I changed the Theme of my wordpress blog. I think this one is nicer looking then the old one (which looked pretty glossy and new) Other new things include: I have a new job as a Medical Engineer in a Hospital.

With the money I earn I plan to build a small home studio. These are the things I am currently concidering to buy for it:

- Imac
- M-box 2 (included protools LE)
- Reason 4.0

Hope to get some of the equipment this summer, its expensive though

The King of Pop is not dead! (or maybe he is…..)

My friend Viveka visited for a few days aswell and we had a really fun time. On wednesday there was a sing a song writer called Annemarie Zimakoff who performed at the school. On thursday we had the Spil Danksk Dag (play danish day) where we went on a little tour to nearby school and preformed a song and did some drumming aswell.

During the weekend we celebrated Halloween at the Music and Teaterhøjskole. I dressed up as the ‘King of Pop’ and Viv dressed up as The Queen of Hearts (from Alice in Wonderland). It was a really cozy party with many beers, fun music, spooky smoke and limbo dancing!? Here are some pictures.

MJ is having fun :D                                     The Queen of Hearts

I’ve started on making some electronic music. David is giving a course in reason 4, A program to make electronic music (like synths and drum computers). Also I have chosen the Sound Technique Elective course where we will learn all kinds of things about recording, microphones and recording software.

I already helped out on some small recordings. And we will have to make a bigger recording later in the course.

The Snow Queen Musical was a succes!

Yesterday we had to perform it. I was part of the band as a drummer.It was really cool to see how the other group had made their part of the musical. It was a bit of a shame I didn’t understand the text because everything was in danish. But the actors were really good and it was very fun to see nontheless.

The above picture is the band and I’ll post some pictures later, there is also a movie.

I just had my first two weeks at the music and theater school. It was so much fun. The first week was an introduction week and we did some games and had lessons in all the main lines (dance, theater and music). The first week ended with an party where Julia and me were the DJ’s.

Now the real work has started.The big event in the first real week is a musical which we have to make called The Snow Queen. All the students at the school were split into four groups and each group has to take care of a 1/4 part of the musical. That included writing  music, stage and lighting. Together with some other students I am playing the music for our part.

I’m playing the drums because we have two bassists and no drummer. Its a challenge because I never played drum before and we have until next Friday to practice. So I will have to learn drumming within  one week. We’re playing 3 songs, A Walsh, a Pink Floyd psychedelic song and a funk song. I’m going to practice tonight.

Besides the musical I had music class where we played 2 songs (Dictee- If This Is Cool, Incubus - Anti Gravity). We are going to practice 3 songs for music line in total, which we will play live in October. Next to the main study lines there are elective classes you can attend. I picked Theater, Show Dance, Danish language, Radio Theater and solo lessons in singing and Piano.

Last Monday I threw a goodbye party to my friends. Earlier that day I bought two canvasses and some paint. During the party me and my friends painted the canvasses and the above paintings are the results.It was really fun to paint, I painted the fish (you can try to find it). I will make more painting when I get back. It was a really fun party but it was sad to have to say goodbye to all my friends. (It was also sad some of them couldn’t make it). But I will see them again in January.

Today I left The Netherlands for Denmark. My Parents are taking me and my things to Denmark by car. During the packing process I noticed that I actually have a lot of things I wanted to bring. Maybe even too much,but ill sort that out in Toftlund. We are going to Denmark in two days, because we make a pitstop for beer and food in Hamburger (Germany).

We left Dordrecht around 9.30 and the journey to Hamburg took about 5 hours. After settling in the hotel, we went for food and a beer. Everywhere in Hamburg we noticed weird dressed people. (Like men with skirts and girls with stickers.) It turned out they were having a sort of Gay Parade festival.After dinner we went to Starbucks for coffee and had a few more beers in a pub.
Tomorrow morning we set off to Toftlund.

It’s been a while since I wrote something on Jazzwood, but that doesn’t mean nothing happened! I have been busy with a lot of different things, one being graduation, my final band presentation and preparing for my stay in Denmark.

One major stress-factor the past months was writing my final paper. It’s the main reason I didn’t post anything. It turned out to be really tricky to get it right and it was a lot of work. I found out I’m not really made for physics.

The final part of my graduation was a presentation on my research subject. It went good and I got a 7 out of 10. So I’m finally done with school and I’m graduated. You can call me Ing.* Jazz now.
*(Ing. Translates as Engineer and it a bachelor-grade title)

On the same day I had my final band presentation with Omnivore. The final presentations were held in Bibelot, a church rebuild into a Music stage. That night different bands had to play 2-3 songs, we were second last. My parents were there and so were Bas, Viveka and Geert. After our first song the crowd burst into a massive wave of cheers and applause, something we didn’t expect at all!

Most of bands that night weren’t that good and the crowd was mostly parents cheering for their kids and their friends. So I was surprised we got such a good response. Guess we might have something here that has potential to go big.

At the moment I’m preparing for Denmark (Hey, its the whole reason I started this blog). I still need to pack my stuff and set-up some things. I’m really excited about it, it is a little scary and all but its going to be great.

I’m going to stop writing now because of some small hangover thing from yesterday.

Jazz out.

Today I had a school day, so no internship and more free time. Which I spend practicing Bass. It went pretty well, and I can now play along Hysteria from Muse.

I still need a lot of practice improving my tone & rythym a bit but at least now I can keep up with it and play it through. Some other bass player at the popschool saw my practicing before the lessons started and gave me a tip:
I should keep the fingers of my right hand more steady, because now they draw some unneeded energy.

Singing went good aswel, I sang The Time Is Now . I need to work more on my breathing and take some vitamins for getting rid of my chronic cold.
The next song I am going to practice is Sunburn by Muse . The teacher said I could reach it, but its a challenge and I need to learn some new techniques.

Muse

Wouldn’t you like to travel the world for free? I would! Because most of the time I don’t have the money for it.  I was randomly browsing the web last Friday and I came across this amazingly interesting website.

It has 9 tips on how to travel the world for free. I like traveling, discovering things and free stuff.
So this is something I definitely want to try out. Maybe something I will try this next summer. Gives me enough time to find people to tag/take along with.

You can check it out here: The travelers notebook.

Strange perhaps? A new theme on a dead blog?

As I’ve stated before I have been thinking about making my own website for about a small year now. And recently I’ve started to learn HTML & CSS.  So finally I’m on my way of making it.


A question you’ll probably have: What is this personal website going to be about?

Firstly I’m going to enroll in a Danish Folk high school, and I want to use this website to keep friends and family updated on my wonderful adventures.

Secondly I’m having a growing interest in web design & illustration. Well to be honest I’ve always had the the interest but didn’t give it much attention outside school papers etc. I’m going to add a portfolio part to the website later on.

Lastly I’m going to keep track of all the fun things that happened / are going to happen in my life and use it as a digital photo album.


Its going to be a bit of work. next weekend I’ll try to make some simple test websites and start practicing illustrator using tutorials from ndesign studio.
I’m still going to use my old blog until I got this one sorted out.

Jess out.