WA Music Ensemble

Two weeks ago I was hanging around in the university and I saw this poster - "Do you play any instrument? Do you want to play with us and do something marvelous?" it said. I thought "Why not?" and now I'm just before the first rehearsal.

We've got 24 members so far, including 3 violinists, a cellist, an ukulelist, a trumpeter, 3 drumers and many, many guitarists. I don't know what it's going to be, but I expect a lot of fun on the first place and numerous jam sessions. By now we've arranged little setlist and we'll try to do something with it on Thursday.

The main purpose of this group is to make music, to get to know other musicians from our university and to improve our english (the project is managed by UAM Department of English, so-called WA), especially music vocabulary. 

In case of concert, I'll get you know.

In the end I want to share with you one of the song from our setlist. Enjoy :)

After-finals.

Here it is - finals time. You're actually doing everything to not study, then you study all night and hope you'll pass. You're maybe studying all day long and in the late evening you want to go to bed, but your neighbours have just started a party, because they've already ended their finals. It doesn't matter. Everyone has huge plans for the most wanted break in the mid-term. My friend called it after-finals (but also some people called it tomorrow). It's a fictional time when all yours crazy ideas, which had been born in your head during this busy month, finally come true. Clean all your room, start to learn grammar for serious, learn how to juggle, get a part-time job, watch all seasons of Friends all over again, read each book from your enormous heap... Some people just want to rest and watching gras grow (it's a reat quote of my friend, who told me this are her plans after A-levels). Some people really DO amazing things, but this is a minority. For your after-finals, dear Rom-Bloggers, I wish you quality time, free of procrastination and laziness.

The 100 Day Song Challenge.

Everyday, lots of people share music on facebook. About a moth ago I saw some of my facebook friends publish song with a tag The 100 Day Song Challenge . I clicked on it and... I found it quite funny! Why not? I thought. Today is my 21st day of the challenge and sometimes is really hard to find a song which matches to the daily topic. But what's going on here? Let me explain it shortly.

Every day you have to share a song (or songs - it depends on you, but you have to share one song at least) which refers to the topic in About. The most difficult challenge for me was to find a song which I hate. Some tasks are hilarious, like:

-Day 23 - Song without lyrics. For me, as a fan of classical music, it's not a problem at all.
-Day 33 - Very short song. This is where the fun on youtube begins.

-Day 48 - Song from a commercial. And now I can laugh at people who could tell me, that Habanera isn't from the opera of Bizet, but from the ad of Ajax. Yeah, sure.

-Day 76 - Weird song. How can I know that after I published this song people wouldn't consider me a freak?

-Day 92 - Good song for breaking-up. Seriously, is there any?

My friend told me, that this Polish edition is extended, because the original Song Challenge has only 30 days. Well... More challenge, more fun!

In the end - my song of the day - Song with a name in the title. Enjoy. :)

The Police - Roxanne

Watchmen

Lately I've watched one of the classics among comic book-based movies about superheros - Watchmen. I was really surprised I hadn't watched it earlier! I don't want to spoil, so I'm not going to tell you a lot, but I want to mention just a few things to encourage you. 

Watchmen is the movie based on comics on the same title. The story is masked policemen, who have been working against criminals during the World War II. Now, almost all of them are retired, it's time of the Cold War, where the whole world is in nuclear danger. If you're interested in history of XX century or you like the post-apo atmosphere, this movie is for you. Watchmen is one of the best film version of a comic book published by DC (as you know, last Superman wasn't very good). Generally, this movie presents people as they are, not black or white, but in many shades of grey. My favourite character is Rorchach, played by Jackie Earle Haley (you may know him from the new Nightmare on Elm Street, where he plays Freddie Krueger). Rorchach is a man with sad past, twisted soul and really dark character. His mask (and his nickname) refers to the Rorchach test - psychological test with inkbkots, created by Hermann Rorchach. Doctor Manhattan is also an interesting character - blue-skinned man, who's forgetting about being a human after his accident in an Intrinsic Field Subtractor. To sum up, there is plenty of different types of heros and heroines, who make this special atmosphere in the movie. I strongly advise you to watch the Watchmen!

Little sum-up: 2013

Lately I've noticed on my facebook timeline "See Your 2013 Year in Review". Firstly, I thought "Ok, facebook want to sum-up my life to collect the most important information about me and then sell it to some misterious organisation...", but when I clicked on this link, I was like "Seriously, who cares about my personal life? Besides, all those memories collected together is not such a bad idea." I saw many nice photos of me and my friends, different events, lots of funny quotes... It's good to think about good things happend last year and to hope next year won't be worse.

Crazy new year's eve and happy 2014 year!!! :)

"Things we didn't notice by looking at them."

The title of my today's note was also the theme of my first essay in primary school. I'll try to reproduce this idea in English.

Every day you wake up, get dressed, brush your teeth and comb your hair. Your mother make you a breakfast and give you a packed lunch. It's cold, so mum give you warm gloves, a scarf and a cap. Then, she drive you to school. There, you're writing an essay with a pen, you draw a picture with pencil and crayons - all those things are bought by your beloved mother. You came back home and your mom have a dinner for you. She can also help you with your homework, because she's the smartest person you know. In the evening, your mother plays games with you, reads books for you or watches movies with you. It's the end of the day, so she puts you in bed and tell you a beautiful story until you fall asleep. Mom kisses you for goodnight and finally she can rest. All this little things happens around you every day. You won't even notice how empty your world will be without your mom. So now you can hug her and tell that you love her. Do it now!

Jelonek

It's been a long time since I've read my last note. I know, I completely forgot about it because last week I had TEST EVERY SINGLE DAY. So... Let me tell you about...

Michał Jelonek.

People in Poland used to say we don't have the real musician in our country. If you're thinking the same, I have to introduce you someone really genious. And he doesn't play the guitar!

Michał Jelonek is a polish violinist who has been working with many rock, metal and folk bands. In 2007 he released his first so-called-solo album - Jelonek. Why "so-called-solo"? Because he doesn't play solo! He has a band composed of really good musicians, who usually plays some hard music.  You must wonder How violin metal sounds? If you like bands like Apocalyptica, Jelonek will be great for you. You can find on this LPs a lot of his own compositions, but also many classical covers (in fact he's an absolvent of the Musician Academy in Bydgoszcz), like Sabre Dance of Aram Khachaturian. I'd like to reccomend one of his songs from Revenge, second album from 2011 (by the way it's a little harder than the first album).

ViolMachine

Last week I was on his concert in Blue Note. The audience was really crazy, especially when they were dancing pogo. For me, Jelonek and his band were incredible, wild and - of course - genious. Violinist was using his instrument in many freaky ways - I mean ways I'll never do with my violin. In fact, they weren't just playing the music, they were acting it, having fun with all people and pushing them to do crazy pogo figures. Anyway, it was really great experience to enjoy the music with such energetic people. I can't wait for another concert!