I bought a electronic drumkit and I entered ‘Popschool’ again

I always thought drumming was fun. Its close to the Bass Guitar as the rhythm section in a band. So I took some chances to play drums when I attended Musik og Teater HojSkole in Toftlund. (Check back on my earlier post on the Snow Queen Project) When I learned that I couldn’t take bass lessons for a small year, I decided to buy a drumkit, take lessons and enter a music school again.

Two weeks ago I bought a Medeli DD501 drum kit and took lessons with a drum teacher in Zwijndrecht. I have had two lessons now and its going pretty good I think. Just now I also entered my registration at the popschool, so I’m going to be playing a lot of drums this year.

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.

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.

I have decided to move my blog the the blogger free blog feature of google.

Why you ask? I’m going to change this page throughout 2009 (at least thats the plan) and I’m trying to make it more easilly manageble for myself.

And also blogger is a part of a communicty, bigger audience = more win.

new blog is: http://skittles-jess.blogspot.com/

Music
As most people who read this blog know (or if you didnt know yet), I am a big fan of Muse. Recently during my numerous Youtubing browsing for music I stumbled across some old muse B-sides. I knew most of them through my Hullabaloo live CD. But these radio/album recording are so much better then those live ones. And thus of course I have to share them with you:

Muse - Dead Star

Muse - In your World

Muse - Sunburn (not a B-side)

Muse wasn’t the only band who came back to my attention. Recently I am in the mood for SKA. And that brought back memories about this punk/Ska band called Reel Big Fish. I only knew one of their songs, Where have you been. This was a great moment to look up more of their music. Prepare for more links!

Reel Big Fish - Where have you been

Reel Big Fish - Don’t Start a Band

Reel Big Fish - Party Down

Reel Big Fish - Take on me

*Jess walks off singing*

I hate to ruin the magic
I hate to kill the dream
but once you’ve been behind the scenes then you’ll know just what I mean
you might think that’s its cool to get up on stage
and play rock and roll from your heart and soul
but no one shows up and your songs all suck
and there’s no applause and no flying cars
no girls will scream for you and no ones gonna stay in love with you

Don’t start a band
no body wants to hear nobody understands
don’t start a band
you will be so damn terrible they’ll all think your shitty
don’t start a band
oh yea yea yea
’cause you wont get paid
and you won’t get laid!