How to Train Your Dragon

Yesterday . . . no, the day before yesterday the family and I went and saw How to Train Your Dragon at the [two] dollar theater.  I have to say, I loved it.  Great story, great soundtrack, other than a very few things here and there, it is now one of my favorite animated movies yet.  I was thinking of writing my own review of the movie but after reading an article by N. D. Wilson on it which pretty much says everything I would've, I decided to just post a link to his article.

Here's the article.

And here's the awesome trailer:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHUhygdAZIw

My new blog.

Hey guys, check out my new music blog!


http://compositioncrescendo.blogspot.com/?zx=a7d313302e0b9def

Note: for copyright concerns, the blog is only visible to people I have invited.

A Little Ditty

So, just the other day I was playing around and came up with this little melody.  I took it a few steps further by adding a few more harmonizing melodies, arranged it for a small orchestra, and, tada!  I might use it in something eventually, maybe a single movement work for the orchestra.  It almost has that "Symphonic Italian" sound if you know what I mean.  I have a recording you can listen to here.

Also, I have a few other songs in making right now.  Hope to post (sometime) in the near future.

All Music © Copyright Daniel White Music 2010

Beethoven's Violin Sonata no. 5

The Violin Sonata No. 5 in F major, Opus 24, is a violin sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is often known as the "Spring" sonata, and was published in 1801. Its dedicatee was Count Moritz von Fries, a patron to whom the fourth violin sonata, the string quintet of the same year, and the seventh symphony were also dedicated.


The work is in four movements:


Allegro


Adagio molto espressivo


Scherzo: Allegro molto


Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo


The Scherzo and its trio are particularly brief (and as pointed out here the scherzo is canonic).

~Wikipedia
 
To you music people out there, this probably makes sense.  But not everybody is a music people, I will explain.
 
Basically what the previous quote means is that Beethoven's 5th violin sonata is a sonata (duh) with four totally awesome movements.  It really is sweet sounding.
 
To show you how awesome it actually is, I have imbedded videos of all four movements.
 








 
By the way, I have a recital coming up in about a week and I'm planning on learning this after it.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKf043MXTYA
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qLMxTWxcIQ&feature=related
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrRX5iyqS7g&feature=related
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LKYLP-zvHA&feature=related

Gladiator: The Score

I have recently been listening to the score for the movie Gladiator.  It was written by Hans Zimmer so naturally, it's amazing.  One of my personal favorites.  I love how he uses a lot of sweeping and flowing melodies in comparison with many of his other scores.

Here are three of my favorite songs from the soundtrack.







http://www.youtube.com/user/ShabahSaz02#p/u/67/ZAOTSO9ioZk

http://www.youtube.com/user/ShabahSaz02#p/u/56/naovSOqgkJE

http://www.youtube.com/user/ShabahSaz02#p/u/55/vHAvjaHtlMA

Two Compositions

So, I recently finished up two of my compositions (see title). 

The first composition was one I had started back in November.  It had really been a kind of exercise I had set up for myself to get my crative juices flowing again after being in a session of dryness in composing.  Anyhow I had put it on hold for awhile (my creative juices had got flowin' so well from my exercise I couldn't stay on one project) and just recently finished it up.  Here is A Short Scene of the Mountains.

The next composition was also a sort of exercise, but more recent.  I guess when you're kind of green in composition anything new is an exercise :).  I had never composed much action/suspense music and wanted to try my hand at it.  So here is Flight to the Mountains (what is it with me and and my songs including the word "mountain"?).

Enjoy.

All Music ©Daniel White Music 2009

Recital

Well, a few weeks ago (on the 2nd of November to be exact) I had a violin recital.  My brother video-taped it but I decided I would wait to tell about it 'til I had the video so I could have the whole shabang in one post.  Included is my brothers piano performance of the same recital.  I think it went fairly well.


Daniel and Benjamin's Recital, November 2009 from Stephanie White on Vimeo.

Czardas

I just had to post this.

Csárdás is a traditional Hungarian folk dance, the name derived from csárda, an old Hungarian name for a pub. It originated in Hungary and was popularized by Roma music (Cigány) bands in Hungary and neighboring lands of Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Burgenland, Croatia, Carpathian Ruthenia, Transylvania and Moravia, as well as among the Banat Bulgarians, including those in Bulgaria.  ~Wikipedia

Maxim Vengerov is on the violin.  I love their expressions!

Finale 2010

Hoorah!  It has arrived!  Last week I ordered Finale 2010, which is a very powerful music notation software with high quality playback including Garritan Personal Orchestra and a few other midi libraries.  Anyhow, today it arrived.  So far I've downloaded it and messed around a bit.  I previously was using Finale Songwriter, which is a less expensive version with not as many features.  I'm very happy.