Day 1124: The Twentieth Century - Bring It On!

What's even better than a normal day of Music Theory class (it's my favorite course if you haven't figured that out already)? A day a Music Theory that begins with a Death Star and Holst! 

While I usually walk into class plenty early, today I happened to walk in right before we started, only to find that I had apparently been missing out on enjoying this lovely view of the second Death Star! As we begin our new semester here at SNC, we're moving along in the course of Music History from the Romantic Era right into the Twentieth Century and the destruction of tonality. If you have no idea what any of that means, don't worry, I don't really know what it's all about yet either, but I do know it means more modern music, and with that more modern music comes some of my favorite pieces...like Star Wars! 

Honestly this is going to be a really short blog post, but I like to go back to the roots of what Everyday Disney is all about sometimes: finding little bits of Disney in your everyday life, and this is most definitely an example of that! Thanks Dr. Henson for making this Star Wars Fan's day! 

Have a magical day! 

Day 651: Chord Progressions

Tests are hard, especially when there's two of them because it's midterms and there's so much information to try and remember that you don't even know where to start. Yeah, it's an absolutely fun game, right? Regardless, that's the life of a college student, so you have to come up with ways to remember the information at all costs.

My music theory and history midterms were the recent cause of stress, although I don't think I've ever felt more calm going into a couple of tests. I mean, I spent a lot of time studying and reviewing for the both of them, but I learned that when people tell you to start studying earlier and not cram they were actually right. You're way less stressed out if you space things out. It's not always an option for everyone but for me, I'm lucky enough to have the time to do such things.

Anyway, in particular, there was one bit of music theory that I just couldn't remember however hard I tried, and that particular musical figure happened to be a suspension. There's a bunch of rules about how these things work and how they sound and how you write one, but aside from everything else, for some reason I just couldn't keep the information in my brain.

Until I related it to CaptainSwan that is.

You see, in 4x03, at the end of the episode when they're outside Granny's (in the street no less), and they have their little argument and kiss, the musical backing is what really stood out to me. In fact, I loved the chord progression so much that I would routinely rewatch the scene and stop it before they even kissed simply so I could go back and hear the chords again. It's a music major thing I guess.

What occurs in that progression isn't actually a suspension, at least, I don't think it is. I mean, maybe it is, but it's not necessarily the sort of suspension we're working with (and I'm just going to stop talking now in fear of Dr. Henson someday reading this and looking at me in shame). However, it's similar enough to the rules we deal with that I was able to remember how a suspension works in the way we were to use it on our test. Therefore, I'll probably now forever relate a suspension with CaptainSwan.

I guess there are worse things that can happen in life.

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on October 20).

Day 610: The Viking Lady

It's not just Disney Deja Vu that brings complete Disney randomness to mind. As you already well know, often times little hints of Disney just sort of pop up in my classes here at SNC, and this semester seems to be no different. As a matter of fact, I believe I've thought of Disney in class more this semester than the previous two, although Fairy Tales definitely puts up a fight. However, that was more of Disney movie thinking process, and this is most certainly stuck in the parks.

In the matter of about one sentence, my music theory class connected Haunted Mansion, Vikings and a discussion we had had in my British Literature Course about Pirates, because yes, all these things are related. And as a bonus, Epcot. 

For starters: Music Theory. We have a history class once a week where we learn about the history of music and how it came from the simple chants of the earliest days to the music we hear today, whether that be Jazz, Orchestras or on the radio. Today we happened to be discussing Opera, and the age-old question, of course, came up: "What's up with the Viking Hats?"

As far as Opera itself goes, there's actually a very easy explanation for this. The Fat Lady with a Viking Hat is NOT what opera actually is, as it actually only has to do with one composer: Wagner. As far as the rest of the operas in the world go, the Viking Lady isn't exactly the most common character. 

But of course, my mind went on a bit of a run once the Opera singer idea came up, because as far as Disney is concerned, there IS a viking singer somewhere on property...multiple properties actually. Know where?

Here's a hint: 

Know it now? Of course the Haunted Mansion has an Opera singer, although her Viking Helmet seems to be a bit different from those we generally think of, no horns involved. But wait! There's a reason for this too, and for the answer to that we're going to have to take a detour to my English class.

My British Literature course features some of the oldest English Literature that has been found, and it's translated so that we can make some kind of sense of it. I honestly don't even remember how we got on the topic, but sometime last week we were discussing Vikings, and how for the most part, Vikings were basically Pirates, or at least were the equivalent to the groups we were talking about. 

And with all this talk about Vikings (and Pirates), I decided to do some research. 

