Weekly Blog 10 - Learning to play an instrument

It's been 9 years as of my birthday this past Friday, that I received my first guitar. At this point in my life, I couldn't imagine not playing guitar. It isn't just the action of playing guitar anymore, it's become a part of me that I appreciate more and more with every passing year. So I'm writing about this for two reasons: 1 - To encourage anybody to take up learning an instrument, and 2 - I've been thinking of doing this as well.

Since I started learning about music theory, I always thought; how can I apply this to the guitar? It was this desire to further my understanding of my instrument that helped me get to where I am today. I think that anybody who is seriously considering taking up an instrument should have a somewhat similar mindset to this, because you can't skip right to writing masterpieces and playing live shows without any hard work. Not only will it make you appreciate the skill you obtain as you develop it, but in the end your music will benefit greatly from it, and you will be able to produce much more amazing works.

Now how does this all relate to me, since I already know how to play the guitar? Well that's because I want to learn how to play the piano. Whenever I used to learn about music theory, I wouldn't be able to relate it to guitar all that easily because I didn't read sheet music for guitar. My first experience with that was in grade 6, when I started playing the trumpet for my music class. I loved it so much, it was a completely new experience that I was good at! But with time the theory got harder, and eventually I started to resent it. By grade 11 I would try so hard to understand key signatures but I just couldn't wrap my head around everything. Then finally, in my last year of high school, I got it. I learned to use a reference to help myself understand it, that reference being a picture of a keyboard.

The more and more I understood all of this, the more and more I felt like the piano sounded like an awesome instrument. Today, I haven't had the opportunity to buy a piano or a keyboard, but I see myself looking into it strongly in the future. To me, this is a rewarding endeavour, and I believe that anyone who is willing to do the same will be just as happy with the end result.

Weekly Blog 9 - Future Jobs

This week I applied for a job in the music and arts industry for the first time.

Earlier on this week I heard of an internship opportunity through a link on Facebook, and right away I knew that this was a good opportunity for me. The internship was for a Project Manager position at the Shenkman Arts Centre in Orleans. It runs from August to December 2015. Conveniently for me, I live within walking distance from the Shenkman Centre, so this became all the more appealing to me.

I've been to the Shenkman Centre many times throughout my life, sometimes performing with my guitar teacher, and sometimes to see other people or bands perform. I really like this venue as it's a new building, and the theatres are nice as well.

I worked on my resume and cover letter throughout the week, editing them meticulously to cover all of the job requirements noted on the position ad. After making them exclusively specific to this job, I finally emailed in my application yesterday. As of now I'm hoping for the best, and if all goes well and I have a little bit of luck, I might just get my first job interview in this industry.

Weekly Blog 8 - Sound Effects

This week in our audio for video class, we started talking about sound effect design. This portion of film audio can go highly unnoticed by viewers, not because it isn't important, but because it's not meant to be focused on (in general). 

Sound effects in films are meant to enhance the experience that it gives the viewer, and in the most believable way possible. The process of making sound effects is tedious and difficult, so it takes a lot of practice to make a realistic sound effect in a short amount of time. I think that this whole idea of creating sound effects is really interesting, and I'm looking forward to making my own sound effects library for our upcoming assignment.

We watched a few videos on sound effect production for different movies, and some in video games. These industries are very dependant on sound effects, and it isn't the first time that I've seen a video on sound effect design. I would definitely like to give this a shot and see how I like it, and depending on whether I'm good enough at it, maybe even pursue it further if the chance appears.