Ren's Blog

I think it was challenging for me to compose an actual song and to play it. During the process I always made changes because it did not sound what I expected as. Personally it was hard how I had  write music notes and put them in the right places. This was my first time doing is so it was challenging  Overall this was a new experience so it was interesting. I have learned lots during this unit. Such as using different chords to create melodies and such. I felt like I could of improved on my composition on paper. I wasnt able to do them organized. I am not mad at my actual composition since it was a first time. This unit was a new step for me in Grade 8 Music.

Here is the link to my Recording. :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn7svo5TOaE

Elvis Hound Dog

The Beatles Here Comes The Sun

For this assignment, I choose Elvis-Hound Dog for the 50′s song and The Beatles Here Comes The Sun for the 60′s song. The assignment is to compare 2 different songs from the 50′s and the 60′s and analyze the difference. I chose these songs because there are both very familiar and famous. Elvis representing the 50′s and The Beatles representing the 60′s. I personally like these 2 songs and it was very interesting to compare these famous songs.

Fist the “Hound Dog”. From the beginning I could already tell that this songs is very up tempo and up beat. A very classical rock tempo to it. Lyrically, this songs has many repetition. Almost the whole song is covered by the chorus. In fact the all the lyrics were repeated. I thought they were simple. This song is a 12 bar blues structure. The background instruments were guitars, drums and keyboard.  there were  instrumental interlude solos in between the song, which continued about 25 seconds. The structure was basically simple. Druming on point along with clear vocals. This song is very catchy. This could be the reason why this song was very famous in the 50′s.

The next song is “Here Comes The Sun”. From the beginning already a big difference. The tempo is very is slow and not up beat. This gives a different feel to the song, like relaxed or calm. The lyrics are vocally sang slowly and calmly. Repetition was again used in this song too. The instruments were guitars and drums. There was a solo instrument part half way through the song.  The form was Intro, verse, bridge, chorus, solo section and then ending. The structure is vert similar to modern music these days.

By looking at these 2 comparisons you could tell that the rock styles changed over the years. From up beat to maybe slower and calmer. Both songs were very famous which means that the those type of genre was liked in the 50′s and the 60′s. The structure did not have a huge change but the tempo did. As I already mentioned those 2 songs have opposite tempo. Lyrically there were similar as in repetition but in the 50′s it was more simple. Through out the years, there were more thoughts put in to lyrics. From these comparisons I could tell the music change over time, in lyrics and tempo.

In the first unit in music, I have concentrated on playing the xylophone. Before the final performance, we did quite a few investigations and preparations. I ve chosen a song called Catch a falling star, and I also did a full analyzation of it before. On the performance I am satisfied with it. Comparing the first performance I did I think I improved a lot. For me personally the major improvement I made was keeping the rhythm and playing the instrument fluently.AlthoughI had improvements, on the other hand there are somethings I would of done better. That could be the playing the notes on the right measure. Other than that I think I did a decent job. For me the final performance was very important because I could show the improvement I made from the start of the unit. For next time I want to prepare more for the perfections on performance.

In tutor class, we took the multiple intelligence survey. The strengths I had was kinesthetic, interpersonal and spacial. The strengths I had were basically things I am better at than some other subjects for example, musical or Nature. I guess I am a medium learner looking at the other strength I had. Kinesthetic reflects on the activities I choose obviously since i like to play sports. The results mean that I am a social learner.

1) My first goal for next year is generally being organized. This could be organizing work/files and also being responsible for assignments and due work. I think I could improve this even though I am not terrible at it. I consider that being organized will be very effective and crucial in the continuous semesters.

2) In a lot of my subjects I have ups and down. Bad days and good days. Days I do good, I contribute and listen in class and I produce good work. On the other hand, there are days where I don’t pay full contribution. My goal is to work efficiently in all subjects.

3) During the semesters my attendance wasn’t very good. I was late on somedays and my total tardy was 11. I think I could improve on this by being more organized.

4) I generally want to work on my attitude in school. Attitude could be, doing well in class work, participating in more, taking teachers advices and being more motivated. If I can achieve all of these goals, I will surely have a nice semester.

Kento(Blogs@yis.ac.jp/17Shirotsukak)

June 11th by David Lehman: Kentos poetry presentation was easy to connect to. When the poem is something that connects with your life it really makes us audience easy to understand the theme. Besides all of the presentation skills, I thought the themes and the comparison he made was good. He told us a real life story comparing it to the poem which is one of the ways to describe the poem. I thought he was knowledgeable towards the poem which is very important. Some people just know the meaning of the poem but, poem has more than meanings. It has messages. As long as you know the message that the poem wants to send, I think you are fine. Overall counting the presentational skills and the actual analyzing skills he did a good job.

Henning(Blogs@yis.ac.jp/17Kvillerudg)

“To help the monkey cross the river” by Thomas Lux: The poem itself was very funny and entertaining. He had a nice comparison with the poem to emphasize the theme and the meaning. His presentational skills were very good including, composure, speech and his posture. Generally I liked the poem itself, and overall a great effort.

Hemanth(blogs.yis.ac.jp/17Aroumougamh/)

Bad Day by Kay Ryan- Again the poem was easy to relate to. Nice choose of poem. The title itself was attracting, and the poem itself to. He put a detailed analyzation about the poem including literary features too which not every body did. His approach to the speech looked like he was prepared. Overall a good effort and great presentation.

