Final Post

Well, I guess this is goodbye to all of our eagerly awaiting readers. I know you're out there somewhere... Today we performed our Google Project. We talked about the difficulties of this project. Alena hasn't played piano in years, Megan hasn't played guitar in a while and the chord progressions are difficult, and I have never had a formal guitar lesson, which makes singing and playing hard. As a group, we found it difficult to bring the whole thing together and do simple things like harmonize while playing our respective instruments.  Another difficulty would be finding time to practice with our otherwise busy schedules... However, we all enjoyed this project a lot. Thanks Mr. Matthys!
Elise

Yay! We're done!

Alena:
So today we performed our Google project, and it went pretty well. I messed up a little on the last chord, so that was annoying, but otherwise it was fine. This project was difficult because i had to relearn the piano, which i haven't played since sixth grade. Also, getting the piano and guitars to play together was difficult. I have new respect for the people who play the piano and sing at the same time. Wow. It was hard enough as is without singing. Overall, it was really fun.

Finished.Over.Done and out.

Well, we did it. The performance was pretty good considering. There wasn't any harmonizing due to Alena's and my lack of talent. Elise's voice was beautiful and Alena's playing was flawless until the last note...and my guitar playing could have been better but I played the first and last chords and that's all that really matters. I got a couple in between but, performance jitters, what can I say.
It was a great experience. The whole team building thing I didn't really notice but now that I think back, we all played different roles in how the song would be played. I don't think all of us agreed with all decisions but we went with them anyway. Being open-minded definitely helps.
I really enjoyed the project and it was a great way to spend time doing something that would take a very low standard in my normal life. I rarely play the guitar and Alena never plays the piano so getting back to it was something that was special and fun.
Thanks Alena and Elise for such a wonderful time!!

Action!!!

I honestly have to say I was amazed at how productive we were. We ran the song a bajillion times and the last couple times there few to no mistakes! It was amazing. It was probably due to the fact that we cut about 3 minutes from the song but hey, it still sounds good. Anyway, we didn't get to any harmonizing and we're thinking of cutting the harmony and having Alena and I just sing along with Elise to the melody. "Ours" is a great song and I think we've got a pretty good rendition and it's been really fun.  It's nice to have some time to just dink around and hope something comes out. For us, it sure did. I'm probably forgetting something, like how fun it was to run the song a bajillion times....but all the same. It rocks.

Final Google Day

Alena:
Today was our final Google day, and we started to pull things somewhat together. We decided on a cut to make the song shorter, which will make it easier to have ready and minimize page flipping. I need to practice more. On another note, electric pianos with options like "guitar" and "voice" are hilarious. The one for woodwinds/brass sounded like a whole bunch of incredibly in-tune bumblebees.

Wow, i can't believe that was our last rehearsal day...

Yet another google day today. In fact, it was our final google day before presentations on December 13(coincidentally the same night that Nutcracker opens...). Today was definitely more successful than our past few practices, maybe we're feeling the deadline approach. We cut some of the song because it was just too long (8 pages plus a coda and repeats) and when we went to rehearse those pages, it turned out pretty well. We also learned that Alena isn't very good at counting off: she would count at one tempo and play at another. I, on the other hand, would count the beginning of a bar and taper off when I got distracted. We finally convinced Megan to do all of the counting in because the rest of us couldn't. Although we had a few distractions, for example, Alena was using an electric keyboard and decided to change the sound of the instrument, it was a fairly productive day. I'm feeling a bit more confident in regards to our google day. :)

Hi Again!

Another successful Google day down. Today we managed to get through a few pages with piano, guitar, and singing. Of course, it's way under tempo, but we're getting somewhere. Besides, if we can play a bit together and sing in tune, i think we're getting somewhere. We had our usual resistance when i tried to get Megan and Alena to actually sing, but they did actually do it and sounded really good. Mr. Matthys listened to us and told us that it sounded like a start. He also told us he could see us singing in cafes. That is, if we can get the song worked up in time. It was fun though.

