Mentor Meeting #idk.

Well the break was delightful, in terms of not going to school. Over the spring break, I've learned new stuff and have been practicing on that a little bit. On Sunday, I tried to record a guitar part of the song and tried to loop it, but it wans't as good as i thought it would be. All tiny mistakes were picked up upon recording, and that ruined the sound really badly. So i need to work on that some more. And since the AP exams start from next week, it seems like that its going to be hard to keep up with AP,wise and work.

Anyways, I met Mr.Lesser today and talked about a few things. The list is as follows

• The deadline for recording stuff. We first decided to finish the recording by the last week of may, but changed to the second last week because if i can't still sing in the original key, (which i hope doesn't happen at all) i will need to transpose it.
• If i can't record in a sing shot, i could record a segment of a song and add to the section that I've successfully recorded. This might take a lot of effort, but still it's a way to do it.
• What else... Oh, We decided that i should contact one of the local musicians that was on the community contact sheet Ms.Gergely gave us, to learn things about the softwares, because i'm pretty sure they know what to do with those. 

Those were the things that we talked about today... And recently, I've been working on my abs because those are also crucial when singing!

Next weeks plan

So its Sunday, but I don't feel bad that i need to go to school after 10 hours, because its the spring break! As of yesterday, my family has arrived to Virginia to visit my dad. The weather was the worst because throughout 7 hours of driving it had been hailing constantly. The car shook because of the wind and we could barely see through window because of the rain. I just realized I should have taken some pictures to show everybody how intense it was.

Right now, I'm staying in a 4 feet by 5 feet room, sitting on the floor laptop on my lap. Three other family members are staying here, so it really crowed, like a prison cell. There is not that many things to do, except reading some books or just taking a nap. We just visited some places around here so far and have been looking for houses we are going to live (well, not me) in the future.

As bad as how it describes, its really boring, not that many things to do. But fortunately, there is a library in a distance about 2 miles, so what i will be doing the next three days is probably going to library and stay there until it closes. I plan to read those two books i got from my uncle from Korea. I'm pretty sure it will require some time because those are hard to understand and needs further research. The other thing i will do is 'studying' the softwares, which are Adobe Audition3 and Fruity Loops.
adobe audition
Fruity Loops

Yes, these are the programs that you might see in a studio when you look at some TV programs. Those are extremely complicated and might not be learned over a course of week. I still need to look up for some sources. Once i find some helpful sources I'll post those up as well as other video sources.

mentor meeting

Finally, i was able to have a mentor with Mr. Lesser. Its been about 2 weeks that I haven't seen him! The first week i was absent on Monday because i was sick, but it turned out that he's been out because he had his first baby. How exciting! I was able to see some pictures of him today, and it was really adorable. It might be a coincidence, but a few days ago, i was wondering how happy i'd feel if i have a first baby. Mr.Lesser told me his name is Julian, which i thought was a great name. Anyways, we had a short meeting and talked about my recent progress. By the way, i think i will have to meet with him more regularly because our meetings are short and as the end of year approaches, ill need some more guide on many different stuff. One important thing we've discussed was what to do over the break. Since i'm head to D.C to meet my daddy, it turned out that i won't be able to practice neither guitar nor singing. So, we decided that i should be working on something that doesn't have to do with those; working with softwares! I have to use two programs called Adobe Audition and Fruity Loops. In fact, those are really complicated programs and need lots of studying and practicing to skillfully deal with them. Over the spring break, all i will do will be sitting in a tiny desk in a public library and playing with these programs. Of course, i will have to look up for some helpful resources but its the amount of time i spend that makes me better using these programs. I'd better not waste time but focus hard and get some work done over the break.

Out of the Rut Journal Activity

This is an activity we were supposed to do in class on Monday, however, I didn't have enough time to to it, so I'm doing this on Wednesday. Hooray!
In this activity, I will talk about little bit of planning. Here it says, i need to make at least one of the following lists in my journal. In the planning section, there is 7 things I want to accomplish in the next week. Since I'm lacking a great plan now, I'll fill out this list which will help me what to do over the spring break.

1. Catch up with all the missing blog posts. I have 3-4 missing.
2. Find a great website and instructions that deal with Adobe Audition and Fruity Loops.
3. Play with these software for a bit since i won't have time to practice my singing and guitar. This will be the perfect time to be acquainted with these programs.
4. If possible, practice on making some loops and try to edit some existing songs, to get the hang of it.
5. Upload some samples i practiced with, which will show the progress and where i am in terms of these new stuff
6. Finish recording guitar part of i'm yours. It is better if i make a loop instead of playing all the same parts over and over again.
7. Edit the recording with Adobe Audition. Upload it on my blog.

These plans will be perfect for spring break if it's done as i planned it to be. This might be a little bit of a push, but if i try hard, i think it won't be impossible to accomplish this.

My partner for the second activity was Sam Donovan, and i had my first chance to explore his blog. His project was getting ripped, which aims at getting his body fat percentage below 8. Not to mention, there were lots of posts about working out and some mental things, since it require great will power to exercise regularly. It seemed like that he had some information from books and other people, which was a good thing because i lack these stuff. He also wrote about what he learned from these and how these will change his behaviors in the future. I also liked how he posted the picture of his recent 'shape' on his blog. This exactly showed me where he was and what should be done more. I think i should do the same thing for recordings. Unless i upload these, i won't get any feedbacks which will help me a lot on where i need some more improvements on.

