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Back from Canada
Topic Started: May 18 2008, 04:35 PM (459 Views)
kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
Everything went very well.

I stayed in Stratford Ontario and caught a great performance of Romeo and Juliet.
Romeo was white, Juliet black, they each had one white and one black parent.
Sure the Capulets and the Montagues still hated each other but it was ironic to see the race thing vanish before our eyes.
What an idea, transcending race but not hate.
Nyuck Nyuck Nyuck

I explored London too.
Pics later.

Thanks to all who made recommendations that made my trip so rich!
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jon-nyc
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Cheers
kenny
May 18 2008, 08:35 PM
I stayed in Stratford Ontario and caught a great performance of Romeo and Juliet.
Romeo was white, Juliet black, they each had one white and one black parent.
Sure the Capulets and the Montagues still hated each other but it was ironic to see the race thing vanish before our eyes.
What an idea, transcending race but not hate.

I saw twelfth night at that same venue back in high school.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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sue
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HOLY CARP!!!
Glad to hear things went well. :wave: Are you fully Canadianised now? I'll check your spelling. :hat:
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
I couldn't even spell as an American. :(
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Riley
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HOLY CARP!!!
Glad you had fun!

How did the interview go?
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Red Rice
HOLY CARP!!!
kenny
May 18 2008, 05:13 PM
I couldn't even spell as an American. :(

:lol:

Glad it went well. But... do you think you'd be able to leave sunny California for Canada, Land of the Midnight Sun?
Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool.

I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss!

- Cecil Lewis
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
Ah yes, the school interview.
I think it went very well, but official acceptance/rejection letters won't go out for a week or two.
Cross fingers, but I think I'm in.

The verbal interview part was very well received.
They loved me and my past. (No surprise - I'm wonderful!)
The hardest part was the "hearing" test.
It wasn't the hearing test I had expected.
I thought they'd put you in a soundproof booth, put headphones on you and test the sensitivity and frequency response of your ears.

NOT!

The two interviewers, who run the program, take you up to one of the many practice rooms with pianos (they are reserved for the piano technology students not the music students :P ).
They find out whether you can hear beating strings.
If you can't you are rejected right then.
Sorry Bud - Move along - Fly back to Australia now - Don't call us - We won't call you.

They said hearing beating cannot be learned.
(Perhaps they just don't have the time to teach the people who do not pass)

People with perfect pitch and extensive musical backgrounds are frequently rejected - to their shock and indignation.
The stronger their pitch sense and musical experience the less likely they are to be able to hear beating.
Their musical minds/ears are too rigid.
They have spent their lives ignoring beats, literally tuning out what is needed for tuning pianos.

I love this subject, of the brain filtering perception for a specific benefit, and it is what attracted me to painting - the ability to really see exactly what's out there instead of calling up what is in our minds.
We spend our lives filtering out details that would otherwise drive us into overload insanity.
This is the same thing with sound instead of light.

It was a revelation.
I really struggled at first, but finally I could identify the rate of the beats, not so much with my ears, but with my gut.

They play an interval such as a major third.
I am to clap, tap or vocalize in sync with the beating I hear.
My eyes were closed and I asked him to play the interval again and again as I just about broke out in a cold sweat.
I didn't hear any beating or throbbing.

Here I am changing careers in the middle of my life, flew 2000 miles and think I'm about to be disqualified for the most simple little thing.
Suddenly, involuntarily, my head started to bob with the beating.
That was enough.
"YES, that's it", she said.

Next a new interval.
I couldn't hear any beating.
It sounded perfectly tuned and true to me. DAMMIT!
Then I thought I had found it and, with my voice, I made the wah wah wah sound at the same rate as what I heard.
They both said, "Yes that's the fast one but do you hear a slower one?"
OH CRAP, I thought - I didn't hear it.
I closed my eyes, concentrated hard.

Then right out of nowhere, sure enough it was suddenly just there.
Waaaaaaah Waaaaaaaaah Waaaaaaaah Waaaaaaah Waaaaaaaaah Waaaaaaaah
For me this freaky experience was much like the Oh Wow NOW I See It! feeling that you get with those pictures that came out a few years ago that you stare at and suddenly a 3-D landscape appears out of the visual chaos.
The landscape was there all the time.
You just needed to allow your two eyes to stop converging on the paper and drift apart as if looking at the horizon.
It's hard to use your eyes or ears in a completely new way.

So I passed the "hearing" test.
Next they test if your ear/brain/hand are connected - you must tune a string to cancel the beating.
They mute one string of a tri-chord and detune one.
So two strings are vibrating and beating.
You demonstrate you hear the beating and turn the tuning hammer so the beats slow down, then disappear.

So I passed the critical hearing test, the test that they make everyone around the world fly in for.
I can identify beats but they say it is going to be very hard for me.
I have too much music background for too many years.
I have to let go of hearing that way when I tune.
I think and analyze too much.
It's a "Just do it!" thing.

Then I spend a couple hours wandering around a big shop with 6 or 7 grand pianos in various stages of rebuild by students.
I got to ask them questions.
They all agreed the first two months of learning how to tune was the hardest part.
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Optimistic
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HOLY CARP!!!
Wow, what an interview.

Good luck, Kenny!! It all sounds very exciting.
PHOTOS

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up.
- Mark Twain


We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
-T. S. Eliot
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
Red Rice
May 18 2008, 05:55 PM
do you think you'd be able to leave sunny California for Canada, Land of the Midnight Sun?

For a purpose? Yes.
It's only one winter.
I lived in Iceland for 15 months when I was 19.
Can you say, "Colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra"?

