Flat File

A few weeks ago, or maybe just one, I can't remember, I converted some built-in-bookshelves to be a flat file for my music. Before, it was just regular bookshelves with the books vertically placed next to each other. I grew up doing this, however, it is quite bad for your books. Over time, unless you have a very good bookend, (which I do not,) the books will slowly begin to slip downward. The unfortunate part about this is that the process is quite slow, so over time, the books don't fall, but they'll actually take on a warped shape to accommodate for the slipping.

Before: regular bookshelves, music books stored upright. Hello, guitar!

Having been pressured immensely by a fellow music teacher and friend, I finally decided to take some action to get a flat file. However, purchasing a flat file that has aesthetic value and can function as a piece of furniture is not cheap. They run at least a couple hundred dollars to start. I had no intentions of spending that much money simply to store the music, so we decided to go a different route. (Having moved the piano in with seating for parents, the room itself also has very little space to add an additional piece of furniture so I wanted to try and use the existing space as best as possible to not cramp the space.)

We did some research and looked at the shelf clips on our built-in. Now our house is over 30 years old. These shelf clips that were used are not your normal little pins that you push into holes and pull out. These shelf pins were one of a kind, specialized clips with their own tracks.

This here is a Knape & Vogt 256 shelf clip. If not purchased carefully, they can
run you up to $1 a piece. We purchased carefully and did not spend that much per unit. 

Our much cheaper solution was to add shelves to the existing built-in unit so that the bookshelves would stay on the left side and my flat file for music would be added on the right side. If you reference the first image above, you'll see that the three shelves for books on the left have ample wiggle room between each to shift closer and add in a fourth shelf. That's precisely what we did. We moved one of the shelves from the right side to the left to create a fourth shelf for books. Then, we created four more shelves ourselves out of wood to add skinnier shelves on the right for my books to lie flat.

Work in progress: fourth shelf added to the left for books. Stacks of music
lying on their side waiting to be sorted into in-progress shelving units on the right.

The total cost for my flat file conversion ended up being about $25. Of the total materials needed - shelf clips, wood shelves, wood stain, and a clear coat - we only actually had to buy one quart of wood stain and a pack of shelf clips. In the garage, we already had leftover wood pieces from previous projects for the shelving and a can of clear coat also from a previous project.

The finished shelf with bookshelves on the left and a flat file on the right.

Much to the chagrin of my music teacher friend, I did not purchase a flat file, which my bank account much appreciates. Now, for the first time in 15+ years, my music books can lie flat and rest comfortably on their shelves with no fear of a warped cover. I am constantly reminded that my music library will grow and I will need more space, and that statement is most likely true. In that event, I will slowly remove the books from the left and slowly infiltrate that side as needed using the same process we did. Perhaps this whole built-in unit will be a flat file for my music some day. But we are not there yet. :)

The 5 Musical Processes

Throughout the course of my years learning piano and now teaching it, I've come to find there are a number of stages that one must experience and go through in learning and perfecting a piece (including memorization). Each stage occurs differently and lasts a different length of time for different musicians but they are all experienced in one form or another.This is my own personal break down of how the processes occur and what they mean.

1.Uphill Battle

The first stage is named uphill battle because that can be what it feels like. It involves learning notes and rhythm. For considerably hard pieces, this can be a very tedious process of writing down fingerings and teaching our fingers to memorize the muscle movements necessary in order to play the notes in the proper sequence and rhythm. This is the most laborious aspect of learning music because it involves a lot of separate hand practice and time spent repeating the same things over and over again. It's arguably the least fun and takes the most work. However, it's the most important basis to music. Without notes and rhythm, you have air space.

2.  The First Plateau

The second stage is named the first plateau because once you've learned the notes and rhythm, you feel like you've just completed a great feat and you can rest a while. And for difficult pieces, it's true, you really have. At this point, the notes and rhythm come easily and you can play the piece, but it lacks the stylistic elements in order to bring the music alive. The performance might still be a bit mechanical in places that are still uncomfortable, resulting in an unnatural sound.

3. Rocky Scramble

The third stage is one that some musicians may disagree with me on. I've talked to a few and it does not seem like I am alone, but perhaps it's not consistently experienced by all. I call it the rocky scramble because it's where you start to discover difficulties within the piece that you didn't think were there. You start making mistakes and messing up in places you thought you knew and had learned. It feels a bit like you're backtracking in your growth and learning. This stage can be frustrating because it involves relearning some notes and rhythms, perhaps in a way of rote memorization so that you can resolve the problems.

4. The Second Plateau (Refinement)

The second plateau is where it's easy to get stuck in. It's also named refinement because it's about the fine tuning - you have the piece learned pretty darn well, but it's not perfect. Stylistic elements are beginning to take shape and generally, the piece is enjoyable. There is the occasional slipped finger, wrong note, rhythmic error, a brief memory slip. It's the stage that takes the most work to gain the least amount of advancement, hence, why it's easy to get stuck in. It takes a lot of perseverance to get through this plateau and into perfection. 

