ANIBLOG BETTING
(Alternate Title: Staking Chances on a Competition of Senseless Animation Vituperations, Organized by a Naïvely Egotistical Writer, Part Two)
(Alternative Title: Wow, Look at This Super Cool Temporary Theme I Will Be Using for the Duration of this Tournament Because Otherwise, I’d Lose to Otou-san & Co. Near-Instantly)
I chose not to go with the alternate title since a) ANIBLOG BETTING literally screams at you and I would literally scream at you in real life b) the alternate title is too long c) I already have a post called that d) ANIBLOG BETTING just sounds cooler. Also, ANIBLOG BETTING could be an acronym for ‘A Nice Italian Bakery Loses Our Gold, Because Eating Their Taiyaki Is Not Gratifying’. Sure that doesn’t have anything to do with ANIBLOG BETTING but it DOES, because ‘A Nice Italian Bakery Loses Our Gold, Because Eating Their Taiyaki Is Not Gratifying’ can be shortened to ANIBLOG BETTING.
ONWARDS!
BUT WAIT! Surely there must be some reward for winning this that isn’t just pride. And indeed there is! The first place winner will receive the chance to write one (1) COMPLETELY UNEDITED post on O-New, a post that I won’t even read before publishing. In it, you can write ANYTHING YOU WANT, embed ANYTHING YOU WANT (as long as it’s not hardcore porn), and generally yeah, do whatever you want. You can talk about how Mushyrulez really sucks. You can write about that super cool hentai anime you just watched (but take notice: O-New is currently a child-friendly blog!). You can show us just how horrible this entire idea is.
BUT WAIT! That’s not all! Do I sound like an annoying TV advertiser yet? If yes, GREAT because that’s who I’m going to be. The first place winner will ALSO receive a FREE O-REW, free of charge. Completely free. Not like there are such things as paid O-REWs, anyways.
BUT WAIT! That’s not all! You will also receive a complimentary DRAWING of ANYTHING YOU WANT (but take notice: if you tell me to draw porn, I’ll draw prawn instead)! The second place winner will receive an O-REW and a complimentary drawing, and the third place winner will receive either an O-REW or a complimentary drawing. Of course, if you don’t want any of these, just tell me, but if you do… YOU BETTER PARTICIPATE, and SPREAD THE WORD so that you can actually bet with people you actually know!!
Observe: THE FINAL BRACKET of the Tourney, which contains all the MATCHES for ANIBLOG TOURNING!!!!
Observe: THIS ORIGINAL POST, which contains all the RULES for ANIBLOG BETTING!!!
Observe: A LIST OF PARTICIPANTS, which contains all the PARTICIPANTS for ANIBLOG BETTING!!
Observe: Oh right, I have to write that list! Here it is (ordered REVERSE-ALPHABETICALLY because we’re hipster like that):
Staking Chances on a Competition of Senseless Animation Vituperations, Organized by a Naïvely Egotistical Writer
Surely you have all heard about it.
Guess what we’re going to do?
We’re going to bet.
We’re going to bet on the Aniblog Tourney. Yes, we’re going to be Staking Chances on a Competition of Senseless Animation Vituperations, Organized by a Naïvely Egotistical Writer. And that’s me. I’ll organize this SCCSAV:O-NEW. All you guys have to do is bet.
THE LYRICS GOD ONLY KNOWS CHALLENGE
Seeing that I DON’T HAVE A POST, I NEED A POST IN FOURTY MINUTES, I’m STILL WATCHING EPISODE ONES OF SOME ANIMU EVEN THOUGH MY SEASON PREVIEW IS STILL IN THE DRYER, and I JUST DOWNLOADED TWGOK S2 EPISODE ONE, I decide to TAKE THIS CHALLENGE ON!
THE LYRICS GOD ONLY KNOWS CHALLENGE
(flipped OP but whatever)
Seeing that I also fluent in BOTH JAPANESE and ENGLISH, I shall write the lyrics in BOTH LANGUAGES SIMULTANEOUSLY (Wow, I never even knew I had a tag for Engrish)!
