Another Imperfect Cadence

It’s been one of those weeks where my to-do list is like a hundred and one things long! Okay, I’m exaggerating, but, seriously, where does the time go? Yesterday, the closest I could get to my piano was my steering wheel. Between having my dad change the oil on my car and other shop repairs back in Cambridge (where I’ve lived most of my life), I spent the better part of the day tending to my car. As Mr. T.G., the J.H.S.S. librarian, used to say, “Once you get a vehicle, you’ll never stop fixing it.” So true!! And hence, the four days of silence on my blog. But, hey, silence is arguably music. Just listen to John Cage’s 4’33”; I always love seeing people perform that =)

So, in terms of the audio clip I was attempting to upload the last time, I have successfully made the video on Windows Movie Maker; however, my blog, for some odd reason, can’t support the uploading of such a large file, I’m assuming. That being said, I was told it is better to create a YouTube account and upload my videos there. Hopefully, I’ll have better luck! I should inform you that I grew up in the era where the USB was just replacing floppy disks, cell phones were on the rise, and computers seemed just to be entering the classroom (I may be wrong about this one, but are a lot of high school students now using laptops in the classroom; if so, it wasn’t the case back when I was in high school). But, anyway, go fact check me, please!

So the truth be told, I’m actually composing quite a few new compositions right now . . . not just one! It’s always difficult when you have so much inspiration and you want to give all of the songs your undivided attention. I have this tendency to write in minor keys. Josh Groban has a similar tendency. Maybe I’m a melancholic, do you think? You all recall the four humours, right? I just found this description of the “Melancholy, or Black Bile” humour on the website in parentheses: “Melancholics used to be identified by their pale, sallow looks, their lack of appetite and tendency to withdraw from society” (http://www.passionsandtempers.com/v1/page.php?l=en&p=humours).  Describes me perfectly, doesn’t it ;) And isn’t it true that PhD students live in caves while preparing for comps? That’ll be me soon =)

Going back to the many compositions I have begun at this point in time, I think I would like to continue with a song I’ve begun in the key of d minor, which for those of you who are not familiar with the technicalities of music, means the relative minor of F major (a key with one flat – b flat). Okay, maybe I’m getting too technical here. But you can still appreciate music without knowing all of these technicalities, can you not? So, this song is about betrayal. It’s about figurative loss . . . loss that seems like a death, but isn’t. It’s about unspoken words . . . silence, essentially, and the suffering that takes place within. I don’t know quite where the song is headed, but I’m happy to be exploring a lower vocal range as a lot of the songs I’ve written are in a higher range which comes as no surprise since I’m a soprano.

Aside: Okay, just so you know, this blog entry's title "imperfect cadence" is my way of expressing the lack of closure (due to technical glitches) in both this blog entry and my last. I didn't have much more luck with YouTube, but will certainly look further into it. The video is 1.42 GB and, generally, YouTube videos can be a maximum of 2 GB. I just don't understand =( Please bear with me as I figure out why the uploading of media and audio files is giving me such difficulties!