Congratulations on making entry to Behind the Mixer, the main world of Ryu, the aspiring recording engineer.
Age: 19
Location: Illinois, near Kat and Carney, south of Schultzie.
Aliases: Tycho, g4me_h1ro, bloodyshnozz, DERP, ryu6fw
Vertical Status: Pretty up there
Most Associated Color: Brown
Occupation: Driving Pizzas/College Student
Time Consumers: Video Games, anime, racing canoes, music, being an anime club president, traveling
Money Consumers: Video Games, manga, traveling, collecting vinyl records, expanding selection of musical instruments, Pop-tarts and Mountain Dew, conventions
"You were probably the last person I'd expect to be a dumbass." -Katana
"That's OK, I'm not too attached to my beard, despite it being on my face." -Ryu
"Because he is the Tycho, that's why." -Hider
"MUUUUNNNGERRRRRRRR!!" -Old Proverb
"The best cure for worry, depression, melancholy, brooding, is to go deliberately forth and try to lift with one's sympathy the gloom of somebody else."
I hate watching anime. Or, more accurately, I hate watching the last episode. Especially of a series that's only 25 episode/one season lenghth. I immediately get depressed while watching it, knowing that the end is near. Sometimes, it's fine, because it could have been a long anime, or one I didn't like a tremendous amount. Not right now though. I pretty much went through a Fruits Basket Marathon. Yesterday, I continued watching the series on episode 4. I finished it about an hour ago. I'm terribly depressed. And it always seems to rain whenever I finish a series...
Sometimes I get over it quickly. The best cure is often rewatching some of my favorite episodes, and even more effective, playing music. I'm not in the mood to watch more Furuba (I've had hours of Furuba pumped into my brain the past day and a half.) And, even worse, my parents are in the house, so I can't play guitar or piano. It's not that they're against it, or they find it obnoxious...it's just that whenever they enter the premesis, I lose all desire to make music. Like trying to have a picnic in the rain. The mood just isn't there.
Anyway...
There's a 99% chance that I am going to Acen. My mom, however, who is sponsoring this adventure, is being a douche and hesitating on the final conclusion. She does that a lot. She says she'll do something at a set time, then put it off for no good reason. I hate it. If you're not going to do something, don't bullshit and just say you won't do it. An acquaintance of mine wants to work at our farm, and I have given my mom her phone number. I was told that she would be called the day after, and I relayed this message to the hopeful girl, assuring her she'll get a call soon. Three weeks later. I look like a dick, and the one responsible refuses to acknoledge any guilt for putting it off.
Sorry everyone. I should delete that, but I won't. Although in fear of sounding like a Holden Caufield, most people are phony, and mean little what they say, and it pisses me off into another dimension.
Tomorrow I'm going to Wisconsin for an early season canoe race, part of a training race series. I'll get to see a friend I haven't seen since October, and haven't given him his Christmas gift yet (Jimi Hendrix CD. He sent me a box full of electrolyte mix for racing. Unexpected, but useful.), so maybe that'll cheer me up. I also might have somebody buying my dirtbike tomorrow, so that means I'll have money. I'm not a big money guy, as in I don't care much about it, as well as it's hard to come by for me. But I have a debt to pay for a plane ticket, and I think finally getting an ipod will be useful for the New Orleans trip, which is Wednesday. I'll probably save the rest of the money for canoe trips and Acen.
I also just learned that one of my friends has Schizophrenia, which I never would have suspected.
What a shitty start to spring break...
Oh wait, no! I just remembered what happened yesterday. Katana, a bunch of underclassmen, and I, all went to Silver Lake (chinese resturaunt) after school for lunch, since it was a half day. That was fun. Kat called her imaginary internet friend from California, and I grabbed the phone and introduced myself as Missy, the transexual. That was really fun. Kat almosted died from excessive humor. After that, we all went to Best Buy and got me a memory card for my camera. I pwned everybody at Rock Band (crappy, GH is better). So I guess spring break started well enough. Just not so good right now. Freakin' Furuba.
Don't mind the title, it's just part of a quote I got from the movie Philadelphia. The entire quote is "The Federal Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination against otherwise qualified handicapped persons who are able to perform the duties required by their employment. Although the ruling did not address the specific issue of HIV and AIDS discrimination, subsequent decisions have held that AIDS is protected as a handicap under law, not only because of the physical limitations it imposes, but because the prejudice surrounding AIDS exacts a social death which precede... which precedes the actual, physical one. This is the essence of discrimination: formulating opinions about others not based on their individual merits, but rather on their membership in a group with assumed characteristics."
