On Picking Songs and the Sort Apart

I came to the realization that if I wanted to quote a song I was listening to, its an instrumental so the title would be "*soft strings* *building strings with piano noises* *horns*" or something... and it wouldn't exactly describe anything pointing out the song as opposed to other ones. Nevertheless, if you want to listen to that instrumental, it's from the movie "Beasts of the Southern Wild" which I haven't seen yet, but I've heard the soundtrack to.



Anyway, music has become a pretty big part of my life, ever since I first needed it as an inlet back during the Viva La Vida days. What I've learned is that there are three basic elements to a song: the music, lyrics, and  key its written in.

The Music and Key
This is the part that gets stuck in your head and you remember. A melody sticks in your head like your shirt to leather interior in a car. Whether or not you realize it, the song's key and melody is how the majority* of us interpret happy/sad songs. There's this really interesting article from NPR (National Public Radio)'s All Things Considered if you're interested how it all works, and a quirky experiment with an REM song right here: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/08/173832177/can-you-make-sad-songs-sound-happy-and-vice-versa

The Lyrics
This is the actual 'content' of the song... and it seems to me like this is comparable to a webpage where the content is what is actually pretty important, but everyone bases the mood of it off of the CSS or 'fancy stuff'.

SO where am I going with all of this? We did lyric analyses in English class as a sort of 'poetry analysis.' Now let me put this with all of the formatting I can put on here:

I Am Bad At Poetry

But I am pretty good with music. So I used my WYEP recording of Mark Dignam and the House of Song's performance at the Hootenanny... I was able to get through it, but here's what I learned about analyzing poetry. A note to any English majors or teachers... I'm not too qualified to say this. Remember that I'm a high school sophomore, and take my thoughts as you will.

• When searching for a deeper meaning, if it seems too hard, you're thinking too hard. 
• Frost poems usually have a deeper meaning, you're not trying hard enough.
• When writing poetry, keep to the rubric and then add flair afterwards.
• Finally, if you're a blogger attempting to do poetry, keep the poetry to a need-to basis, because I'm not good at this.

But the first point makes sense for a lot of things. Don't try searching for deeper meanings all of the time. Search a bit, look at something from a different perspective, but much like a game of Jenga, pull something too too much and the whole bloody tower may fall down.

Just some thoughts.

The Title Should Come To Me Eventually

So this week has been about "WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" for me. I'll tell you what I mean. It seems a tad bizarre that at a young age we are asked to decide on what we want to do for essentially the rest of it.

I mean, at this point I don't yet know if I have the skillset to do just about anything. My mentality right now is that college would teach me the things, but until I am released from there into the real world after spending my four years I don't know if I can do said thing.

This is exactly why I made resolution back in 2007 or whatever it was to try as many different things as possible, and to jump at pretty much every opportunity, which has left my schedule, well, here's last April:

Yeah, I dont put everything on my calendars... this is April 2012 though

So what I've noticed is that I'm doing a bunch of things, but not exactly with an aim. I recently came to the realization that I have only two years left in high school before I need to decide on what major to go to, and ultimately what career I have... AAH!

So I sat down with my mother and guidance counselor this week and basically talk about that. The fact I do too much stuff for my own health, and the whole "AAH" part. Here's what I learned:

1) Doing stuff is actually REALLY GOOD. It lets you know your likes and dislikes; my stress and the sort is a GOOD thing.

2) I can now start hammering out what stuff I really need to be doing.  

So that's reassuring.  I also talked to a possible Journalism teacher in our building about the possibility of taking such a course in high school. Bottom line, things are looking up, I just am in a place where I am not sure what is supposed to happen.

But I enjoy living in the present. I enjoy the idea of not having the future written out ahead of me in pen but rather me having a pencil for a memory and a pen for action.

I guess my life is a tad like my handwriting - messy and not too pretty, but legible. And the stuff that I do bolder is even more legible.

Side note: The reason I currently have the whole "Rock Salt" branding is a) it's free and b) it sort of resembles my handwriting.

-Alexander Popichak

My Head is Spinning

So yeah, this week.

I've attempted to write a coherent blog post since Thursday (when I actually start writing these posts) but haven't come across anything that appealed to me to write about, or talk about.

One thing that I should acknowledge: the extremely nice people at TEDxGrandviewAve tweeted out a link to my perspective:

Webcast party people took @tedxgrandviewav into their own hands without a livestream: 2015blogger.blogspot.com/2013/02/tedxgr… #ideasPGH @alexpopichak :)
— TEDxGrandviewAve (@TEDxGrandviewAv) February 27, 2013

So, yeah, THANKS!!!! I sent them some of the pictures that I took, and they may post them along with some others in an upcoming project.

I spent my Saturday at WYEP, and hammered out some details and the sort about this year's Re(imagiNATION) competition. New this year, we are accepting applications for art, as well as music for the competition to be held May 4th at Schenley Plaza.

To read about MUSIC: http://reimaginemedia.blogspot.com/2013/02/announcing-reimagination-2013s-music.html
To read about ART: http://reimaginemedia.blogspot.com/2013/02/announcing-reimaginations-art-division.html
The Application: http://www.wyep.org/form/708753

Hopefully this Friday I'll post something worthwhile to read, but until then my mind is just spinning from musical, WYEP, school, and just about everything else.