5. Perfection

The last stage is precisely what it is - perfection. At this point, the piece comes effortlessly. You melt into the melodies and let the notes and rhythm embody you as the performer. There's no mistakes because you know the precise muscle movements and style to deliver a perfect performance.

I would like to share a video of Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu Op. 66 with you. It's still in the refinement stage, but I have about 10 more months to keep working on it to the perfection stage. It sounds like a lot of time, but I have another 6-8 pieces I need to bring up to perfection at the same time, so it's not as easy as you might think.

I really like this piece. While learning it I found YouTube videos of young children under the age of 10 playing it. I just have to look away and remember that they're on a different path than me and will proceed at their own pace. I'm just very thankful that my own abilities have allowed me to learn and play this piece at all.

This and all my YouTube videos have been simply recorded on a point and shoot camera. No separate audio files.

Mondrian Inspired

So if you read in my previous post about the garage art I had created last summer, you would have seen in there that the Mondrian inspired piece was another one I wanted to work on at some point. It took a while, but during winter break when all of my kids (except one!) decided to cancel for the week before Christmas, I had a lot of time on my hands. Finally found some time to write about it so I'm now getting around to sharing.

I went about the process a little differently than the website I got the idea from (because I actually didn't read the website and after seeing the picture, created my own process on how to go about it in my head.) My was a little more tedious than the other way, but it worked.

The first thing I did was tape to paint the black lines.

If you remember from the previous post, I had explained how my husband had picked up gallons of paint randomly on his way home from work one day for free after seeing a Craigslist ad for free paint. Lo and behold, one of those gallons of paint was black.

Now here's where I start telling you all the DIY secrets. I found the can of black paint, but the instant I cracked it open, it was so sour and bitter and repulsive smelling that I knew I was not going to be using it to paint my wall. I closed it right up, made a mental note to make a phone call later to dispose of it properly, and went on to plan B. Plan B was using another dark shade of paint that we had which I originally thought was black, but after using it for a small project, realized it was a very, very dark shade of blue. Seeing as this project is completely my own and only inspired by Mondrian, I veered from the true black lines in his paintings and opted for the very, very dark shade of blue.

Completed lines

As you can see, the dark blue does its job of being a dark contrasting color and doesn't make that big of a difference.

With the first color - blue!

As you can see, I also did not stay true to Mondrian colors. He used completely primary colors whereas I am using softer pastel shades of each of the three. The reason for this was that coming in, I knew I did not have a true red. The closest thing I had was a milder pink, and this was supposed to be a project that did not require spending any money. So I was not going out to buy red paint. Also, I later realized (which worked out in my favor) that the can of yellow paint we had was also a soft yellow and not a bright yellow. Initially, I had wanted to mix the blue to a lighter baby blue because of personal color preference, but it ended up complementing the other colors better.

The pink paint has gone on.

Finished!

As you can see, I pretty much lightened each shade of color from Mondrian's....by arguably the same degree for each color. I purposely left the edges fuzzy and soft because I wanted a "materializing" effect. Once in the heart of the painting, I made sure to fill everything in with crisp clean edges. 

If you stare at it long enough, you'll actually see the illusion of grey circular dots at the intersection of the dark lines. I don't know how to explain this one, but it's just one of the many ways that our eyes can play tricks on us. 

This is actually my smallest piece of artwork in the garage. It only spans about 4 ft wide and tall. My other pieces are pretty massive and measure about 5 ft wide and 6 ft tall.

I don't know how proud my Humanities teachers or my art history teacher in high school would be, and I didn't do exceptionally well in either class, but I do still love art and find ways to be creative with the space I'm given. I'm slowly running out of walls in my garage to paint,  but I'll think of something. ;)

Ice Festival!

I randomly saw something pop up on my Facebook feed today about the famous Ice Festival in China. Being a cold winter day in Texas (35°F, feels like 27°F right now) I'm quite proud to say I've lived in the city where it's held AND attended four years ago. Had some fun reminiscing over pictures. And yes, it really is -35°C (-31°F) or colder there in the winter.

The Entrance. Tickets were $50 USD when I went.

Let's count! Two pairs of socks, two pairs of leggings, one pair of jeans, one pair of track
pants (not pictured), two thermal tees, one long-sleeved shirt, one fleece pullover, one
winter jacket (not pictured), and mittens (not pictured) = 12 different
layers = how to stay warm when it's ridiculously cold.

It's really made of ice blocks that they light up.

Ice slide

Walking on ice. All night. 

Sitting on ice.

Ice tunnel.

The scope of this place is probably the size of a small neighborhood. We stayed 1.5 hours before we got too cold and didn't even explore the whole thing. 

When you're from Texas, you usually get 0 chances to hug ice that's taller
than you. If you're lucky, you get 1 in a lifetime. I'm lucky. 

Do I miss it? China, yes. The cold, most definitely not. Would I go back? Yeah :)