Musica

bored backstage at the concert two weeks ago

I do not know about you guys (*hint hint- feel free to tell me) but I can not concentrate well with OUT music on!  I tend to like all music except for what most people like, haha. In other words I’m the salmon swiming against the stream most of the time. I stick to what I like, and that includes everything except for generally rap, pop, and thats about it. I love classical music, I love jazz, I love show tunes, I love Rock, Metal (heavy and melodic) and I love punk. I tend to like the older stuff more.

This morning I woke up to some LOVELY music. I had set my ipod alarm to play my most played list, so today I will introduce you to some of the artists on that list.

The poster for Steven Tsitsos' tour of Romance 'n' Jazz

1. First of all there is, possibly one of my favourite modern classical musicians (if that even makes sense) who also happens to be a good friend. His name is Steven Tsitsos. He recently started a you tube account and though as of today he only has a few videos up, they are all absolutely phenomenal (if he sees this he will laugh). When He asked my favourite I had to be honest. I couldn’t choose and still can’t! They are all just so beautiful. The three part of ‘Affairs of the Heart’ are all astoundingly beautiful, but the songs for percussion and orchestra are beautiful, fun, and receive more views in general, and I particularly like the Prague segment of these. Check them all out at his channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/StevenTsitsos#p/u/1/g25j5v0kM3k

I hope you enjoy!

2. A wonderful Canadian star Michael Buble reaches heights of supremacy on my I-pod play lists. Ok that might parcially be because I was dancing to one of his songs and listened to it over and over again, but I still love his music. And the music video was very fun too. Here it is:

The song I danced to was Cry Me a River. I did a little jazz number en pointe, but sadly it did not end well. I had some…technical difficulties. I hadn’t practiced much for it since my ballet exam was coming up soon as well. First the pointe shoes came half off… then one tore! Haha  it didnt go well but for once, I am still able to listen to a song after having performed to it. here it is on Youtube:

3. Another group I love is Weather report. I danced to them a few years ago, the 1min 30 second dance turned into an impromptu improvisational piece when the uncut version was played. Luckily it was a solo and I managed the full 7 minutes, though my mom was near having a heart attack and was ready to pull me off stage when she saw I was tired. I had recently had a sore throat, perhaps from nerves, and when I got off stage, after the demanding jumps and pirouettes and the added stress of not knowing what was happening, I started coughing with my throat so sore, I needed to drink plenty of water before returning to the back stage duties I had helping out other dancers older and younger. They have too many songs to pic a favourite, so I will let you guys explore and make the decision for your self!

4. As for jazz… hmmm. Duke Ellington is pretty good (hahaha). And of course so is Count Basie. I love the song “April in Paris” that he did(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buPYdXcfwJc). Ella Fitzgerald is also amazing. I the album she did with Louis Armstrong. I strongly suggest you find it! But there are too many great Jazz musicians to choose from. The Dave Brubeck quartet is incredible. I was fortunate enough to see them in concert in the Terry Town concert hall, and meet Mr. and Mrs. Brubeck back stage as well. I know I already showed you Take Five, but his pieces “The A-Train” and “Blue Rondo a la Turk” are both incredible too. These guys just need to be mentioned: Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker. Bird of course is possibly one of the BEST and most fundamental musicians of jazz.

I’ll have a think about any more of my favourite Jazz musicians. Tell me who you like too.

5. As for heavy metal, I love Kamelot. There are so many great metal bands, but I love the stories they tend to tell. Amon Amarth is good too. Most of the good metal bands seem to have references to stories. What my brothers and sister and I have figured out from our own experimentation is that Scandinavian, German and Polish metal is really good. Of course there is good metal from all over the world, but its up to you to find your own taste!

Well I’ve had an awful long break from studying. I better get going. More later dear Readers!!!

Mirella Rose

oh and P.S. If anyone wants to know more great Jazz Legends there is actually a book titled that, which has the best must have CD’s for any connoisseur of Jazz. Also, if you want to play jazz you MUST absolutely MUST get the Real Book. Years after being put together it is still in use and a powerful reference book for jazz musicians old and young. It has all the best songs of jazz from all composers. I don’t know if there is a CD of it, but the book itself is good to have!

Hello World- Take Two

Take two… ‘Take Five’- what a lovely song by Dave Brubeck. I HIGHLY suggest you listen to it, even if you aren’t a fan of jazz. Its simply mesmerizing .

Well my dear readers, I am titling this page “Hello World – Take Two” for a couple of reasons. Well first of all, it sounds kinda nice doesn’t it? Don’t you ever meet someone for the first time and think afterward “Geez! I made such a fool out of myself…” or whatever, and totally blow your chances with this person, either as a friend, or as a… better friend…? Well that’s sort of what I’m trying to do here. See “hello World” was supposed to be my first post, and I wrote tons for it. But everything was deleted and somehow never went up… and that page seems to get a lot of views, so I’m just gonna take another attempt at that. Also, I feel really guilty after not writing for… two days? no that can’t be right? hmmm, Sunday was the last time I posted? so… 3 days? ok somehwere round there, but Goodness it feels much longer!

So NEWS: My hand healed itself just in time for the concert. I managed to have two spotless onstage rehearsals with my piano accompanist (that doesn’t look like its spelt right but anyways… :P), and one… very good… final performance. Its that famous curse of the music world, you never want a perfect final practice. the worse that is (unless all your practices have been bad) the better your final show will be… and vice versa as seems to be the case more often than not with me.

