The weekend
Jul. 11th, 2005 11:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bethlakshmiA pretty nice, but busy weekend. How did a quiet weekend at home become so busy? Well... because I'm me, I guess. And, it's a month before Pennsic (ack!). General breakdown:
- Friday and Saturday-day - spent with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
new_man - saw "War of the Worlds", saw a rinky-dink carnival, did a little shopping, had a house tour of the Quincy house that was home to family of John/John Quincy Adams and family. Very nice, very mellow day.
- paid bills, had a nice at-home dinner Saturday night.
-
Did the last round of recording work at Bard Wire (www.bardwire.com). Richie says "you were a pleasure to work with" - which means a lot. If you know him, he's not a man that minces words, or says what he doesn't mean. So... it wasn't a pleasantry - he was honestly happy. I guess I shouldn't be suprised, I thought of this as a team effort - and he clearly appreciated that - that I listened to his expertise, took his coaching seriously, and came prepared. Why wouldn't I?
We've got a CD I'm pretty happy with. I still need to proof the final master copy, but if it's what I think it is I'm thrilled:
- copy of full-speed with stick accompaniment - laid down stick track in *1* take. It has a few imperfections, but nothing undanceable.
- copy of slow-speed with stick accompaniment - a weaker track in general. I can hear myself pushing against the slower speed - it's not what I'm used to. But necessary for a dancer who is learning.
- slow-speed broken into 7 different practice tracks - same song, but positioned for optimal practicing of repeated sections, broken into logical clumps, and somewhat informed by practing with my students.
- one more copy of the full speed, with no sticks - in case my few errors with sticks, or just the sound of the sticks, really bugs you. And because, it was super easy to throw on there.
That's about 20 minutes of music, all told - not a lot by regular CD standards, but it took two of us - Richie and I - 20 hours, total to set it up. And, a mind-boggling amount of recording equipment. We tried out about 10 different microphones on my voice, two on my sticks, two amplifiers, and used two different control boards. Plus cabling, mike stands, CDs, etc.
Hope to do more stuff in the fall - maybe recording the more melodic, and varied slokums. Reading an overview of modern Bharata Natyam, I have learned that one of the strongest suits of my particular school of Bharata Natyam - "Mysore style" - is known for it's profound, expressive and copious abhinaya. We do a lot more of it than other schools - particularly in the slokum area (a-rhythmic chant of devotional songs). It seems like it would be nice to put together a slokum CD, to capture this stuff.
-
Went on (with dinner break) from recording to a private dance class given to one of my students. She has a video recorder and an imac, that she is interested in learning more about. So she's videoing me, and will edit a stretch routine and a full choreography demo of this same routine. We taped in her back yard, and I ended up having to do a half-way cut. (sigh) Was going so well, but cramped up at the end on the uneven ground. Keep telling myself - "I'm amateur, and this is an amateur video" - it doesn't have to be perfect.
Nicely, was able to use my own recording from above, for the background music for the dance. So it's me on video, dancing to a recording of me. Mind-warping. Festival of me.
Then did class - we are on the last class! Did the wrap up and went home in good time. Felt like a short class.
Seems like Crazy White Woman Productions is in full force. I'm actually amazed that what I thought about 2-3 years ago is coming to fruition. I was dreaming big - talking about trying to develop a dance class that would let my Pennsic students work for a higher goal than I can actually teach at Pennsic, and here my first stretch is actually taking on full force. We have:
- a professional quality audio recording with practice tracks
- a amateur, but good quality DVD in the works
- a website of intro material
- a handout that is fully written, but needs images to be taken and added
- a set of three dancers almost ready (definitely done by Pennsic) to be my ringers, so I can handle a "no-cap class size" without much worry.
I regularly have classes of ~30 people, so the fear of a big class is not unrealistic - considering my teacher doesn't like to teach more than 10 at once, and prefers to teach 3-5 people. Now... admittedly, she is filling a different niche - she is involved in long-term dance commitments. I am teaching short bursts. When I teach a long-term commitment, I'm finding that my 3 dancers are as many people I would want to teach... at least until I develop an auxilary set of eyes. :)
But, I have to pause for a moment and take a look at the breadth of media that is developing here - and to say a prayer of thanks to the people who have stepped up to help. I certainly couldn't be doing this audio and video without those who are doing the real technical work - I don't have the skills or the time to develop them.
For them that's curious - the media will actually be sold - probably for $5.00 per media item:
- $5.00 for CD
- $5.00 for DVD (plan is pending - need to find out cost of DVD material)
- $5.00 for a complete set of handouts nicely bound into a booklet. Probably about 30 pages of material!
Day-by-day handouts will be free - but you only get the day's handout, and it's your own problem to try to keep it from getting destroyed by Pennsic. The $5.00 for the whole package will include some clever stationary solution to crumpling, and possibly water-soaking.
Why $5? Because:
A - it's easy to make change, I don't need singles.
B - it's reasonably cheap
C - it's enough to notice
My main goal - this was hard enough work, that I don't want people to just take a peice of media and toss it on the floor of the car and never touch it again. I want them to put a little value on the material, and take one if they think they'd like to practice. But I don't want it to break the bank. I like the spirit of the SCA - that education is freely given, and taken with gratitude, as a service to the Society. I teach, and in return, I feel justified in partaking of the coolness that is the SCA - including taking other free classes. But... there's a classic problem - that which is offered freely is not given value. So... $5.00 - enough to notice, hopefully not detrimental to Pennsic budgets. And if anyone is too utterly poor, I will probably accept service as a fair trade. I can always use an umbrella holder. :) I even have a dorky umbrella.