Markus(Blogs@yis.ac.jp/17Muim)

Fast break” by Edward Hisrch: This one was my favorite poem. I love sorts related poems since you can feel the vibe and the feeling. I like how movements are described and metaphored. I could relate to this poem easily since basketball is one of my favorite sports. Markus put in analyzation and a nice comparison with his own poem. Making a own poem is not the easy job. Overall a nice presentation and keeper me interested.

Here is my link to my shelfari

http://www.shelfari.com/o1515167958/shelf

What is the skill that I used?

The skill I used were gestures and vocal skills. The character I was suppose to be was a non interested, kind of mean person so I tried to use less ranges of facial expressions and eye contact. As you can see in the video I didn’t change to tone or the facial expressions through out the video.

How did I approach creating the character?

I wanted to create a character who does not change his feelings from the start to the end. Since its a non interested weightier I thought it would match. I used the skills I mentioned before to stay in the character.

Was it successful- if so how? What needed improvement? Make a suggestion?

I thought I was pretty successful since I wanted to be the character I performed. I used the skills I had to, and it worked well. But there were some points I could of improved. For example, some how I could of drew more attention from the audience since it was a little boring.

How can I use these skills in performance?

I hope to use these techniques in the near future. Speech is captured in many topics so I think it was beneficial

Here is my video

8C Drama: Character Formative from YIS Arts on Vimeo.

For the first unit in Technology we focused on the idea on “Presenting Naked”. This has a interpretation of meaning presenting without things that distract and destroy the presentation itself. More detailed this could mean presenting without que-cards, big effects on your slides, and just the idea of how to present well. We had a long process of different stages which are called the design cycle .

Investigation is the first process of the design cycle. In the investigation I learned a lot of things about presenting. We discussed to get a brief idea of what a good and bad presentation has. I think I could of improved at more been cooperative with all these discussions because I was more on the listening side more than the talking side. Overall I wasn’t detailed with my notes. Later on the unit, I stated realizing that investigating is really important than all the other process expect for the Create. The information I took on investigation in something you could base on later on.

In the design we did a lot of notes and comparing and researching. We had this part where we had to compare 3 presentation tools. I picked the similar ones which was keynote, powerpoint and Prezi. I think I could of maybe researched some completely different tools since I would of known a variety of presentation tools. Well I am not completely regretting choosing those 3 since it wasn’t bad, but I think I could of improved.

In the planing we made our storyboards. I think mine was a little too general. I think I could of made better pictures and more detailed notes and pointers. The plan is also very important because it also judges how much you next strep will be easier and smoother.

And the Create. The create process we just make our slides. I made few slides for the first one since the first slide can spend on how your audiences are going to react. I wanted to make it simple but not too much. I wanted to emphasize the title so I made the text stand out. Every slide I tried to make it unique and interesting. I got a lot of inspirations from sample slideshows that was on the art wiki. It was fun overall making the slides but I could of improved on things. Things like adding more time into the slides.

Last but not least the presenting. Overall I presented well and I am not regretting the presentation. Things I could improve on were, Speaking more smoothly, maybe slide designs and stance. This was a serious presentation and we didn’t have many things like this in the previous years but I think it was a good start.

Areas of Interaction: Environment

Waking up from a nice sleep and onsen after that in the morning was just great. Today the day for active activities started. We got separated into 2 groups again for mountain biking/River Rafting and the Kayak group. I was in the mountain biking/River Rafting. I was very exited because I like both of theses activities. We mountain biked for 23 km. 23 KM!!. First I thought it would be not that long but it was extremely long. We went through a lot of dirt and bumpy roads. We could see mountains after mountains and we could really feel the nature around niseko. I realized that the how much the natural environment can effect the cities atmosphere. In tokyo there are a lot of cars and buildings, but in Niseko you barley see cars and there are many more natural resources. This just makes the city itself different. It was very fresh.

Next we went to eat lunch for soba. We stayed there for about 45 min and left to the river rafting place. We put on our suits and learned some basics for river rafting. The suits were sooo tight. And it started to rain. The waves got bigger but still colder. Surprisingly the suits actually kept us very warm. Again the environment there was very good, I found no trashes in the river. That was day 3 and it was very tiring.

Areas of Interaction: Environment 

After waking up from a cold morning I started to get use to the different environment and consider the fact that we are in Niseko. Day 1 was very tiring since we had to wake up early and we didn’t have much activities. So we had our breakfast and went for a 30-40 minute hike up a mountain. Still very tiring but I enjoyed it quite a lot. Hikes are things we never do in the cities so I like the fresh air. We went on the top and rested their for like 10-20 minutes. The view from up their was so beautiful. You could see the whole city from up there. But I did realize that there were no people around the landscape of the city, just houses and mountains. Hikes down the mountain and packed our bags to go to HIS (Hokaido International School). The bus took about 45 minutes. We arrived and see our old PE teacher, Mr Reynolds and his wife Ms Reynolds. Compared the international schools in tokyo or yokohama, the school was pretty small and didn’t look like there were many students. I could tell that by the posters up on the walls and it only had 6 students per class. We had a nice lunch there and hanged around there from 2 hours. Next we went to a local school to make a Ikebana. Basically a sponge flower. We stick dry flowers onto a oasis sponge. Very interesting and new to me. Next we went to a actual farm. This also was very new to me, well we’ve went to farms a couple of times in the previous Field studies. We helped to take off the metal bars around the crops. After we made Jack o lanterns. On the bus to the hotel I was realizing that there were no garbage or much people. Just farms and houses. I really felt the Field studies vibe. We arrived at the hotel and it looks very nice. After a tiring day of activities we eat dinner and went to the onsen which was very relaxing. Next thing we know we go straight to our beds.