Joshua Iyer on Violinist.com

Argh... Projects

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:20:22 GMT

Tomorrow is Fine Arts, where we'll be playing a couple strings-only pieces from Pops with Symphonic Orchestra. We'll also be playing a few pieces with 7th graders. Sunday is the Orchestra Awards Banquet, Monday is Pops Dress Rehearsal from 2:30pm-5pm, and Tuesday is the Pops Concert! I probably mentioned a schedule like this last year. Well, it's the exact same thing. So those are my two concerts! Maybe I'll see if I have time to do a reflection Tuesday night... For the past week, I haven't really been able to practice much because I've been trying to finish my Music Theory Vivaldi project. (I hope to practice Pops stuff for at least an hour tonight or this afternoon.) And it's finished! I'm not really sure I can upload the video to YouTube, because I think it's too long or something... We will be presenting those today, Monday, and Tuesday before the seniors leave. :( I'm so glad to be finished with that, although it's been a lot of fun to research Vivaldi and analyze his piece, "Winter". Finally, I've also been working (on the side) on a screenplay for the summer movie. More of my friends want to help out, so it's going to be pretty interesting come mid-June/July when we get it filmed. That may go on YouTube, but I'll figure that out and discuss it when it gets closer to the film being done. I've actually, with just the script, been able to begin some scores for the film (although I'm going to finish the script first and have my friends 'heavily' edit it); I have begun to create character themes, which I plan to somehow merge various ones when they are needed in the film. I'll have to wait and see how the film plays out, because there isn't a lot you can do pre-production with music. I can at least get ideas out, and when it comes time to insert the music into the movie, I can clip stuff and mess around with it. So yeah! That's why I haven't been able to really post much in the last few days - busy with all this work. After Pops, it's just finals, then summer! I'm busy over the summer, but hopefully it won't be too bad, I can relax with friends with a summer film, I can practice composing (and my instruments!), and I can get everything I need to done. Thanks for reading!

AP Test: Music Theory

Mon, 13 May 2013 17:40:13 GMT

I had an AP Test today for Music Theory! This is the one and only test I have to take this year. Or, that I took. If you don't know, the AP test is broken into four parts: Section I, Part A, for the aural stuff (listening to music and then answering questions based on what you hear), Section I, Part B, for the written stuff (looking at scores and then answering questions based on what you see), Section II, Part A, compositional techniques (part-writing, melodic/harmonic dictation, and bass-line composition), and finally, Section II, Part B, sight-singing. I thought the test overall was a moderate difficulty. There were some simple questions, some easy, some moderate, and a few difficult ones that threw me off, but overall, it wasn't so bad. There was one question where the passage was played by a violin, which was cool. :) I'll get the results in July online, so maybe I'll post another entry then. Now I have that out of the way! Now to finish my Vivaldi project...

Symphony in C# Minor - Finale (With Score)

Sun, 12 May 2013 16:20:05 GMT

Here is my symphony! It's complete, and the condensed score took a while and gave me a headache to complete, but it's finally done! Enjoy! Click here! And Happy Mother's Day!

Completed Finale!/Looking ahead to summer

Thu, 09 May 2013 10:27:42 GMT

I've calculated I've been writing the finale for my symphony in C# Minor for about ten hours since April 24, so it was really a short amount of time I wrote 7 minutes of music. I am going to put it on YouTube and will post a link here; however, I'm writing a condensed score that you can follow on-screen to go with first. I'm really pleased with how it's turned out. I use interesting chord progressions in a couple spots, and I use my knowledge of Music Theoy to help me figure out where to go and how to get back to where I was. (When you see the score at those spots, maybe it'll make sense.) Which reminds me... I have my AP Music Theory test on Monday! I think I'll prep for it a lot this weekend - as I've been doing in class - and hopefully finish my research paper on Vivaldi for that project. This summer, as well, I may still be able to do a movie, only it'd be really short and not take a lot of effort to put together (the music is another story). I have five hours of U.S. History, plus volunteering, practicing my instruments, composing, hanging with friends, and doing summer reading for English. It will be a busy summer, and fall will come around before we know it! So one more time - I will post my symphony with a score you can follow sometime within two weeks. So you can have that to look forward to! :)