... May offer a package - like $12 for the set of three... or maybe even $10, if I saw you in class more than once or twice... have to figure logistics.
- Friday and Saturday-day - spent with
new_man - saw "War of the Worlds", saw a rinky-dink carnival, did a little shopping, had a house tour of the Quincy house that was home to family of John/John Quincy Adams and family. Very nice, very mellow day.- paid bills, had a nice at-home dinner Saturday night.
-
Did the last round of recording work at Bard Wire (www.bardwire.com). Richie says "you were a pleasure to work with" - which means a lot. If you know him, he's not a man that minces words, or says what he doesn't mean. So... it wasn't a pleasantry - he was honestly happy. I guess I shouldn't be suprised, I thought of this as a team effort - and he clearly appreciated that - that I listened to his expertise, took his coaching seriously, and came prepared. Why wouldn't I?
We've got a CD I'm pretty happy with. I still need to proof the final master copy, but if it's what I think it is I'm thrilled:
- copy of full-speed with stick accompaniment - laid down stick track in *1* take. It has a few imperfections, but nothing undanceable.
- copy of slow-speed with stick accompaniment - a weaker track in general. I can hear myself pushing against the slower speed - it's not what I'm used to. But necessary for a dancer who is learning.
- slow-speed broken into 7 different practice tracks - same song, but positioned for optimal practicing of repeated sections, broken into logical clumps, and somewhat informed by practing with my students.
- one more copy of the full speed, with no sticks - in case my few errors with sticks, or just the sound of the sticks, really bugs you. And because, it was super easy to throw on there.
That's about 20 minutes of music, all told - not a lot by regular CD standards, but it took two of us - Richie and I - 20 hours, total to set it up. And, a mind-boggling amount of recording equipment. We tried out about 10 different microphones on my voice, two on my sticks, two amplifiers, and used two different control boards. Plus cabling, mike stands, CDs, etc.
Hope to do more stuff in the fall - maybe recording the more melodic, and varied slokums. Reading an overview of modern Bharata Natyam, I have learned that one of the strongest suits of my particular school of Bharata Natyam - "Mysore style" - is known for it's profound, expressive and copious abhinaya. We do a lot more of it than other schools - particularly in the slokum area (a-rhythmic chant of devotional songs). It seems like it would be nice to put together a slokum CD, to capture this stuff.
-
Went on (with dinner break) from recording to a private dance class given to one of my students. She has a video recorder and an imac, that she is interested in learning more about. So she's videoing me, and will edit a stretch routine and a full choreography demo of this same routine. We taped in her back yard, and I ended up having to do a half-way cut. (sigh) Was going so well, but cramped up at the end on the uneven ground. Keep telling myself - "I'm amateur, and this is an amateur video" - it doesn't have to be perfect.
Nicely, was able to use my own recording from above, for the background music for the dance. So it's me on video, dancing to a recording of me. Mind-warping. Festival of me.
Then did class - we are on the last class! Did the wrap up and went home in good time. Felt like a short class.
Seems like Crazy White Woman Productions is in full force. I'm actually amazed that what I thought about 2-3 years ago is coming to fruition. I was dreaming big - talking about trying to develop a dance class that would let my Pennsic students work for a higher goal than I can actually teach at Pennsic, and here my first stretch is actually taking on full force. We have:
- a professional quality audio recording with practice tracks
- a amateur, but good quality DVD in the works
- a website of intro material
- a handout that is fully written, but needs images to be taken and added
- a set of three dancers almost ready (definitely done by Pennsic) to be my ringers, so I can handle a "no-cap class size" without much worry.
I regularly have classes of ~30 people, so the fear of a big class is not unrealistic - considering my teacher doesn't like to teach more than 10 at once, and prefers to teach 3-5 people. Now... admittedly, she is filling a different niche - she is involved in long-term dance commitments. I am teaching short bursts. When I teach a long-term commitment, I'm finding that my 3 dancers are as many people I would want to teach... at least until I develop an auxilary set of eyes. :)
But, I have to pause for a moment and take a look at the breadth of media that is developing here - and to say a prayer of thanks to the people who have stepped up to help. I certainly couldn't be doing this audio and video without those who are doing the real technical work - I don't have the skills or the time to develop them.
For them that's curious - the media will actually be sold - probably for $5.00 per media item:
- $5.00 for CD
- $5.00 for DVD (plan is pending - need to find out cost of DVD material)
- $5.00 for a complete set of handouts nicely bound into a booklet. Probably about 30 pages of material!
Day-by-day handouts will be free - but you only get the day's handout, and it's your own problem to try to keep it from getting destroyed by Pennsic. The $5.00 for the whole package will include some clever stationary solution to crumpling, and possibly water-soaking.
Why $5? Because:
A - it's easy to make change, I don't need singles.
B - it's reasonably cheap
C - it's enough to notice
My main goal - this was hard enough work, that I don't want people to just take a peice of media and toss it on the floor of the car and never touch it again. I want them to put a little value on the material, and take one if they think they'd like to practice. But I don't want it to break the bank. I like the spirit of the SCA - that education is freely given, and taken with gratitude, as a service to the Society. I teach, and in return, I feel justified in partaking of the coolness that is the SCA - including taking other free classes. But... there's a classic problem - that which is offered freely is not given value. So... $5.00 - enough to notice, hopefully not detrimental to Pennsic budgets. And if anyone is too utterly poor, I will probably accept service as a fair trade. I can always use an umbrella holder. :) I even have a dorky umbrella.
... May offer a package - like $12 for the set of three... or maybe even $10, if I saw you in class more than once or twice... have to figure logistics.