The Composer and His Message

Basically, I think that music is a way for expressing one's emotions or feelings. I think that many musicians these days write songs and sing songs that have to do with the personal lives, especially the past. Those are the songs I find the most intriguing because it's like you get a back stage pass into their past, and sometimes even their present. So I find that composer's write for themselves a lot, and not for their fans. Although, some do write just for the fans, I believe the best music comes from their heart. So, I do agree, that composition, if you are writing for yourself, can be one of the simplest things in the world. But if you are writing for somebody else, or your fans, it can be much tougher.

My favorite part of this little article was the very last line written in German saying, "Emotion is fit only for women-for man, music must strike fire from his mind." I thought that was very cool because women are much more emotional then men, most of the time. And for men, a lot of times they just go at whatever they are doing with all their heart and all their strength. So that is what I made from that last sentence.

Improv Sketch

CORE:

Character-my character's name is Escalia (or something; French eviqualent of "stairs"). She is one of three wives to Mr. H.

Objective-the objective of my character is to kill her husband and inherit his vast fortune. Though, none of the three wives knows whose name is written on the will, so they all try to kill him in their own ways. The secret we hide is that no one else knows that the others are trying to kill Mr. H too. (WE ALL WANT THE MONEY)

Relationship-I am married to Mr. H and he is also married to two other women and we all live in the same house.

Environment-in the den/tea party room of Mr. H's great big mansion.

Composition in Pure Movement

I am a person far from dancing or composing music or any such thing, but I do, in fact, like this writer's perspective of creating dances. She does not have a set rythym or technique of dance, she just "goes with the flow." I like that because even though I know close to nothing about dance and choreograph, I still think it is cool how she does things on her own and doesn't follow the norm. I think the world tends to be a boring place when everything we do follows the rules and has a set form of doing things, so when a person like this comes along and talks about how she just lets her body flow with the music and the right moves will come to her, I think that is something very special. I think it is very special how she makes each dance separate and unique from one another. I like how she says most dances you can feel an emotion, such as grief, sadness, or happiness, but with hers, it is just a free-flowing movement. Something that has feeling, but no certain emotion attached.

Collage

I loved this project! I love projects in general. I really like making collages, so I enjoyed this assignment a lot! My original collage consisted of many things I like, such as: monkeys, dirt bikes, NASCAR, cars, dogs, my favorite TV show, basketball, food, and much more. It was all about me and I even put my name and birthday on it.

When we had to crop out a part of our collage and make it abstract, that is when it got hard for me. Mainly because I guess I don't really know how to make things abstract, or even that I really don't know what "abstract" means. This was extremely hard for me to try to pick a part of my collage and mess around with it to make it abstract. I am not a very artsy kind of person. I don't like dancing, singing, being creative (because I am not creative), acting, or anything like that. It's just not who I am. So when we had to try to make this abstract, I had the hardest time with it because I felt like I had to be a totally different person for fifty minutes and think in a way I am NOT at all used to thinking like.

I don't believe my piece was abstract at all, really, but I tried my hardest to make it "abstract."

Picasso and D.H. Lawrence

I thought these articles were both interesting, or even different. As I am not used to reading about artists and relating to them. I thought in a way, they both lead to the same overall point, although, they approached it at very different angles.

I liked Lawrences article a bit more than Picassos because I just felt I could relate a lot more to it than could I Picassos. Picassos article felt much more distant and old to me. Where as Lawrences just felt more modern.

These articles didn't hit the best of my interest, but I managed to get through them.

Creativity in Education

I agree with this article in some ways and others I don't. It is totally right how art needs to be a part of education, but I don't believe the schools need to take out other parts of education just for the arts to fit in. I think that Math, Science, and English are the most important parts in education, and history and art/music are sub-groups.

In middle school we had art from grades 5-7 and in eighth grade it got cut due to budget cuts. We also had music throughout grades 5-8, but in seventh and eight, it was an optional course. In high school, only one year of art was required, but many more art courses were optional if one wanted to take art courses. Music was never a required course in high school, but optional if one wanted to take those as well. Other than that, 3 years of math, science, and history/social studies classes were required as well as 4 years of english.

I definetly agree with the part that art needs to be reinforced in primary and middle school educations because children at that age, are at the level where they need visual and hands-on projects in order to comprehend the material they are being taught. Whether we are learners through visuals, audios, hands-on, or any of the others, when we are little, visuals are ALWAYS helpful because we do not have the amount of knowledge that we have now, it helps to have pictures with the things we are learning about.

Overall, art is definetly a neccesity in education. Whether it be to help students learn better, or just to expand their knowledge and appreciation for art.

In the Hands of the Restless Poor

This article made me open my eyes to realize that I am very fortunate to be getting the education that I am getting. Many poor families are unable to pay for their children to go to school, so unfortunately for the kids, they miss out on an amazing opportunity to higher their education and have better possibilities in the "real" world.

Although students less fortunate than most all of us have a hard time finding a way to pay for their tuition or their education, there are definetly ways to work around that, they just need to look a little bit harder than the rest of us. They may need to fill out more grants, loans, or scholarship applications than the average student. Especially if the student is very smart, there is a very likely chance they could get a scholarship for academics, or even sports if they are good at sports. There are endless possibilities to help pay for an education, these students may just have to look further than we do.

Anything in life is possible, so why can't getting an education be one of those things? It can be! A lot of the "poor" students tend to do poor in school because of the lack of support and help from the parents at home. Many times the reason the students are doing poorly in school is because the parents are always working, alcoholics, drug addicts, or never home (whether it be with friends or more.) In this case, students have the opportunity to go to tutoring classes, get extra help from teachers after class, or attend clubs/organizations that promote good grades and help with less fortunate students.

Students have all different kinds of abilities and disabilities, so when in a classroom setting or an educational setting, we all need to be curtious of everyone around us, their ability, or lack there of, and try to help them out whenever possible.