Beginners Theme Suite

I posted this in Good Morning, Heartache a little while back but it’s been running through my head this morning, so I thought I’d post a link to it again. I only wish this were longer because it’s just so good.

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Hey Felixer (hehe, sorry, I couldn’t resist),

And here I was thinking I had scared you off by declaring your obvious cuteness.  Good to hear back from you!  You’re welcome and thank you in return, even if you are just saying because I said it first. :p

You’ve been busy with your game, I assume?  Halfway is good!  How many hours/days/months/years (?) have you spent on it so far?  And how much longer do you think it’ll take?  I figured you were a gamer. 🙂  What did you study in university?

I spent the weekend working, mostly.  Yep, I’m finished exams — in fact, finished school at Langara altogether now!  Originally, I wanted to graduate with an Associate’s Degree in Creative Writing, but I had taken so many English courses, that I decided I might as well finish with a degree in English, then transfer to UBC (hopefully!) and get a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing from there.  Still waiting to hear back from them about that, so fingers crossed!

Ah, why have you chosen not to drink?  For me, mostly, it just doesn’t taste very good.  And speaking of drinks…

If you can manage to extricate yourself from the vice grip of your game, would you like to go for milkshakes or smoothies or — gasp! — some sort of alcoholic beverage sometime?  My schedule’s pretty open now that school’s done.

Talk with ya later!

Aaron

Summer 78 — Yann Tiersen

Perhaps Fifth Avenue Cinemas does in fact have good taste in music.  I heard this playing in our lobby the other day, and was very surprised to recognize it.  It’s an instrumental piece, written by Yann Tiersen, from the Goodbye Lenin! soundtrack, one of my favourite pieces from the film.  I hadn’t heard it in ages, and after listening to it a few times that day, it really inspired me to pursue writing piano pieces again, since I’ve been unable to write songs to pour out my feelings.  I’ve always been able to write just piano songs with less difficulty, probably since it only requires the piano and no words (and I am very particular about lyrics).

Maybe I’ll get to writing next week, during my week off from school.  I feel like I need it.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 15: A song that describes you

It would’ve been so easy to just post any song I had written but I’ve already done that so that was a no-go.  And for a while recently, one of the original songs from Glee, “Get It Right” was totally I song that felt like I could’ve written, about trying to do the right thing and constantly getting it wrong.  “What do you do when your good isn’t good enough?/And all that you touch tumbles down/My best intentions keep making a mess of things/Just want to fix it somehow”, the lyrics from the chorus of the song, are words that made me tear up when I first heard and saw it on the show when it premiered.  This also would’ve been an easy choice to to post.

But somehow, it didn’t feel… complete enough.  Although I think the song is hopeful in the end and that it describes a lot of who I was and am now, it’s missing… something.  Upong listening yet again to “Last Man”, composed by Clint Mansell (who also wrote the score for Black Swan, among other films), the tears I had from my eyes after listening to “Get It Right” finally came down.  I guess I figured out that though “Get It Right” is easy to interpret since the lyrics are right there, it takes a little more effort and thought to come up with the meaning of “Last Man” because it’s strictly instrumental.  I feel like because it has no words to the piece, instead of telling you how you should feel, it leaves it up to the listener to try and make sense of it.  Everyone hears something different in it, and “Last Man” is a piece that I can interpret to mean more than just sadness, which, admitedly, is a lot of it for me.

Here’s a link to “Get It Right” as well:

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 10: A song that makes you fall asleep

As I mentioned in my facebook post, I don’t have any song that make me fall asleep.  If a song bores me, I just turn it off or switch to a good song.  It was either this one or “Comptine D’autre ete” by Yann Tiersen and I’m trying to post song songs instead, so I decided to go with some Kelly Clarkson.

After listening to it again though, it made me kinda tear up in a sad way.  But “Irvine” isn’t just a song that makes me sad.  I can imagine myself, were I ever sleepy enough to stay up and listen to music, falling asleep to this song…

“Time” — Hans Zimmer (Inception Original Soundtrack)

Since the nominations for the Oscars a few days ago, I decided to take a listen to some of the nominees for Best Original Score.  I have seen How to Train Your Dragon, The King’s Speech, and Inception but seem to be the only person not to have seen The Social Network yet.  127 Hours is also a film I wanna watch though the prospect of watching James Franco cut off his arm is a little off-putting at the moment.  Anyway, I remembered that there was quite a good melody/theme in Inception, and since it had been a while since I saw it, I went on the awesome site that is youtube to hear the soundtrack.

Although I absolutely love the pulse-pounding Inception theme in “Dream is Collapsing”, I particularly like the nostalgia and the emotional impact of “Time”, the closing track on the soundtrack and if I remember correctly, also played during the end credits of the film.  Although I do feel like Inception lacked strong emotional connection with the characters, this track almost (*almost!*) makes up for it.  It’s slow and contemplative in the beginning, add in the orchestra later and it bursts into true Zimmer spirit.

(Eww.  I just had a kettle corn kernel and it tasted like a cherry tomato… yuck.)

I’ve always been a fan of Zimmer, and I think this is a better, more rounded soundtrack than Sherlock Holmes.  I have a feeling this won’t win the Oscar for original score but oh well.  This is a great score nonetheless.

One Summer’s Day (theme from Spirited Away) — Joe Hisaishi

Okay, so this obviously is not Classical music but a film score.  To be fair, this is under “Classical” music after all, so there.  Also, this is a fantastic, beautiful piece composed by the brilliant Joe Hisaishi, who I admire greatly and daresay he’s leagues better than some overrated American composers who I will not name (*coughJohnWilliamscough*).

Every time I hear the broken chords in the first few bars, it makes me sigh with nostalgia, remembering the movie so well and the feelings and emotions I experienced.  Spirited Away is one of my all-time favourite films and this track is full of the spirit of the film in a way I obviously cannot describe (not just because I’m super tired right now).

Anyway, I’m a loss of brain power so I will leave it at that.  If you haven’t seen Spirited Away, then what the f—?!

Do I dare?

Not sure when I wrote this one.  Probably sometime within the last two years.

Do I Dare?

Do I dare to believe in you?
After I let you get so close,
You only bruise me.

As I let all meaning slip away,
You do as you wish.
Maybe I jumped in a little too early.

I can’t believe I fell for you,
And when I looked up, I see that I had tripped,
Over the doubt that had lingered above my head.

You broke my composure,
And I readily took you in,
And you harvested all the feelings I had wished away.

Though I did not hold your time,
I can see that it was mine.
Fighting is a concept you know not of.

So once again, with my heart shaded away
I look past the horizon,
Blinded no more, and guarded all the more.

“Dawn” — Dario Marianelli

From the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack is one of the main themes of the film.  Composed by Dario Marianelli (who later won an Oscar for writing the music for Atonement), “Dawn” is one of the prettiest compositions I’ve heard from Mr. Marianelli.  Partly why I’m posting this here now is because I just finished playing it on the piano and I didn’t know what else to put here.  But it’s good!  Take a listen for yourself.

Child’s Play

A little ditty I wrote.

Candy-coated Hearts

While I’m on the topic of music, here’s another composition I wrote a couple years back.  Thanks to my fan/friend Steph who titled this piece.