Twilight
Alternative title: America is boring as hell.
Yep, I’m back from my vacation.
Of the time of writing this post, there is about, oh, I don’t know, ONE DAY of 2010 left. I don’t know if many of you know, but Ichigos is having another composition contest. If you’ll remember (you won’t, there was nobody reading then), one of my earliest compositions was prompted by an Ichigos contest (which, I subsequently received 2nd place – also known as last, because only two people entered).
Unfortunately, there are far more competitors this time, and the monetary prizes are no small talk either. And I have one day to submit something.
One day. That’s basically five hours. Why am I still writing this post? I don’t know, I’ll do nothing but compose tomorrow. Why did I read that epic mahjong manga? Which, if I may mention, is awesome? When JAPANESE ROBOTS fight HITLER in MAHJONG on the MOON, I think it’s PRETTY AWESOME. GEORGE BUSH’s power level is OVER EIGHT THOUSAND too (a normal person’s power level is seven, not seven thousand). Of course, that’s nothing to HITLER’s power level of THIRTY TWO THOUSAND.
In other real-world news, Comiket 79 has hit once again, obvious from the flood of Comiket music, PVs, and more hitting the internet (and the many cries of anguished line-waiters). It’s ending tomorrow, too.
Heh, you’d expect me to write some New Year’s post soon, so I won’t keep this any longer. I’m too lazy to even slap any pictures on here. On that note, I’ll delay (once more, once more) the Winter anime preview to next year. Sigh, vacation just seems to pass so quickly (or I wasted half of it in America doing NOTHING AT ALL).
Anyways, back to the title of this post: Twilight.
It does not suck.
What? You didn’t see that?
TWILIGHT DOES NOT SUCK.
As far as I can tell, there is no blatant exhibition of horrible, unpaced writing; no ill-developed main character; no drastically unrealistic plot. Twilight is, for a book, pretty good – you can read it without stopping, given the time necessary. The writing is many times better than even the grammar of many people who claim to have read it; indeed, this is not a book written by a teenager. It’s written by an adult, a very capable adult, whose intelligence vastly surpasses that of many individuals in society.
Book-wise, it’s decent. No – it’s good.
Of course, with the exception of how “Edward’s perfect eyes looked at me from his perfect face as perfect mucus dripped out of his perfect nose.”
Novel-wise, it’s a FUCKING MASTERPIECE. This Stephanie Meyer person is SO SMART THAT ALBERT EINSTEIN WOULD LOOK AT HER AND SHIT BRICKS.
Firstly, let’s look at Bella’s character.
Huh? Character? Where’s that? Bella’s well-developed, sure; but only after the plot kicks in. Before that, EVERYTHING about her can be applied to like EVERYBODY in the world – or at least everybody’s conceptions of themselves. Sure, basically nobody’s smart, but most stupid people think they’re smart, and thus can step into Bella’s shoes.
– Obvious points to her gender are not defined (a.k.a. she’s probably not a girl)
– Tries to fit in at school, but doesn’t work (a.k.a. too stupid to look past society)
– Not popular at school (a.k.a. she wants to do drugs and waste her teenage life)
– Thinks she’s smart (a.k.a. uses man-made tests to gauge her intelligence)
– May be skinny, may be fat – it’s never pointed out in the book, but she doesn’t want to walk two miles to school. So she drives there. Every day. Two miles. 3.2 kilometres. (a.k.a. typical American – fat, rich, and lovin’ it)
– Hates dancing (a.k.a. fat)
…and the like.
Anyways, in summary, all her bad qualities are ones everyone thinks they have (can’t dance, unpopular, etc.), and all her good qualities are qualities people think they have (smart, etc.) – her other good qualities are qualities that come out in the book, so any stupid teenage girl can dream about finding that she tastes good to a vampire, etc.
Meyer is a MASTER of manipulation. She’s a genius! Completely and utterly so.
A genius that would do anything for money, even write a book like this.
But, this makes sense.
This is the difference between the true, literary genius, Kuroneko, and the completely worthless, spoiled, lazy, and opportunative genius, Kirino.