Another day

As surprising as this sounds, we actually did something. We ran the first two pages of the song quite a few times to varying degrees of success. Matthys checked us out and was generally pleased with what he saw which was a major bonus. It's nice to have him around as a critique. Apparently Elise, Alena, and I are the random group playing in a dainty little cafe. Anyway, we took a break from the song after that and practiced more singing. Elise, the master singer, made Alena each sing by ourselves and that was the most nerve-wracking thing I've ever done. I was shaking so bad. I was alright after that and Alena sounded good and Elise was mostly happy with the outcome so all was well. Then we dinked around with the guitars and piano a little longer and that was the day.

Google Day 4 (I think)

Alena:
Today we had our fourth google day, and we actually got something done. The first page of the piece is coming together, and with a ton of practicing soon we can get the second done. We altered the piano part a little bit, which means i'm going to have to practice it more. Yay.

Friday Afternoon

Yesterday I was bored and I thought what they heck, so I sat down on my couch with my cat, picked up the guitar, and tried, again, to play Ours. It went ok...not great, but ok. The first page I can do but when Taylor starts adding new chords everything goes downhill from there. Especially the F to G...it's horrible.
Anyway, I played though a couple parts of the song and  sounded better than when I started and that's what you call progress.
My cat hated it, by the way. She stared at the guitar and ran. She's kind of wimpy.

GD3

Hey! Google day number threeeeeee! It was amazing. We attempted to put piano, vocal, and piano together and it wasn't awful...but it was pretty bad. The song is really fast so I have strum really fast and I'm not so confident with that yet. Anyway, after that, we tried to sing and do harmony again. Alena and I were not super cooperative :) but we got some things done. Elise is a great singer and Alena and I have the practice of a five year old so...Elise had a hard time getting is to sing anything that sounded at least ok. It was fun and I have high hopes for this google project.

Well, we got somewhere...

Today was our third google day and we tried to work out the music some more. I actually brought my guitar in so that i could practice the chords with the piano and Megan borrowed Isabel's guitar (Laurent-in case you were wondering) so that we could attempt the whole piece together. We went to the auditorium to practice, but it was dark so at first we had trouble finding the lights and the piano (which, in our defense, wasn't on the stage). Sad, I know. Surprisingly, at a tempo that was slug-like, we managed to get almost all of the piano and guitar chords and i was even able to sing. We made it through the first two pages alright, but after that, the piano and guitar fell apart. So, we have six pages to go... yeah, 6.  After we left the piano so another group could use it, we found any empty hallway by the dressing rooms and attempted to harmonize/sing in general. Which is where Alena and Megan came up with ninja-pirate-cat things and other assorted nonsense. however, we almost managed a simple major chord today. YAY!

Google Day 3

Alena:
Today was our third Google Day! It was very much fun, although we did not get a ton of work done. We did attempt to put together the first few pages of piano w/guitars, but it had to go reaaallly sllowwwly. Then we tried to harmonize. (again) It had no more success than the first time. There were also cat pirates involved. (Arr, Arr, Meow)

Who knows?

Friday was the second Google Day. It was very exciting seeing as we finally had something to do and a place to start. Elena dinked around on the piano....she eventually got the hang of the first page of the song (the song is seven pages long). Elise looked over the lyrics. I mostly helped Elena with what the song was supposed to sound like and to help her read treble clef (she plays the bassoon). Elise and I also wrote the note names in of all the treble clef notes in the music for the piano part for Elena. After a while of that, the topic of background singers came up and I said "Let's try to harmonize!!!". Elise sang a G, I sang and E, and Elena sang a C. Elise actually knows how to sing so of course she showed off her beautiful voice and Elena and I were just putting out a pitch, in tune or not. It took a while but we got pretty close to singing an alright chord. It was pretty cool.

This is kind of a double post because today and took my hand at the guitar. The chords are pretty well to do but I'm totally making up the strum pattern. I think it might work okay but I'll probably mess around with it a bit more.

