Another eventful week in the life of Ben I suppose, the non-musical highlights of which were getting my Provisional Driver's License, and being chosen to participate in Lion's Youth of the Year, a quasi-public speaking competition which kicks off next Monday. I'm back to being officially no longer a physics student, after I made the decision to decline the offer to rejoin the class and study MEX externally. While it would've most likely been beneficial for my academic results, the time and effort demanded by the subject was too much to justify.
What's happening in MEX: I've formulated my list of pieces for the first recital at the end of next term, and they are as follows:
- Cliffs of Dover: An instrumental rock piece by American rock guitar virtuoso Eric Johnson. Lots of guitar techniques are used in this one, including rapid legato and alternate picking passages as well as string skipping licks. Fairly fast paced, I see this one being backed by bass and drums.
- Always With Me, Always With You: Another instrumental by an American guitar virtuoso, this time by Joe Satriani, who is probably my favourite axe-wielder. Always is a slower tempo than Cliffs of Dover, and has fairly limited instrumentation. I will need accompaniment, however, and will later decide whether to arrange the rhythm guitar part for piano or whether to simply play with another guitarist.
- Rylynn: This is a song for solo acoustic guitar by fingerpicker Andy Mckee. The fingerstyle genre is one that I have had limited experience with, so this will probably be a bit of a challenge, but enjoyable nonetheless.
- L'absente: A solo piano piece by French composer Yann Tiersen, who is probably best known for scoring the Academy Award nominated Amélie. Tiersen's work covers a very broad number of styles; L'absente being written in a fairly minimalistic and progressive manner.
Other Music news: This week rehearsals began for most of the college music ensembles, five of which I will be involved in, namely the Concert Band (drums and percussion), the Big Band (guitar), the vocal Choir, the guitar ensemble which will be newly established, and the String Ensemble, which I have just joined, having begun studying the cello over the summer holidays.
What I'm listening to as I write this: The Recordings of the Middle East, the debut EP from the Middle East, a wonderfully unique band from Townsville who I was lucky enough to catch live at this year's Woodford Folk Festival. Falling somewhere between folk, ambient, and indie, they have a large of armory of instruments to choose from due to the inclusion of many multi-instrumentalists in their lineup, helping bring eclecticism to their overall sound.
Until next time,
Ben.
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