Kuroneko’d write something purely because it’s good. Kirino would write something purely because it sells.
Of course, not everything that sells is written by a genius like Meyer (who we know is a genius, because of her masterfully twisted words). In Kirino’s case, I take back my words – she’s just an idiot who likes little sisters. Luck and intelligence – money comes later.
But Meyer.
She could’ve done something with her life. Not write a book like this, but actually create a piece of literature. Something that actually has meaning. Her vocabulary and education are up to the task. But no – she just chose to go the path of the devil, leading to riches in life, and hell in death.
In fact, according to this dedication, her sister, Emily, practically forced her to finish Twilight (“Without her, this book may still have been unfinished”). A genius cannot create if forced to. She came up with Twilight instead.
Ah, the beauty of twilight. As a novel, brilliant. As a book, good.
500 pages is a lot, you know?
So as a piece of literature, I was afraid that the owner of the book would have caught me ripping it to shreds. There was no content whatsoever.
(except for that one part where Edward’s perfect eyes looked at me from his perfect face as perfect mucus dripped out of his perfect nose, that was very contentful)
Musical stuff
From danbooru, for those people cough cough who can’t remember which sister is which
Alright, seeing as my exam’s over and I’ll have posted this anyways, I guess it’s time ta updated on several musical stuff that’s gone by…
Firstly, Alphonse Nguyen’s contest is over, with what I think is two entries – exactly ta amount KK’s competition got :P
I’d have liked ta participate, however, summer just went by way too quickly, with me doing hardly anything at all. >:| Next is fall and then… well, and then school starts and I won’t have time ta do anything…
Next, the Ichigo’s Web Symphony thingy that I talked about is in ta process of finding pieces; so I suppose this is ta last, last, chance ta join. After transcribing starts and ya instrument isn’t listed, I suppose joining will take more hassle than it’s worth, so… last chance ta join, email me, register on Ichigos’ and PM me, or… somethin. :V
Finally, after my piano exam I now have a cold, because piano exam places are cold. Ta exam itself… I wouldn’t say it went smoothly, because ta piano in ta room was very, very echo-y, so one note would resound for nearly half a second, which is a lot when you’re trying ta play sixteenth-note passages. Lost my place (cause memorization is mandatory) for some pieces, but didn’t restart for any – so I think I’ll pass, with a margin of maybe one or two points. That’s not very good. :V
I suppose that’s all; my camera still sucks badly, so if I can, I’ll try ta get another one ta record what I played for ta exam… but now that it’s over, I can finally relax for ta rest of summer…
OH WAIT I HAVE ASIAN PARENTS NEVER MIND
:V
Königliche März ~ And Then the Sun Came Out
[EDIT: Well, whaddya know? Parental controls backfired, meaning that not even my parents can access the computer (where I store my music) anymore, until 4:00. Naturally, you can bypass the time restrictions by modifying the system time in BIOS startup settings, but I can’t tell them that :P So yeah. No composition. Canada Day tomorrow so I’m going to be celebrating, and I’ll update this with the final composition when I get it done. This also means I didn’t meet the deadline, but… well, that’s life.]
Thanks for all your help; this is the final copy (including the .mus! If you wish to use this for any purpose other than listening (e.g. showing other people, attempting to play it which is basically impossible as noone will want to), email me at mushyrulez@gmail.com just cause I want to know).
As for composing, I’ve definitely learned some very important things.
One – NEVER, EVER USE SUCH A HUGE ORCHESTRA EVER AGAIN. The torture of it was too much for me to bear, modifying each instrument against each other. And the font is impeccably tiny.
Two – I don’t know counterpoint. So, I shall learn counterpoint. Königliche März was based not on the individual melodies of each instrument, but on a basic chord structure and additions to it. Because of that, it sounded quite hollow.
Three – I have infinite time. Not infinite time, but I take on so many useless items that if I needed to do something, I will finish it. I could probably finish a month-long project in two days (which I have done before) if I don’t do anything stupid, because I waste /that much/ time.
Finally – COMPETITIONS ARE FREAKING ANNOYING AND SO IS FREAKING PERCUSSION (research things before doing stuff!)
