreciate this forgotten bit of folk knowledge you've been learning since the cradle:

That excerpt, taken from the Red Maid Opera, illustrates some differences between Western  and Chinese music. How did the music from this famous opera make you feel? If your reaction was anything like mine, the clip made you feel at least a little uncomfortable. As I studied more about the music of China, I realized that what sounds right or correct to our Western-tuned ears is a result of years and years of learning-- learning we did without even realizing it.

Violin Anyone?

So this is my friend Natalie. She is pretty much amazing and a better musician than I could ever hope to be. Doesn't she have an aura of professionalism?

And this is me. I have no Idea what I’m doing and I just walked into the HFAC, BYU’s performing arts headquarters, for the first time. Deer in the headlights? I think yes.

(trying not to go cross-eyed)

This little adventure has taught a few things

1. finding a quiet, secluded place to practice is next to impossible. We walked through a few floors in the HFAC and finally decided to just play in the stairwell (this provided the uncomfortable component, as I would rather not have witnesses to my embarrassment, but you do what you gotta do).
2. a violin is not held perpendicular to the shoulder bone, it’s at a slight angle
3. when they say rest your chin on the violin, they don’t mean lay half your face on it
4. holding a violin’s bow is more complicated than holding a baseball bat, and nothing like holding a cello’s bow (my brother plays the cello, so I tried to mimic that, but it didn’t work)
5. putting your finger lower on the string make the pitch higher (I already knew this in theory, but in practice, my brain died)
6. It doesn’t work if you move the bow over the wrong string
7. it’s difficult to differentiate strings when your crossed eyed
8. even holding a violin for a few minutes makes your arm hurt because people don’t usually use the muscles in that way

(Oh look, now I'm smiling)

I definitely have a renewed respect for musicians. I was able to make my way through “Hot Cross Buns” because it’s a very simple piece with only three notes that only requires one string, but people like Natalie use all the strings and work through difficult pieces everyday. Right now, I couldn't show you how to hold a bow. Natalie had to correct me over and over, by physically moving my fingers into the right position, with the right amount of bending. I had her get the camera out of my backpack, so I didn't have to start all over again with just holding the bow. Needless to say, you probably won’t be seeing me play in an orchestra anytime soon.

(My apologies, the page break icon doesn't appear on my list of icons)

What's the best gift...

The manner of giving is worth more than the gift.  ~Pierre Corneille, Le Menteur

In the pandemonium of shuffling classes around and juggling homework, it hit me early last week that my mom's birthday was Saturday. After a quick lunch, I hurried to the bookstore where I could collect some ideas. Every book passed and decoration on display made me less and less sure of what she would like. I realized that gift giving is something that takes a lot of thought and time, and giving the right gift means a lot to the sender as well as the receiver.

Sharing the Dance

Neither the Mantic, nor the Sophic can adequately describe the impossibly intricate and incomprehensible beauty of the performing arts. As an active participant, patron, and perpetuator of the performing arts, I have come to find that, while not wholly owned by either school of thought, the performing arts can be considered the marriage of the Mantic and the Sophic, a place where clashing ideals come together in an illogical, yet completely wonderful way. I love it.

In my last post, I discussed my time as a student in the performing arts, namely my experiences as a dancer. Learning the generation-bridging folk knowledge of ballet shaped nearly the first 18 years of my life. But on January 12, 2011, I discovered that more important than the acquisition of folk knowledge is the imparting of folk knowledge. On that day, I learned that folk knowledge really only has meaning to me if I can share it with others. On that day, I became a choreographer.

Demonstrating a step from "Fortune Favors the Brave" (Aida 2011)