I thought I'd try and start the majority of posts hereafter with a quote, not necessarily pertaining to the rest of the post or even me. Just things I think that we should all keep in mind.
Anywho, video time! This is another one of the random pieces of intelectually deprived crap I found on youtube...however, I'm compelled to make something similar to an equally made-fun-of game. (Metal Gear Solid?) If you can make it past the first minute of annoying cosplaying girls, you should be able to see some humor in it. I hope. I have a life. >:L
My Favorite parts...
"Don't open the box. It'll explode."
"Ok."
-
"You're such a mistake."
"*sob*"
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"So, is the game going to, like, start anytime soon?" (Coming from a Naruto fan makes it that much better...)
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"'So what are you afraid of?' Getting old..."
"Being different."
"*laugh*"
Ok, enough of that...
If you know of my friend Katana, you already know that our band is going to New Orleans. If you don't, well, our band is going to New Orleans. And so am I. We leave next Wednesday. Eight days!! Our actual purpose for going down is to compete in a national competition for band (and chorus, they're tagging along as well.) While we are down there, we are going to be volunteering in humanitarian services, and taking tours and walks in both wetlands and New Orleans. We'll also be seeing the Preservation Hall Jazz Band (way cool) and going on a riverboat. And however cool all this stuff is, I have a feeling the most memorable and entertaining parts of the trip are going to be when nothing is happening. Such as the bus rides (they will be long) and free time (hopefully) in the hotel. Although I'm not a big camera guy, I have a feeling I'm going to need to record some of these things on video/image. So my goal for pre-Wednesday is to obtain a 2gig sd card for my half-assed Canon Powershot A520. If I do, you may or may not see some interesting things from down south.
I'm sure discretion will be advised.
Ooh, I still need an image... how's this?
That sizzle you hear is a pig frying, not sodium!!
I was lookin around at convention videos, giving myself more and more reasons to go to Acen, when I tripped across this. I thought it was pretty frickin' funny. I just like how Axel kinda does a few sidesteps into a run, lol.
Hi everybody, I'm talking again. It doesn't look like my article turned out in the Fan Word section, but whatever. It's probably Karma's way of saying "Don't submit random impulse-driven pieces and expect them to get published." Touche.
Anywho, today is the last day of the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at our high school. Finally. I've been waitin' for this sucker to end since it started. A few fun moments I'd like to share with you. On Friday, as you might have read in Katana's post, the fire alarm went off. To be accurate, it went off three times at random intervals. Because I was tech and important-looking, I was crowd control and helped people out of the supposedly burning building. However, people are stupid, and once they exit the door they stop, so nobody else can get out. That's how I became Man with Wrench. You see, people pretty much do what you tell them when you're a 6'5" techie hitting a wrench into the palm of your hand. But anyway, because we live in nowhere, it also took the fire department twenty to thirty minutes to arrive at the school. I kinda half expected them to be a horse-drawn carriage, pulling a wagon full of Dasani water bottles. Apparently, our automatic 911 caller system is just as glitched as the fire alarms. Our school is a piece of trash.
Later, we went to Colonoial Cafe, where we discussed nothing in particular. Just good times, and ice cream.
Last night, Saturday, however, was the worst night thus far, although there was no fire alarm. Two minutes before the show, a noob sitting next to me in the lightbox accidentally pushed the houses off button, and so the lights went down before we were ready to go. Obviously, anyone who didn't see him do that at first blamed me. >:( Then, during the show, light 6 exploded. Didn't go out, didn't surge then pop, it fucking shattered. These are halogen lightbulbs, so there's a little punch to them. Then there some little problems in terms with the cast forgetting lyrics, but that was minor. What was fun, though, was the cast party.
Oh the party...
It started off fine enough, people playing MarioKart on the N64 inside, some playing ping-pong and foosball, people outside were singing and talking and rolling down the hill in the dark (what?) But then some people started leaving, and it got kinda cooky. We switched the game over to Rockband, so now we have these annoying techies with bad voices trying to sing into a broken mic (one of em tried to hit on me *shudder*) And then they brought out the hookah. Hurray! In case you didn't know, the majority of these kids were from chorus/chorale, so they liked to sing. What happens when you mix young ensemble vocalists with a hookah? Perfect harmony. It had to have been one of the most funniest things I've ever seen. Four part harmonies in very elaborate choir songs with a slightly sinister bubbling sound in the background. And this was also a party where many people (myself included) slept over, then left in the morning. I woke up at 730, got home at 815, and went paddling at 830. O_o I'm kinda excited how everybody is going to be today, both on and offstage. Leaving in about thirty minutes for it...this is going to be so funny. >:D
Hey everybody. This is my second post, and thought I would try and experiment with the Fan Words program. I decided to pick a topic that really interests me, but apparently seems boring to others, judging from the lack of FW's on the topic of music. So here is my first craft of writing, Music of Anime.
