Music on fear

My Individual project (Final project of the year) is based upon music. I intend to write and record my own original music that is based on my biggest enemy, fear. My reasoning for not writing much music is because of the fear of writing bad music. I have always tried making a song by coming up with something "catchy" but who is my audience? I have no audience while writing a song, so I have no audience to tell me that it’s bad music. With this, I’m going to face my fear, and write music about it. I intend to create an EP of my music, and design my own Cover.

My Intensive

The third quarter of STAC seemed to be the most productive for me. The intensives were good challenges for me, and I look forward to doing more. In this quarter, with the intensives, my intension was to mainly focus on creating my own music, and expanding my knowledge of music- its origins and future.

With the intensives, I broadened my “library” of music. I did this by trying to listen to as much music as possible, ranging from The Monkeys to Rockplile. Some artists were not included in the assignment, but I listened to them anyway because I realized that they were very influential in the pop music world- such artists included Buddy Holly.  I did this because I needed to have an inspiration in order to start writing my own music. Before the intensives, I was so accustomed to the 12 bar blues, i only wrote the 12 bar blues. I didn’t feel as If I was being a true musician by just playing the same genre over and over again, so I needed a change. With my expanded library, I wrote several songs with the intentions of trying to stay away from the 12 bar blues. I enjoyed my songs so much that I have begun playing them with my band.

The intensives played a big role in changing my band’s sound for the better. Before the intensives, my band only played Rockabilly and 12 bar blues. That’s all we could play because we had not written any good songs that had alternate arrangements, only Boogie Style Rhythms. In order to make the intensives worthwhile, I took the music we received from emails and tried to make new music that was based off the morphing of genres. I would listen to several songs that were sent to us and then record any part that would interest me on my iPhone. I would hum the sounds that I liked and record my humming sounds on to my recorder. With this, I would select my favorite sound, out of all the sounds, and write a song from it. If the sounds sounded like an intro, I would use it as an intro and write a song around it. This was my most productive technique, and I could say this, because I have written a total of 6 songs by using this method which I believe are good.

I feel as if I have grown as an artist and a musician because of the intensives. I have gotten so much out of them, and I hope we could continue doing more of them, or doing something in that realm of assignment.

By,

Scott La Marca

Expressionism

Van Gogh, portrait-with bandaged ear

Soutine’s, Woman in Red

In my opinion, I feel as if expressionism is a medium/art form of describing feeling or a way of thinking. It could describe depression, happiness, anger, jealously, or pain. Examples of this are Soutine’s, Woman in Red. I feel this piece reflec­ts of his inner disturb­ance or of his inspir­at­ion/drive caused by something he would gain out of creating the piece. The colors in his pictures tell the emotions present in the piece. Darker colors represent solemnness, while more vibrant colors represent happiness, and excitement. Another great example of an expressionist with emotional disturbance influenced on his work would be Vincent Van Gogh. As a struggling artist with anxiety and mental issues, he was a compulsive thinker. I know as a person who most probably has OCD, I also think compulsively. I always think about my work over, and over again. A thought in a deep analysis, will never leave my mind until it works out in such a way that I am satisfied with myself. During this process, my emotions seep into the piece I am working on at the moment. At times, the emotions are anger or frustration.  Having to do things over and over again to make them “perfect” is very time consuming and obnoxious. It makes one very anxious, and angry at the piece, causing the artist to want to start over again. I think I understand, to some extent, how Van Gough must have felt while doing his work. When he was admitted into the treatment centers, he would often paint himself. Those self-portraits, to me, reflect his pain and remorse for doing such things to his own body. He seems depressed in these paintings, and it seems as if he also feels depressed due to the fact he was a struggling artist.

Performing in blackface makeup was a theatrical convention used by many entertainers at the beginning of the 20th century, having its origin in the minstrel and vaudeville show. Al Jolson was the most famous performer to wear blackface makeup when singing- he felt Working behind a blackface mask gave him a sense of freedom. I guess in a way you could call the mask, in his case, a placebo. There are just so many forms of art out there to explore, some is very interesting. Sometimes, what makes art interesting is the back story. Look up the blackface, the history behind it is actually pretty interesting!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF6383U8xD0&feature=related

everything is not what it seems...

I know it’s a little late, but I’m going to post anyway. The trip was interesting. I enjoyed the art in the MOMA, based on the world trade center. It was very abstract. Personally, I am not an abstract fan, though I felt as if I related to some of the art; somehow. Some of the pieces, though they were DADA, did have a point. A pretty complicated point when it comes to describe in art form. It is sadness, and confusion. An artist may say his or her art is about certain topics such as these, though in reality, it is actually hard to make art in such a way, that it doesn’t seem as if you the artist is trying too hard. A good example of this would be the piece in the museum where there was ash covering the white floor. It may have seemed as a meaningless DADA piece, but I perceived it a bit differently. I thought since this was a world trade center gallery, it may have had something to do with the sculpture of the innocent looking pedestrian sitting on a bench in front of the ash. With this, the two objects combined represented a statement to me. The statement was everything is not what it seems. The WTC attacks occurred on a beautiful, average Tuesday. Everything seemed to be going fine, but things suddenly turned for the worst when the attacks happened. 3500 people were killed in a period of 2 hours, and the entire U.S has changed since that day. Everything is not what it seems... that’s my philosophy on art, and everything related to it.

Today was an interesting day. I thought of today as an opportunity to explore the personalities of myself and others. It was a chance to describe yourself, and who you are as a person. I thought it was a perfect idea to do this activity in the beginning of the year because it helps us connect as a group. This will help us calibrate ideas in the future, and will help us work better as a group. I think the point of this activity was also to learn more about ourselves. With this said, i wrote words about myself that i thought i would never relate to. Some words related to each other and some came out as a product that ended up being a vital part of my personality. We should continue building on these character trait webs. It will definitely help us grow as artists, and help build our personalities.

Hello Everybody!

         I wasn't sure if I should write a post or not, but i'm gonna do it anyway. The first day of STAC, to me, was very interesting. I'm still thinking about the ending of the Star Treck episode we watched today. by watching this, it has helped me understand the fact that art is a medium used to portray messages, and ideas to the people who appreciate it. art has a very important role in modern day society being that most of the people alive today get their inspiration from it. a good example of this would be musicians from the mid 60's to the mid 70's, when our country was at war with vietnam. musicians were producing music(a form of art) with a message stating that the entire idea of us fighting, is absurd and that we should put an end to the bloodshead. this changed the way americans lived. they no longer kept quiet, they spoke up! all of this came from art. it came from the articles in the new  york times, to the anti-war protest songs from the beatle albums. the art was all over and it changed peoples lives, exactly like it does today. i guess that what they mean when they say history repeats it's self.