Classical Convert

I should have titled the last posts Exposition

I think I’m starting to get the hang of WordPress, and the site seems to be coming along pretty well. Maybe next week I’ll start publicizing it a bit. Today I made a new logo (much better than the old one) with a snippet from Shostakovich’s string quartet number 8 in the background. I even worked out how to do transparency gradients in the Gimp, which wasn’t actually very hard, but it makes it look kinda professional. Ish. Prefessionalish. I also wrote a page with some common issues people have when listening to classical music for the first time.

I’m going up to Maine to see my dad and stepmum for the Christmas break on Thursday, which means I won’t be able to do my next grand scheme too well, yet. I’m going to make little pages for each composer, and put 30 second representative samples on each page. Maybe a large scale piece and a small scale piece, or something. I’ll link to good resources for them as well. it’ll be fantastic!

I also want to do something similar for the different musical eras. Maybe if I upload a bunch of music files tomorrow I can write some of the pages in Maine, if i can get on my dad’s Mac. I wish I had a laptop…

Post beginnings

Today I managed to write a guide to taking one’s first step, instead of working in lab - but that was kind of expected since we had Lucy’s farewell party and everyone had to skive off early to go buy stuff. I’m now exhausted from lots of hot-pot and beer, and look forward to collapsing quite promptly in bed.

I’m still finding it difficult to write in my own voice, while teaching. I think some people are really good at doing both in the same way, whereas I tend to switch personas. I think I adjust to my situation too much at the expense of my personality, sometimes.

Beginnings

Today I really started getting this site together. I played around with WordPress, trying to pretty up the front page and make it look less like a list of blog entries. The logo is still pretty horrible, but I ain’t no graphic designer, and I don’t fancy spending hours and hours trying make it look great - it seems more important to get some real content up.

In terms of actual, quality, content I put together a list of reasons for choosing classical over pop music and did a little front page blurb. It’s hard to get the tone of writing right. I worry that it comes off sounding like some fanboy trying desperately hard to be funny. It’s tricky writing to an unknown audience… I try to imagine I’m writing an eMail to one of my friends instead, but not quite with so much free deputizing of the language.

It’s seems good to have this blog area in addition to the main content to get my thoughts straight and just blab on a bit!