Soundtracks are a great way to set a mood for a story or even a life. OST's, as they are advertised, are the number two merchandise, second to the actual anime series itself. Both the anime creators and the audience use them to connect images and experiences to the audio that they are listening to, and, if used correctly, help describe a setting a particular scene. Imagine one of your most favorite moments in anime. What were you seeing? Was it a fierce battle between two arch nemesis? Was it the longest pause as a person watched his friend die tragically before him? Or was it a comical scene, like a high school girl dressed as a bunny tripping on a young male friend and falling down stairs and landing atop each other, creating a humorous awkwardness? Now, imagine what that scene would be without the presence of music. Chances are, you wouldn't feel the same emotions you did that helped you enjoy the moment so much. Or maybe it was the odd lack of music, that helped it put you more out of ease, making the scene more memorable and powerful. Without the soundtrack, the anime would not be.
As some may know, I just got done watching the anime Death Note. What sets the soundtrack apart from other anime's is that it's mode of music is a fusion of metal and jazz groove. Very modal, very cool. I acquired the soundtrack and made a WMP play list of my favorite songs, and listen to it constantly. Not to powerful, not to dull, just in-the-pocket groove. It does a very good job of transporting you to the conformative and rythnmic lifestyle of modern Tokyo. If you enjoyed the Death Note series, and even moderately interested in styles of music, I really recommend you get the soundtrack. I find myself picking up a guitar/bass and picking along with the simple melodies, full of tone and meaning. Or hitting up the keys, adding small riffs and solos over the smooth changes. But when you're watching the anime, you can almost always tell what character the camera will snap to next, the dynamic level of the scene, or how it will climax. In fact, there were many times when there was no dialogue or considerable action; just the music playing in the background, telling the whole story. And the best part is that it did it with very few notes. It's creativity and power was in it's simplicity and lack of uneeded flashiness. Man, I love that kind of stuff. It's like Miles Davis plugging a trumpet shaped guitar into a Line6 amp. All of the story, with such clarity that every note said a hundred words. That's how most music should be, and it really does tell the best kind of story.
A few songs in the double-seasoned Code Geass particularly ear-catching. The soundtrack is really for those that can appreciate complex orchstrations with both an orchestra and a choir. Not that it's ever been done before, but some of it was still done very well. Altough they mostly stuck to the one genre of strings, winds, and choir, they had a very diverse range of moods to convey. So diverse, that if you looked carefully at some of the song infos, that they actually used two different composers to make the OST. One was used for the everyday kind of mood, as well as the powerful battle scenes and pompous introductions to royalty. This composer made great use of the human perception of adjectives.(what? :D) Very strong and loud trumpet blasts were played to represent trouble or suprise, or latin guitar to sustain suspsense. The other composer was employed because of her incredible sense of what emotions sound like. She really only went to work when a critcal moment the storyline for every character was being expressed. This is a testament to the impact songs have in storytelling, the large media companies actually spend more money on hiring more than one person, so that they can encompass a broader range of moods and feelings. And man, does it show. You can hear the difference at the end of the series (I'm no spoiler) when it goes from dramatic to heartfelt, that they switched songs and composers. And it's quality like that that really makes me wanna rewatch that anime series. And I did. :D
I can go and delve into more examples, but I think you get the idea. There is no anime without the music. There is no emotion without the music. There is no connection without the music. There is no confession of love, no stab through the heart, no happy ending without the right note or chord expressing what is going on. Final Fantasy 7 would have been the crapiest game on the planet if it wasn't for the John Williams of gaming, Nobuo Uematsu. Seriously. Have you seen concerts with his music, in any part of the globe? Any song, any song at all, that they start playing, and the crowd goes apes**t. How many games actually have concert tours? Yeah, you can probably count on one hand, and that one Songs of Gaming concert series doesn't count because it's a compliation of different games. But anyway. The next anime you watch, really pay attention to what you're hearing. Download the soundtrack (legally) and listen to it, pick out the songs from your favourite scenes. Chances are, you'll like the music just as much, if not more, than the actual anime. Which is fine. Don't Worry. Be Happy.
