Keytar

Well, this is the keyboard. The difference is that mine now has two of the screws in the casing replaced with hooks, and a strap is strung between the hooks, allowing me to sling it over my shoulder and play.

AKA - the Keytar, the pianist's bid for looking cooler.

I've long been wanting one, but now with just a little bit of modification on my old keyboard, I have it! Admittedly, the setup's a bit... impractical to say the least. If I just want the piano sound, I have to have some sort of amp, a jack, and power to the keytar. But if I want to have different sounds, I'd have to use the computer program GarageBand. To do this, I'll need to connect the keytar to a computer, which means I'll probably need a USB extension cord to allow any mobility, and then hook up the computer to some amplification so people can hear me. And I'll have to either switch instruments by fiddling on the computer, or having somebody else do it.

Still, it could actually happen, despite the drawbacks. Our band director actually has a Mac with GarageBand, which leaves us needing a USB extension cord and a way to amp up the volume on the computer.

Speaking of band, the football season is over after the Halloween Game, so we're now in preparation for the Christmas concert and basketball season. I could maybe see myself playing keytar at either of these....

Moreover, Mr. Haskell (director) is gone this week, so guess who's in charge? Yeah. I have to say, it's not easy to try to be productive at that hour though, especially when the actual teacher is absent. To make things better, all of the drumsticks were broken on Monday! We came in, and all of them were busted. I ended up dismissing the percussionists about a third of the way through band, realizing it was pointless for them to be there. I used to want the Music Room open all the time, but now I'm trying to work out how to lock up the drumsticks so this doesn't happen again. How things have changed.

By the way, I watched Bill Nye this morning in Biology, and I have to say, that is some freaking funny stuff! It is so much funnier now that I'm older. It reminds me of Monty Python almost.

I'm 15!

This Friday the 13th, I turned 15. I'm quite proud to be this old and I had a really great time these past couple of days. It splits into two days really.

The first day was the day before my birthday, I got up and went to swim team as usual, and went to Troy's house afterwards. Following that, we took our bikes and went all over downtown - to the library, to book stores, the movies; in fact I didn't even go home except to ask Mom whether or not I could stay the night at Troy's, and I did. Basically what I'm getting to is that this was like an all-day party for me, and I was sure grateful for it.

I skipped swim team and slept in til I had to go home. And of course then we had a little birthday party there too. We ordered lunch from Flying Pie Pizzeria and had ice cream cake (yes this was lunch). After the food I was handed a huge box in wrapping paper. I ripped it open to find a notation software called Sibelius 5 and an incredibly cool keyboard compatible with the software. So I was set to write music!

Not yet though. Unsurprisingly, the software won't install because we don't have Mac OS X 10.4. So now we have two options-let all the money we spent on this gift to go to waste, or spend an extra $130 on upgrading our computer. Technology kind of cornered us into a spend more money or lose situation. Oh well.

If indeed we get this software to work and I can start writing music, it will allow me to do alot. I can start writing original pieces for the school band to play next year, and music for my own band. But it'll take a bit to get it up no matter how it goes.