List of May Music

Mon, 06 May 2013 23:22:31 GMT

I was just going to practice violin and realized I hadn't posted anything this month thus far! So this entry will be about all the music I've gotten that I will be working on and playing in two concerts at the end of the month. First is Fine Arts Festival, where we're playing with 7th graders (and I'm playing with one of my friends' sisters!), so the music is incredibly easy. We're playing Wood Splitter Fanfare, a piece inspired by someone's viola breaking at a rehearsal :(. The next piece, A Westward Journey and Jubnee, has a solo harmonica/violin duet thing at the beginning that sounds sort of Irish, and some cool fiddle techniques in there. Finally (we just got this today), we have Two Welsh Airs. That's all about that. Our Pops concert is generally more exciting, and I remember talking a lot about it last year since that was my first one and was very excited to practice. In the order we got them, here are the pieces (and I'll throw in composers/arrangers this time just for fun): -Selections from Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride (Danny Elfman, arr. Douglas E. Wagner) -*Theme from "THE LOST WORLD" (John Williams, arr. John Wasson) -Sightings (Jeremy Woolstenhulme) -Erebus (Jeffery S. Bishop) -*Theme from E.T. (John Williams, arr. James D. Ployhar) -*Bounty Hunter Theme (Tommy Tallarico and Michael Richard Plowman, arr. Victor Lopez) -*King Kong Soundtrack Highlights (James Newton Howard, arr. Ted Ricketts) *Full orchestra (I'm not sure about some of them, but I can just update this entry if need be. The last one (King Kong) is only for my group and Chamber Strings, the top group. (Nobody else is playing). So anyway, it'll be a fun and exciting night! Just YouTube some of these if you'd like to hear how they sound, and have a nice (morning/day/evening/night and go to bed if you're up at 2am reading this)!

Fox Valley Stuffs :)

Wed, 01 May 2013 01:59:00 GMT

This past Sunday was a blast! It was the 1pm-5pm Fox Valley rehearsal, and it was amazing playing in a full orchestra setting. (I also auditioned and got second chair second violin!) When we played the Tchaik Symphony No. 2 Finale, there were some awesome crash cymbals that lead to loud brass I heard while furiously playing my fast sixteenth notes. And a tam-tam (that sounds to me like the gong at Stir Crazy) part at the very end of the recapitulation right before the crazy-fast coda sounded amazing. All in all, I learned about some new percussion parts to put in my symphony (and future compositions, of course!). The Bach Sheep May Safely Graze, arranged for full orchestra, was pretty, but the Giannini Symphony No. 2 (not a common piece) was spooky, literally played completely at ff, and awesome! It sounded NOTHING like I thought it would when I was practicing on my own. Unfortunately, all during rehearsal I was feeling not too well, and by the time Monday rolled around I had to stay home sick, so I didn't get to play in the concert Monday night. :( The rehearsal I did get to go to was still fun, and I learned a lot. Our conductor told us when we see 'expressively' written in our music, it means, to us as string players, play with vibrato. :)

New Symphony in C# Minor!

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:41:03 GMT

Two days ago, at 1pm, I went outside and walked to a lake. Essentially, it's a lake with a trail around it. I found a picnic table, grabbedy blank sheet music, and set to work. I was writing (or beginning) another symphony, for different instruments (just slightly), and a different key. I call it "The Mourning Dove." It's quite interesting what working outside does for you. Birds chirping, people walking yipping dogs. It feels so wonderful to work on music outside in the fresh air. When this movement of my symphony is done (probably very end of May, as I am turning it in as my final composition for Music Theory), I'll put it on YouTube and send a link. Also, in just two days from now is the first five-hour rehearsal for Fox Valley! About 100 musicians, and my first time playing in a 'legit' full orchestra. I'm so excited! Should I wear earplugs? I'm second violin and may sit close to the brass! Depending on where I sit... :)