Who knows how this will work but it will definitely be something to remember.

Google Day 2
Having finally decided on Ours, (Alena likes the piano part, Megan likes the song, I just think we need to get started) we spent some time writing out the treble clef notes so that Alena would be able to read the music faster. Unfortunately for us, almost all the notes were below the staff and Megan and I play flute. We don't really read beyond a few notes below the staff...
 Eight pages later, we realized that it was Kelly's music and she probably didn't want us to write all over it. Oops. Sorry, Kelly. We used the piano a bit to help Alena learn her part and she soon had the (extremely repetitive) pattern down. Everyone else who was in the band room with us, I'm sorry you had to hear the opening chords to Ours so many times. We asked Mr. Matthys to photocopy the music for us so that we could all practice at home and he kindly obliged. Now (hopefully) by next google day we'll have a better idea of how our song goes. Then Megan said that there was harmonization in the song so we spent the rest of class trying to harmonize. Read:trying. It was actually really funny... but anyway, we suck so that's going to take a lot of practice. :) It was really fun though, and I felt that we were pretty successful.

Elise

Google Day 2

Alena:
We had another Google day today! I spent 10 minutes or so trying to learn the first few lines of Ours (which is our song of choice, by the way) I have a lot of work to do. We also tried to harmonize. Emphasis on "tried".

Yes, it's not a google day, but I thought I'd give you guys an update... Today Megan brought her ipod in so that we could (attempt to) decide on a song. Of course, between freaking out about chair tests and our noisy class, we were unable to listen to every single Taylor Swift song in existence (seriously, Megan has them all) so Alena and I borrowed the ipod and listened to music over lunch. Unfortunately for Megan, I didn't see her for the rest of the day, so i still have the ipod. But anyway, we've come up with a list of songs that we are willing to choose from, so here you go!

1. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (quite the title, I know)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4iX5D9Z64
2. Superstar (who is this one about?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYc4SC1cxS8
3. Ours
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asOQolzLCU0
4. Our Song (who doesn't know this one?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb2stN7kH28
5. Mean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYa1eI1hpDE
6. You Belong With Me (this one is so catchy!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuNIsY6JdUw
7. Mine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vyfRe2KoHM

Alena:
I know this is random, but i could sit and feed the virtual penguin pet fish ALL DAY LONG. It's so cute!

Day 1 (Megan)

Well...let's see. For the first day of the Google Project, I'd say the group was pretty productive. We decided what we were going to do for the project (that took forever, just saying) and that is to play, and maybe write, a Taylor Swift song for vocal, guitar, and piano....and maybe violin. We made the blog and my buddies are more on top of it than I am but hey, I'm writing now so whatevs. What else...we decided that I'm going to bring my iPod next class (which has every single Taylor song you can purchase) so we can pick exactly which song to play. And that's about it...

First Google Day

Alena:
Today was the first Google day! It took me, Elise, and Megan quite a while to come up with an idea. Some of our earlier ones were arranging the music to Sherlock, or forming a band, but eventually we came up with our current idea, arranging a Taylor Swift song. (suggested by Megan) it should be interesting, as i will be playing piano and i haven't played piano in ages. Once we had the idea, we spent the rest of class braiding Elise's hair. It looked pretty, but she didn't like it very much. Oh well.

Today was our first day of Google Projects!
In class, Alena, Megan, and I spent plenty of time discussing what our project would be before finally deciding that we would be performing an arrangement of a Taylor Swift song (Megan may have a bit of an obsession with Taylor). If all goes according to plan, Megan will be playing guitar, Alena will play piano, and I will be singing and playing either guitar or learning a bit of violin, depending on which song we choose. Which reminds me. I should go look up some of the ideas we had. After creating our blog, we had a lot of spare time so we discussed our thoughts on the music and Alena and Megan decided that it would be the perfect time to braid my hair. Twenty-five(or more) braids later, class was out, but it was an altogether enjoyable class and I am excited for the project.
Elise