But wait, mushy, why are there two posts today?
Well, today (GMT-wise) is July the First. What does that mean?
It means that Summer has officially started.
Not only does this bring good news for anime fans, but it also means we have time to blog, twice a day (we have four bloggers now).
On a related note, thanks to my obsessive following of comment feeds, I have found an interesting plugin that may or may not work. This allows us to see who’s actually writing my post and thus kill the “MUSHYHIJACK” tag, even though that was pretty fun >_>
Second announcement: Maplestory has an event. Though I knew about it a long time ago, I was busy composing worthless crap so I couldn’t participate. Anyways, it ends on the 13th, and that means that I should try to get to level 40 from level 0 to get some awesome limited-edition item. I can maple 7 hours a day, so it should go smoothly enough (for those who remember my Evan excursion).
And, yeah. Enjoy your Summers everyone; I’ll update (cause I still haven’t watched them!) DRRR and AB with their final posts soon, but probably not tomorrow as I’ve got forums to catch up to~ (Oh, and buying items because of HST starting tomorrow >_>)
Return with a Composition~
[System: For shameless promotional reasons, I have updated the left hand column! RSS and Email feeds are now on top! Feedback on whether this is better would be… appreciated. For some reason I have two RSS feeds, one at the top and one at the bottom but that shouldn’t matter. Two RSSs generate twice the visitors~]
I’m back. I’ll make announcements and other stuff in the next post cause now all I’m thinking of is compose compose compose rewrite rewrite rewrite delete delete delete compose compose compose. But there’s still links at the very bottom of the page as I’ve been away for so long :/
So, this is my second composition, like, ever, so it sucks. It’s titled “Königliche März ~ And Then the Sun Came Out” (but Finale and windows don’t support the ö and ä characters).
.mp3 (high quality)
.mid (really poor quality but tiny size)
.pdf (if you can see the notes >_>)
It’s for a composing competition, else I’d never attempt something this stupid.
So why does it say draft? Because, it’s just that – a draft. The final version will be published, uploaded, and submitted in 6 hours :/
Königliche März should mean “Royal March” or something-or-other in German. The mood doesn’t feel like that AT ALL so whatever :< If anyone knows German, please correct me.
So yeah, here’s individual instrument analysis. If you want to help me on anything (and I’d appreciate that very, very much), please comment below or on whatever forum you came from, or by email (in contacts page). But there’s honestly no reason to use email so just comment or reply.
All info courtesy of Wikipedia.
All images courtesy of Google.
All links, except if mentioned, go to a sheet music site. There’s no reason to go there, but that’s just the evidence supporting my claim that this piece is, in fact, playable. So yeah, don’t click links if you don’t want to waste your time.
Unlike some others...
Also, as here would be a GREAT time for some shameless advertising (just pray I don’t get mass-banned), subscribe to my blog in the left column, either by RSS or E-mail! A new email will be sent out every single post we make, so that your inboxes will be so full that you can’t do anything important with them!
The piccolo I’m using is tuned with lowest note D4 (one note above middle C), highest note D8 (four octaves above middle C). Measure 120/163 may seem quite fast but it is slower than arrangements of Flight of the Bumblebee, of which tempo is 184 compared to 144 for this, and still uses sixteenth-notes (around 576 notes a minute). Furthermore it is a scale so it should be able to be played pretty fast. It is a transposing instrument so a D4 is actually a D5, but the score goes down to D4.
Western concert flutes are tuned to C, lowest C4 (middle) up to approximately G7ish (but it never goes that high >_>). It doesn’t transpose (i think only contrabass and piccolo transpose, aside from Clarinet in Eb/Bb, Horn in F, Trumpet in C, etc.) Anyways, flutes are just a larger piccolo so it should be playable.
