Recap of Last Class

Ok, so to begin with, I think that whole concept of "The Unschooled Life" is really cool. I totally understand how living without a forced structure to an education can lead to one wanted to discover the world and all it has to offer on one's own. I personally hate feeling obligated to look up certain information I have no interest in, I like the whole idea of being able to wake up and think "What would I like to learn about today?" and then just being able to spontaneously look up and learn about whatever I'm interested in. I haven't actually watched Astra Taylor's video yet but its definitely on my list of things today after I'm done with my classes. The whole Pink Terror Hawking video was super cool too, definitely something I'm going to show to my friends when we're sitting around sharing the latest Vimeo and YouTube videos we've come upon.

So last class we learned about John Cage, who I totally respect for being so bold and original in music and art combined. He did his own thing but yet still had a structure to it. I feel like that fact that he did the most random things in the world to make his music but yet still used a stop watch to make sure everything was done as planned makes it hard for one to just judge him as a crazy artist because instead the viewer thinks "Oh, this man has a stop watch, he has a plan, he is a respectable artist for being so organized while doing such obscene things", well at least thats how I see him. His sheet music was really really cool to look at. It was like random charts and lines and dots and boxes; but yet, it all had structure. There were rules to how to play every part of it. It was actually really hard for me to understand anything he meant which either means he was in his own world and the only one who really knew what he meant or he was so clever when it came to music and art that it just went right over my head. I guess it could probably be a little bit of both too though.

Finally, we got our assignment for our next project on making totally original music using the tracks everyone created for our previous project with our sculptural instruments. We learned more about audacity and how to cut music. As of now, I think its going to be cool to try to mash-up the totally organic sounds we made. I just hope I'll still feel the same when I actually start working on this project though, I seem to go through cycles with programs where I get excited about learning how to use a program, then get totally and utterly frustrated with it as I dive deeper into my project, and then in the end I feel accomplished for figuring it out and finishing my work. We'll see how I feel about audacity in my next post.

Anyways, spring break is calling me and I cannot wait until I can officially say that I'm on break. I have lots of drawing, studying, researching, and a project to do over break; however, between playing frisbee with my dog in my backyard and my trip to Utah and Vegas with one of my best friends, I think I can still find a good time and a good balance between work and play. Check ya later.