Songs of Summer

Here, in this blog post, I will choose three songs that I think reminds me of summer, or in my opinion what represents summer itself. It was a little hard to choose songs that represent summer, but I tried my best.


1. "Alive" from Krewella

This song is really loose and fun. In the beginning she wants this moment to last forever. Many people don't like it when summer ends because well, school has to begin again. Other things in this song remind me of summer with how it's not so serious. They are having fun and most people make the most out of the summer time. Here is the link to the music video. Krewella - Alive




2. "I Knew You Were Trouble" -Taylor Swift

Some parts in this song kind of remind me of summer. People letting loose but then realizing that it's going to be all over soon, except they are using a person instead of summer itself. Sometimes people don't exactly realize what they are doing and feel like they have all the time in the world. It's a little hard to explain why this makes me think of summer but I hope you get it from my small explanation. Here is a link to the video. I knew you were trouble - Taylor Swift





3. We Can't Stop - Miley Cyrus

This is actually a great song, but the music video is a little..well, yeah. This reminds me of summer possibly the most out of the three. In this video Miley simply doesn't care and is having fun, living out things to the fullest and that is one of the things that summer is about in my opinion. Living it out to the fullest, not caring what people says because the summer ends fast before schools starts again.
Here is a link to the song. We Can't Stop - Miley Cyrus

Recording Reflection

1. Flight of the Banshee (take 3) by Roland Barrett

The tempo while we were playing seemed fine. I didn't notice anything too odd or out of place in the beat, though some people were playing out of place, too loudly or softly. The rhythm, like the tempo wasn't bad but some people were playing too loudly or softly. I think that the pitch was pretty bad. In some parts, I believe I heard the saxophone and it sounded very high pitched and squeaky. We can improve on our pitch in measure 3 to 8 very dramatically, as in measures 6 and 7 we started playing much lower than normal. The balance isn't very good either. Some parts, like stated before are louder than one another or softer than one another. The professionalism wasn't bad, minus someone yelling something at the beginning of the performance. We can probably get better if we be quiet and pay attention to the music.

2. Star Spangled Banner by Arr. T.J Wolfgram.

Our tempo while playing this was right, nothing seemed wrong here. Same thing with the rhythm. The pitch did seem off, with most of the sections seeming quieter than they should be, but nothing seemed totally off exactly. The balance was okay. At least it was quiet most of the time and not one part being very quiet and the other part being loud. The saxophone in this performance seemed very off and didn't combine well with everyone else's performance. The professionalism in this wasn't bad at all and I didn't really hear anyone say anything.

3. Flight of the Banshee (take 2) by Roland Barrett

Again, the tempo and rhythm was fine. The pitch again was off sometimes, with people playing at wrong spots, playing too loudly/making mistakes (someone made a very loud squeak). The balance wasn't great. I did hear some talking and again, people made mistakes, playing too softly which did make the performance worse. The professionalism here was the worst too in my opinion. I heard people talking during the performance. Improvement could be made by paying attention and being quiet

Year End Reflection and Summer Goal

My last goal was to work on my transitions to produce smoother results in when I would play my music with the clarinet. I think I made good progress in meeting this goal as I can play better and clearer and my transitions aren't as horrid as before. In the school year, we accomplished a lot that was great. At the start I could barely play my clarinet properly but now I'm pretty good at it. We managed to accomplish playing in actual unison earlier in the school year compared to now, which is a little surprising but it's one of the better things we have managed to do.

One challenge we faced during the school year was people talking in the middle of our performances and this was a problem that we faced for such a long time and never stopped which caused in us not being to play instruments anymore. One thing we could have done differently is actually shutting up for once so we could get some actual work done and still be able to play instruments today. As an individual, I don't know what else I could have done differently. During performances I was a pretty quiet person throughout and never made any major disruptions.

I'm not sure what kind of goal I could work on during the summer really..maybe I can try to discover and listen to many types of music, since I do like it a lot and want to further my musical knowledge sometime in the future, so that could be a goal that I will pursue during the summer.