The Legend of the Violin

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 02:11:33 GMT

Once, in Middle-Earth, four Hobbits gathered in the forest near the Shire, long before Bilbo's time. The morning birds sung, and the Hobbits began to think about the music that existed. Rohan had their fanfare of brass, and flutes were being created in other places of Middle-Earth. The Shire needed a musical instrument to represent them, but not one where blowing was required. Although those were cool instruments, they were loud, and required force of the breath. Singing was out almost immediately because of this. What sounds could be created without blowing? The Hobbits spread the word across the Shire, and together, many ideas were thought up. One Hobbit mentioned strings - when they were plucked about, they vibrated and made noises. They could be coiled up and shortened to play different pitches. Another thought of dragging a stick or log from a tree across the strings. The stick may not work so well, but hairs could be pasted to the ends of the stick and that could work... The Hobbits worked night and day, throughout all four seasons. In the autumn, they collected logs and sticks that had fallen to the ground and in the winter they worked with them. In the spring more logs were collected and in the summer further progress was made. Wood was used for the body of the instrument and the stick of what would be called the bow, and the strings were coiled and stretched across. Finally, after a number of years, the violin was formed. The trees, who had been watching this whole time, helped to copy and improve the instrument, and soon, violins were naturally growing everywhere - out of nature. The Hobbits began to play these instruments, and after a while an orchestra was formed - seven members of each race got together and had a concert. This was among the last of the peaceful days of Middle-Earth.

Music Forever!

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 16:31:16 GMT

It's 10:40am right now. I'm in the middle of my walk, and I've just now realized something I probably have before: music is the best thing in the world. I'm listening to a Doctor Who soundtrack for seasons 1 and 2, and as I listen I'm thinking just how amazing it is to hear the BBC National Orchestra of Wales play such sweet sounds to my waiting ears. I hear a grand piano softly tapping octave keys at the right side of the piano, backed by beautiful sustained violin high notes. I hear a wonderful male singer, a pops song backed by an orchestra and guitar. I hear timpani pounding with a full chanting choir.�Murray Gold is amazing! (and still at work with Season 7.) Then, of course, I apply these sounds to the show, but that's not the point. Music is amazing; orchestral music, and probably many of us here at violinist.com agree (?) is best. Music will be with us forever.�Whether it be Baroque, Classical, Romantic, TV, film... Listening to a grand section of violins play with the timpani, flutes, and horns is awesome, and I can't wait to do that with my violin for three amazing upcoming concerts. I'll just have to practice! :) Okay, my hands are freezing typing this. Time to head home and enjoy the rest of the day. Readers, please do that too! Happy music-making!

Scoring a Play

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 01:10:26 GMT

Woah, the first thing I noticed when I logged on today was the site's new look - classy! :) A few days ago, I found a play I'd written about a year ago. The play is set on New Earth, post-apocalypse. When the humans landed here, I guess space-traveling was abolished and forgotten. The play itself is basically about three families that each lay a piece of the puzzle to getting into space, and as it continues, layers upon layers of more storylines intertwine and connect, and... well, it isn't finished. I'll have to have my sister (who is a writer, or wants to be) do it... Anyways, what I spent most of today on is a project that could help me with my movie soundtracks. (Also, yesterday, I watched an hour-long roundtable interview of six composers that took place January of this year and took notes. It was fun!) Basically, after going for a walk and hearing nature sounds, I took a scene from the play (one of the characters, Isabelle, wanders into a forest and is carried off by a bear), and wrote a piano part using my piano. After that, I opened up a MIDI for a full symphony orchestra and got to work, stretching out my piano part, orchestrating and adding as much as possible. I still am not quite finished with it, but when I'm done I may upload it to YouTube. If I use a revised version of this play for the summer film, and that scene takes place, I may already be on my way to composing some of the soundtrack. We shall wait and see!