Singing Gospel

Over the weekend, there was a special service that my church held. The church brought another pastor from a church in New Jersey. This is an event thats held twice a year, and I've been attending this service most of the time, regardless of my will. Yes, my mom forced me to go. Anyways, everything is pretty okay but still i can't really focus on the sermon, because i feel like i'm not completely open yet. However, one good thing about the service is that we all get to sing a hymn. And since those hymns weren't the outdated ones, melodies were great and i enjoyed singing. While doing that, I tried to incorporated what I've learned so far. Trying to sing with a head voice. Even though it is hard and i'm uncertain whether i can do it or not, it felt like my head was resonating slightly. How i did was,

• Try to think and sing, since singing is all about thinking. I think it's kinda true because when i really try to do something, it works that way better than when I'm not.
• Imagine that my voice goes up the throat, and goes up to my head via the teeth that's in the way back. It's like trying to send my voices up my head so that it could vibrate.
• Imagine that voice is going at about 15 to 20 degrees angle from the mouth. This way, i will naturally look up a little bit and this will help me releasing the voice.
• Open the mouth wide so that one part in the face thats around the ears (I don't know what its called), should be open.

I'm still not sure if i can use head voice or not, but it was a good time to experience it.

Reflection essay.

As a part of homework, I had to write an evaluation essay. Since i was writing for a grade, i tried pretty hard and meanwhile, i was able to reflect upon my progress. Below is the essay and again, this exactly shows my current situations.

The first ten weeks of wise work meant a lot of things. It was an indicator that showed me how prepared I am every day in my life and my first step towards living in the real society. Numerous values that I wasn’t exposed so far in my life were needed in completing the Wise project and every time it was a moment of something new.

One of the things includes hands on experience. Unlike other English classes, Wise is all about actually moving around and accomplishing something. Since my project was multitrack recording, hands on experience wasn’t a hard problem. Although I didn’t meet up with any of the specialists in my fields, except my singing tutor, I have already spent numerous hours singing and playing guitar. Some were related to my project and the other times it was just what I wanted, but everything ended up contributing to my project, because they were all valuable practices. Before working on this project, I’ve had a yearning for the ability of playing guitar and singing at the same time, but never bothered to try. But thanks to wise, I was able to develop a new hobby that I will possibly be doing all my life.

Although I’ve been doing researches in other classes, research in Wise class was entirely different one, in a sense that I was able to look up something I wanted to, and this has provided me with a great motivation. Also, because I wasn’t exceptionally talented at singing, research has naturally been an essential tool for me. While searching for tips and advices, I’ve visited various websites, read countless number of articles and watched a great number of videos. I also tried to try out a few books, during that, there is no doubt I’ve learned lots of valuable information.

I’ll have to admit. Journaling was my weak point so far. Since it’s my first time journaling regularly, there were some difficulties writing journals. At first I thought I could keep my blog like an online diary, a place where I can write my progress and thoughts. However, there were little bit of constraints, and there were some essential things that needed to be included in daily journal entries, which I tried to follow. However, there was a dilemma because I’m not doing multiple things every day, when I need to track the progress of with some useful thoughts. Also, procrastination has been a bad habit of me, which can only be ‘cured’ by stricter discipline and vivid goals.

Weekly mentor meeting was one of the new aspects of the Wise program. Well, frankly it’s been a whole new thing for me, and presumably to others since I’ve never had a mentor in my life, besides school teachers.  When I heard about the concept of mentors before taking this class, I was skeptical, doubting that they will not be that much of a help. But actually having a mentor and meeting up with Mr.Lesser regularly changed my thoughts. Meeting once in a week, and talking with my mentor, I was able to find myself where I am in terms of all the works and was able to get resourceful feedbacks from him and even encouragements. For example, when I told Mr.Lesser that I was finally able to hit the highest note in my song, which has been the most annoying burden ever since the launch of my project, he congratulated be warmly and encouraged me to work towards the goal. We also talked about possible concussion instruments, and he asked me what if I can use a Korean drum, which was a creative idea.

I am not sure if I’m spending more or less than eight hours on my project, but it seems like that I’m spending a great deal of my free time on this project. Some other things I do are also interrelated with wise project. For example, working out at the YMCA is also beneficial for this project since it trains my core, which is helpful when I’m holding breath. Also in the morning, I swim every other day before coming to school, which is purely aimed at increasing my lung capacity. Even though I don’t spend all eight hours singing and recording, I’m spending fair amount of time on things that are also important in my project.

There are ten more weeks to go and from the experience I have, this quarter will also zoom away really fast. Reflecting upon my progress so far, I need to step up a little bit, especially on journaling. From this week, I’ll have to practice and focus more on recording, since AP is coming up soon and as the end of the year comes, I know that things will get crazy as hard as it could get. 

2 fresh resources.

Upon my dad's visit to Korea, he was able to get two books from my cousin, who currently is a vocal trainer at Korea. His academy got famous after there was a singing boom, which was introduced by Korea's modification of America's Got Talent. It was called 'Superstar K', which was aimed at finding talented individuals and making them singers. Anyways, since i couldn't get any help from him directly, he recommended me some books ( he actually gave it to my father).

This is the picture i just took.

The names of the books are as follows (translated): One in the left is 'The correct phonation: vocal cure and care for people with vocal related professions. And another one is actually an American book, named How to train by Larra Browing Henderson.

Over the weekend, i was able to skim some of them, and realized there are just tons of information i need to study, and that I'm not going to get results really quick. But whatever. Learning how to sing is not just for wise project. It is for my future life. Anyways, the book contained great information about anatomy of vocal chords, and all the body parts thats related to singing, such as ears, chest and etc... It also had the method of breathing, method of phonation and resonace. 

I guess i have yet another mountain to climb over and i'm pretty sure the result will pay me well. Really well.