Oboe should go Bb4 to G6; this is probably the only instrument that went the entire range (C4 to G6, Bb4 noone uses :P). Most of the time it just directly copies Violin I, and it only has a sixteenth note passage once, so there shouldn’t be any problem. That has notes at approximately 416 per minute, close enough to 576 – besides, there are thirty-second notes there as well (832 per minute) and it continues for so long, yet here there’s only a short half-a-bar passage. It should be alright. God knows why I put a chord here >_>
The cor anglais/English horn is a fifth lower than the oboe, so there should be no problems either. Basically a cop of Violin II and with good reasoning too (same sound with oboe). It goes from Bb4 to G6 as well, but it’s written E4 to C6. It used to stretch to E6 so I took off the 8va, and now it goes only to G6 :D
Next are the clarinets. Eb transposes up a minor third, Bb transposes down a major second, and bass clarinet transposes an octave lower than the Bb clarinet. The range should be from E3 (obvious pun?) to G6 for bass and up to C7 for Eb and Bb. The passages should be somewhat easy to play to; unlike piccolo/flute, there are virtually no virtuoso phrases. There are 32nd notes there, and we have only 8th notes here; it’s definitely playable.
Bassoons – these are freaking soft, I can’t hear anything from them at all. It goes from Bb1 to about G4/5, but my bassoons all stay in the bass clef so it can’t go up that high. Contrabassoon transposes an octave lower, so there isn’t any major difference. There’s only one sixteenth passage, and it’s all neighbouring tones so it should be playable. Eighth notes should be easy enough. Note tempo markings (158 MM).
Horns in F should go (written) from C3 to C6. The above score has a Horn in F as well. They’re pretty soft too >_>
Trumpets in C; the first one copies the Viola while the second one is just a trumpet. :/ F#3 to C6 (C7?), so I can’t possibly bypass that range. I can’t find any music that shows how fast they can play but I’m sure they can manage.
Trombones go up to C5 (which I won’t ever reach as I’ve only composed in bass clef for these) and down to C2 (C1?). They don’t have many sixteenth notes either and this one has 302 notes/minute.
Tubas go from Eb1 to A4. I can’t possibly reach any of those. Mine doesn’t really have anything faster than eighth notes, and these go at 352 notes a minute (sixteenth notes), which is slower than 288 (eighth notes).
For Violins, they should be tuned G3-D4-A4-E5, up to A7. Violas are C3-G3-D4-A4, up to D7. Cellos tuned C2-G2-D3-A3 up to A6. Finally, the Contrabasses are written (transposing instrument) E2-A2-D3-G3, up to G4. Because there are multiple strings, particularly talented violinists should be able to play chords. Speed shouldn’t matter as there are only a few sixteenth-note passages and string players play quite fast indeed. For measures 102, 118, etc. in the contrabass, you can play the D with the A string and the F with the D string.
I originally had a pretty intensive Timpani part, but I realized; it’s really hard to play different notes on a timpani. So I completely deleted that :'( Oh well, it wasn’t very major anyways.
Next is percussion. I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how this works. I used to have a ton of effects, but I realized that was impractical too; so now I’m only using Splash Cymbal, Snare Drum, Crash Cymbal, Bass Drum, and the Vibra Slap. I still have no idea how this works. Any help?
Harps can go from like, C1 to G7. They can play many chords, and should be able to play quite fast. However, I can’t really hear how fast they can go so I’ll just have to live with one unplayable part…
Finally, pianos. They go the entire range so I have no idea how I can bypass that. They’re also fast enough to not warrant an image to show. Why? BECAUSE THEY’RE THE BEST INSTRUMENT
Anyways, I’ll be adding dynamic marks (which some of you may have noticed a suspicious absence of) for a while, and then I’ll publish it.
“Look forward” to a finished version in 360 minutes~(actually, 720)!
;_;
Links and Videos:
http://zeroharem.blogspot.com/2010/06/videos-para-distraerse-11-posibles.html
^ A mix of possible Touhou OPs, if it was an anime (or if ZUN wanted OPs instead of that “girls are now preparing blah blah blah blah blah”)
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2010-06-24-n15.html
^ Internet in 2025.
^ Old video but… interesting anyways :P(ixels)
^ Yay for Akyuu videos :D
^ It’s an AMV but after that what is it I don’t even
^ Another AMV but this time it’s epic
O-New 