I think I will make my way back to this blog. Tumblr is great, but it is more about pictures and videos than introspective writing. So yea.

Gotta finish a few papers, then Ill make some posts.

D

Sigur Ros - Hoppipolla

ok im trying this tumbler blog...and I think its better so far....graphically its stunning....

check me out

classicallytrainedblackkid.tumblr.com

Twilex -- Alex and Twitch hip hop

Hip hop performance minus Ellen

Ellen and Twitch SYTYCD 7 Finale

This is a must watch. Ellen is a beast haha. But seriously..Watch the original above. This is a post menopausal woman people!

This is how I feel about these auditions

Last night I had a dream, When I got to Africa,
I had one hell of a rumble.
I had to beat Tarzan’s behind first,
For claiming to be King of the Jungle.
For this fight, I’ve wrestled with alligators,
I’ve tustled with a whale.
I done handcuffed lightning
And put thunder in jail.
You know I’m bad.
I have murdered a rock,
I’ve injured a stone, and hospitalized a brick.
I’m so bad, I make medicine sick.
I’m so fast, man,
I can run through a hurricane and not get wet.
When this audition (George Foreman) meets me,
He’ll pay his debt.
I can drown the drink of water, and kill a dead tree.
Wait till you see Muhammad Ali.

What a Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong

Life is good

My voice doesn't exactly line up with the video..but you get the point...right?

My Senior Recital Program

Looks like my Junior recital was a little ambitious compare to my Senior recital

My Junior Recital Program

Being Noticed

So I have another blog, and this is an old post from 2009ish that I wrote that I thought was still interesting and true

I think a part of life that is often over looked but represents one of the greatest feelings that we humans can feel is that moment when someone shows you in their own way that you are noticed. Not that obligatory hello that people say in the hallway when walking by, but a representative notion that you have some value in their life. And that's when you have been a success people! It is that moment precisely that you know that you have placed a footprint in this world. For somehow, you have left a mark on that person for the rest of their life.

When did it happen to me this year? I would go to Dr. Moll's office and he would talk and talk like he knows how to do so well. He would tell me everything I needed to know to be successful in his class. He would profess his knowledge on a particular subject in a non-objective way and then send me off to make that personal decision of whether to listen to anything he said, or do nothing. The moment where he showed me that I was noticed was when I took my last test in music history and scored on of the highest grades. He was amazed that I took what he said seriously and it instantly opened a door to a different side of him that i've never seen before. Before he talked down to me and looked at me as some mediocre student trying to just pass, now he looks at me as an apprentice; as someone eager to learn what knowledge he has to offer. It was the first time that a teacher at ECU noticed me and for that I am forever grateful.

So, think about it. What was one moment you can remember when someone expressed that you were noticed. It doesn't have to be a teacher or professor, it could just be a friend, foe, or passerby.

Deron

You know what's bad? The fact the the only reason why I want to go to sleep is so I can wake up extra early to go practice.

Today I practiced for 8 hours straight. It was the best practice session of my life.

What I learned...

Stop focusing on whats coming out of my horn and instead listen to myself as if I were in the audience.

before you play>>>think>>>If I were sitting in the audience, what would I want to hear....>>>>play

Edward Fiske has personally handpicked the top undergrad music programs that should be on YOUR radar for the 2011 academic year!

• Berkele College of Music – A Mecca for the non-traditional and non-conformist.
• University of California at Los Angeles – The leader among West Coast music schools.
• Carnegie Mellon University – Unusual for its combination of arts and technology.
• Curtis Institute of Music – The best school of music not located in New York.
• Eastman School of Music – Leading school with ties to University of Rochester.
• Indiana University – Leading music program in Big Ten country.
• Juilliard School – The Harvard, Yale and Princeton of arts schools rolled into one.
• Rice University – Small university with the Southwest’s biggest reputation in music.
• New York University – NYU’s music programs are national leaders in all things arts.
• Oberlin College – Combines liberal arts with a competitive music
• Yale University – The Ivy League’s premier music school.

Grad School Auditions

What I have ahead of me:

Horn

Applicants will read an orchestral excerpt and demonstrate familiarity with all major and minor scales and arpeggios. In addition applicants will play:

1. one movement of a concerto or sonata
2. one étude by Kopprasch and one by Gallay
3. the following orchestral excerpts:
   • the last movement of Brahms’s Symphony No. 1
   • the second-horn part from the trio of the third movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3
   • the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5
   • R. Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel
   • Ravel’s Pavane
   • the short call from Wagner’s Siegfried’s Rheinfahrt
   • the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7
   • the third movement of Brahms’s Symphony No. 3

Music is all I have right now. And that's ok with me.

Marvin Sapp | The Best In Me

Fantasia Total Praise Video

Broadened Horizons

This has been the most action packed horn week ever. I don't know where to start so I will have to do a day by day:

Thursday

1. The horn studio had a master class with Cheryl Neberhaus. I played an etude that I was having difficulty with and she told me some great things. Mainly that I needed to rethink the sound that I desire to play. She move my hand position and it made things easier and opened my sound, but it wasn't a functioning hand but it sounds great.
2. Next, I got to sit in on the 4 hornist's first rehearsal of the Schumann Concert Piece. I made a recording and I was just blown away with how musically and how far each player was able to push and what is even better is that everyone is such a beast.

Friday

1. Rehearsal
2. Lesson with Dr. Abagail Pack- There was a life lesson in this lesson...at the end of the day, one must just deliver. Its not about how tired you are, its not about how much you don't know...its about putting everything you have into the performance. Needless to say, I didn't do as well in the lesson as I thought I would...but its neither here or there now.
   
3. Brass sectional- So the DAY before the concert the brass section of the orchestra had our 1st rehearsal. What I learned....appoint someone to be the mediator...to be in charge but to direct the ideas of the musicians into one succinct thought so there aren't a room full of people talking and getting nothing done.
   
4. Panel discussion=LIFE CHANGING. Lesson learned: Roll with the punches, and NEVER make excuses. Progress.
   

Saturday

1. Rehearsal 10-12:30
2. McAlisters- great bacon spud
   
3. Lesson with Laura Carter- LC is everything I want Dr. B to be in the sense that when she presented a problem, the also gave a solution, and it wasn't one of those "figure it out" situations. I have it recorded and I am so excited about that.
   
4. my mouth is itching..good thing (a week later- as I am updating this, my lips are itching again which means that blood is flowing! I am gonna be such a great horn player)
   
5. Concert- BEST OF MY LIFE. And the reviewers thought so as well
   

   http://www.cvnc.org/reviews/2010/092010/ECUSymphony.html

Sunday

1. Goldsboro Concert 8am at school of music- Great acoustics. There was a moment when we were playing in the second movement of the Tchaikovsky that I thought, "this is what I am supposed to be doing with my life". It was almost an out of body experience, but it was so great. Music is my life, and I am ok with that.
   

Leontyne Price sings "My Man's Gone Now"

ok I lied. this is too good not to post. Nothing better than a black virtuoso

Jessye Norman, Deep River, Levine,Carnegie Hall 1990

ok my last one for the night