It will be a huge adjustment though.
I'll really miss Jose. :(
and Kizzy and Yaya
and my piano
and my car
and. . .
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dolmansaxlil
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HOLY CARP!!!
You wouldn't bring your car up, kenny?

Besides, I'd be so close by! What's not to love about that! :D
"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

My Flickr Photostream


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pianojerome
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HOLY CARP!!!
kenny
May 18 2008, 10:13 PM
It will be a huge adjustment though.
I'll really miss Jose. :(
and Kizzy and Yaya
and my piano
and my car
and. . .

... BUT WE'LL STILL BE HERE!

Posted Image
Sam
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
Congratulations, Kenny. Glad to hear that it went so well. Welcome back. :)
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
Thanks guys.
Did anything important happen when I was gone? :whistle:
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
kenny
May 18 2008, 09:46 PM
Thanks guys.
Did anything important happen when I was gone? :whistle:

I herd thar wuz peeplez fightin.... and stuff... :unsure: :sombrero:
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
Frank_W
May 18 2008, 06:48 PM
kenny
May 18 2008, 09:46 PM
Thanks guys.
Did anything important happen when I was gone? :whistle:

I herd thar wuz peeplez fightin.... and stuff... :unsure: :sombrero:

People fighting?
Here?

Well - I Never!
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
I know, right? Geeeeeeesh....... :doh:

:lol2:
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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pianojerome
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HOLY CARP!!!
kenny
May 18 2008, 10:46 PM
Thanks guys.
Did anything important happen when I was gone? :whistle:

Yeah, Jolly came out of the closet and Daniel went back in.

Then CrashTest and Larry announced that they were founding a new monastery together, and Dewey denounced them as stupid religious folk who don't think for themselves.

Apple went on a rampage of insults and curses, Renauda sent everyone a PM asking us to be his friend, Bachophile converted to Islam, and John D'oh revealed that he's actually a sockpuppet of Jane D'oh, who is herself a puppet of Riley.

Other than that, it was pretty boring.
Sam
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
pianojerome
May 18 2008, 06:58 PM
kenny
May 18 2008, 10:46 PM
Thanks guys.
Did anything important happen when I was gone? :whistle:

Yeah, Jolly came out of the closet and Daniel went back in.

Then CrashTest and Larry announced that they were founding a new monastery together, and Dewey denounced them as stupid religious folk who don't think for themselves.

Apple went on a rampage of insults and curses, Renauda sent everyone a PM asking us to be his friend, Bachophile converted to Islam, and John D'oh revealed that he's actually a sockpuppet of Jane D'oh, who is herself a puppet of Riley.

Other than that, it was pretty boring.

Dang.
I leave for 4 days and you guys can't keep your pants on. :tsktsk:
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Riley
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HOLY CARP!!!
pianojerome
May 18 2008, 10:58 PM
kenny
May 18 2008, 10:46 PM
Thanks guys.
Did anything important happen when I was gone? :whistle:

Yeah, Jolly came out of the closet and Daniel went back in.

Then CrashTest and Larry announced that they were founding a new monastery together, and Dewey denounced them as stupid religious folk who don't think for themselves.

Apple went on a rampage of insults and curses, Renauda sent everyone a PM asking us to be his friend, Bachophile converted to Islam, and John D'oh revealed that he's actually a sockpuppet of Jane D'oh, who is herself a puppet of Riley.

Other than that, it was pretty boring.

:lol: ^_^
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
pianojerome
May 18 2008, 09:58 PM
kenny
May 18 2008, 10:46 PM
Thanks guys.
Did anything important happen when I was gone? :whistle:

Yeah, Jolly came out of the closet and Daniel went back in.

Then CrashTest and Larry announced that they were founding a new monastery together, and Dewey denounced them as stupid religious folk who don't think for themselves.

Apple went on a rampage of insults and curses, Renauda sent everyone a PM asking us to be his friend, Bachophile converted to Islam, and John D'oh revealed that he's actually a sockpuppet of Jane D'oh, who is herself a puppet of Riley.

Other than that, it was pretty boring.

:lol2: :lol2:
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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pianojerome
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HOLY CARP!!!
kenny
May 18 2008, 10:59 PM
pianojerome
May 18 2008, 06:58 PM
kenny
May 18 2008, 10:46 PM
Thanks guys.
Did anything important happen when I was gone? :whistle:

Yeah, Jolly came out of the closet and Daniel went back in.

Then CrashTest and Larry announced that they were founding a new monastery together, and Dewey denounced them as stupid religious folk who don't think for themselves.

Apple went on a rampage of insults and curses, Renauda sent everyone a PM asking us to be his friend, Bachophile converted to Islam, and John D'oh revealed that he's actually a sockpuppet of Jane D'oh, who is herself a puppet of Riley.

Other than that, it was pretty boring.

Dang.
I leave for 4 days and you guys can't keep your pants on. :tsktsk:

Oh Yeah, I forgot about the giant photo orgy, which was finally deleted after TomK complained about "modesty", or some nonsense like that. Maybe you should go away for another four days, eh?
Sam
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Renauda
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HOLY CARP!!!
pianojerome
May 18 2008, 07:58 PM
Renauda sent everyone a PM asking us to be his friend....

I did nothing of the sort.

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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Thanks for the report, Kenny -- I am very hopeful for you!
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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sue
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HOLY CARP!!!
Kenny, thanks for telling us about the interview. Wowsers, that sounds intense, but so exciting. What an amazing learning experience, even if you don't do the course. I really admire your 'if I don't at least try this, I'll regret it the rest of my life' attitude.
Best wishes, and congats.
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Mark
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HOLY CARP!!!
Congratulations on a great trip and interview Kenny! :thumb:
___.___
(_]===*
o 0
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
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