Also… I was going to write something esle that was new… but now I can’t remember so I’ll go on.

My best friend (other than my sister) has started a blog too! Much due to my excellent persuasion skills! Ill get the link here next time for anyone else who might be interested. SHe tackles very deep problems… much deeper than you’d expect from a 15 year old. I think she want the purpose of her blog to be trying to figure out what the meaning of life really is. We have spent many sleep overs talking about this (very weird teenager girls we are, aren’t we? no gossiping and chit chatting  about menial topic for us now is there?) I’ll include some of my own thoughts on that on her blog through comments.

Oh and I should probably finish off my reviews of the two movies I was watching the other night. They were both very good. “Proof” was a bit shorter than I would have liked, and had a LOT of screaming in it, and crying. but I think it was a very good topic, and very well done. It tackled a topic that I’ve always wondered, about how do all those scientist and mathematicians come up with theories and proofs and formulas in the first place? Same with how do musicians, Especially now adays, write songs… I once heard someon say that they never wrote songs, or tried to create anything because all the good ideas have already been done, if they haven’t its because it wasnt a good idea. which is very true. Like, how come you always find something you lost in the last place you thought to look? sounds pretty pathetic and philosophical , but its simply because after you’ve found it, why would you continue thinking of places it could be??? Though it is true that sometimes you think something is somewhere but it still isn’t the first palce you go to see…

Ok, I have forgotten how that last bit was relevant, but it was… somehow sometime…

I also have a new movie review. I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately. I’ve had to relax a bit. I had been getting too worked up with school and everything else, but now that im more relaxed and thinking clearer I’ve been producing better work. (but I wont go into that today) The movie I haven’t even finished watching yet (waitng for part 11- final- to load on youtube) is the 1994 “SPEED”. I like the movie, and I think I can see myself (after the exams are over) watching the sequel and third one. It’s quite good, but not the type of thing I would normally be into. its more in my second choice category. But I like that, sometimes we need something like that every now and again.

Does anyone else out there have any good movies to suggest seeing? I’m normally really bad with pop culture and the sort (incase you haven’t figured out- meaning of life discussions and all….) and especially movies. I hardly ever go to the movie theaters, unless its a movie that is really so much better in the cinema, whats the point when you can rent it a month later, and watch it in the comfort of your own home, with your jammies and endless home made popcorn (i prefer it to theater pop corn) with your best frineds and being able to laugh as much as you want at the msot random comments that you think of in the middle of a dramatic scene, not get scolded, and then you get to rewind after you realise none of you have heard anything anyone’s said for the past five minutes becuase youve been so busy laughing your heads off…

Haha, now that I’m done advertising for home cinema companies across the globe…

It’s Tuesday, a week after that iconic post when i got my first comment!!! Annika, this post is dedicated to you for that! Thank you, I hope you see it, and look forward to any feed back you have. Oh and My mom and I made another batch of the lemon bars this weekend for a bridal shower we held today. Very nice with a beachy theme…

I also got some pictures recently from one of my cousins in Greece. They are of the burnt out bank in Athens from the riots. I will post them as soon as I figure out how. there are huge masses of candles and flowers and teddy bears for the almost life taken. Do you think its unnecessary to mourn an unborn baby’s death? I think it is, especially when its something that could have been prevented. I mean, some people say, oh whats the point, its not like the world would have been any different in 20 years if they hadn;t died, but you never know who’s going to be the one to discover a universal cure to cancer, or a way to stop CO2 emmisions or whatever life altering discovery could be made.

I once had this discussion with one of my brothers. I said, imagine how different our life would be if Benjamin Franklin hadn’t lived and been the brilliant man he was. My brother didnt think there would have been much difference. I said, but think about the number of people more that would have been affected without the lightning rod, the Empire state building never would have survived more than a few months for example. And Imagine if we didnt even have electricity! (needless to say the world’s population would probably have been much smaller). He thought someone would have made the discovery everntually, it was just up to fate to decide when and by who. But I think that if someone had discovered it later, we wouldn’t have made as much progress as we have today. I mean, ideas are like species. They evolve, develop, they morph and merge to blend into ohter ideas… and all that takes time. Just look at computers. first you have the BOMBE, the computer which cracked the German code in WWII which couldnt even fit in a regular room, and now we have these teeny tiny mac laptops which are no bigger than an exercise book… incredible isn’t it? and all that took time, for the computer to morph. first it was merely a calculator on steroids capable of doing more than just a few minor calculations, now we can play games, comunicate, type, and even draw! I mean if it werent for the evolution of the computer I wouldn’t be able to be writng this right now!However the development of the modern computer was much faster than that of implementing electricity into our homes, and even those said computers.

Well, it’s geting late, and i still have the movie, and i’ve gone so off the topic i started on i can hardly remeber what was the first sentence i wrote (yes I know I could just scroll to the top of the page, but for the… artistic quality i shant) nor what it was that I was meaning to say.

However I’m waking up early tomorrow, so should I remeber during the night, rest assured I will write another post bright and early to await all my dear readers like a cup of freshly brewed coffee… umm…

A Bientot mes cheries!

Till next we meet,

The Mira Mira on the wall: Mirella Rose

P.S. -> don’t forget to leave any comments or suggestions, and/or contact me at my email: miraellarose@yahoo.com (hence the mira mira joke) or even Facebook. My account is free for anyone to see. just type int the name Mirella Rosaria and you should find me! Cheers!