Turns out, Vikings never actually had horns on their helmets. That's purely a misconception. So that Fat Viking Lady that sings Opera isn't even really a Viking Lady, hence the reason her helmet looks different in the Haunted Mansion (or maybe it's just because she's a ghost and the wings are a humorous addition). Either way, I read up on Vikings, not a lot, but enough to get a sense of what we were talking about and couldn't help but think of Norway and Malestrom. I'm one of those people that generally sits and watches the film unless it isn't running, and I'll be super sad to see the entire attraction go if Frozen does indeed take over (and now's when the next blog post will get really confusing because all I'll do is talk about how much I love Frozen). 

But either way, I guess you could say that within that one question about Viking Hats in Opera, I associated Music to the Haunted Mansion to Pirates to Malestrom to Frozen. Now that certainly doesn't happen every day. 

Have a magical day! 

Day 605: MathMagic Land

Sometimes Disney DOES pop up in class, in a full-on "We're watching a Disney thing" kind of way. Today was one of those days, when the ever popular Donald Duck in MathMagic Land came up in Theory class...and yes we watched the beginning.

If you've never seen DDiMML before, I'm sure you're wondering about how math and music fit together, and you see, that's the exact point of the entire cartoon! Donald learns all about how math sneaks its way into our daily lives, whether we like it or not (I'm most certainly more on the "I don't like math side of things"). And guess what!?! You can watch the whole thing, RIGHT NOW! (Provided you have time to be watching the whole thing and don't have other homework to do like I do).

This isn't the first time Donald has shown up with his math magic in class though. A number of years ago (gosh..Freshman year of High School actually), we watched this in Geometry class, although instead of actually being for a reason like this time I'm pretty sure it was just because we had an extra day and hey, Geometry is math, right? 

Now I just need to remember to find a straw so I can do that thing Dr. Henson told us about today so we can practice these theories in real life and annoy our friends with little plastic straw flutes. 

Have a magical day! 

Day 602: Spaceship Timeline

It isn't every day that my classes can all sort of connect together while also connecting with Disney. In fact, this is a very rare occurrence. Once and a while something like music will meet up with something I'm reading or read in English, and if you count in the foreign language then I suppose that fits too. But then connecting it all together and then to Disney?

Turns out, I do this more often than I really realize. I'm constantly connecting things in my classes to Disney to help myself understand the circumstance of the historical period as well as remember what my textbook is rambling on about. And the number one way I do this is relate it to Spaceship Earth.

Currently, I'm taking Music Theory, French and British Literature, which is just an interesting combination, but it turns out that the theory and lit are roughly the same time period at the moment, and French just fits in here and there. But then, in order to figure out what time period we're talking about, I think about what's going on in Spaceship Earth. I think my general turning point is "Is it after 1450? Has the printing press been invented yet? Are books widespread?" and then I go from there into the Renaissance.

But if it's before 1450, then I have to think about the Romans and the Library of Alexandrea and the Monks and everything. It works pretty darn well for me, at least to gain a basic understanding of what the time period is looking like.

Now, I do wish that Spaceship Earth could go deeper into the story of communication, but I guess we have pretty much all the big turning points, don't we? I think I just miss the old ending, despite the fact that it's been like 7 or 8 years since the switch and that's a really long time in the first place. I just miss the City of Tomorrow, ok? I want it back. Now. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently.

For now though, I'll just continue using Spaceship Earth as a reference point. It's gotten me this far, hasn't it?

Have a magical day!

Day 430: Random Disney Topics

I'll be honest, writing a blog post about Disney every single day is kind of difficult. Especially when you get behind. Once you're more than about three days behind, you kind of forget what you did on those days, and then you're stuck with a bunch of open blog post topics that you have nothing to write about for.

So what do I do when I get really far behind on blog posts and I need ideas for topics? I ask my friends of course! Yesterday I asked Megan if she had any ideas, and she did come up with a couple, and this morning I brought the subject to my Music Theory class. They did end up giving me a couple of great ideas that I have been able to use, since I don't necessarily see absolutely everything that goes on in the Disney fandom. I mean, there's a lot constantly going on, and while I do see a good portion of it, I don't always hear about the things currently going around on the internet until someone brings it to my attention, and I can guarantee you that I don't know much about the next Disney Princess (well, I do now...since I'll be writing a blog post on that topic exactly in just a minute).

But it's interesting to see what people come up with. In the span of just a couple minutes, there were tons of different ideas for topics! Someone suggested the Pizza Planet Truck, and as you can see, one of the blog posts I had to make up is, indeed, about that truck. Another suggested a blog post on the next Disney Princess, which will be a topic on March 26 (since I still have to make that one up...but will be momentarily), and honestly when he suggested it I had no idea what he was talking about. Shows how aware I am. Megan suggested an entire post on MrCheezyPop, since I'm getting so many questions about who he is since I met him in Florida last week (seriously, just go read my blog posts from my trip and you'll see). Yeah, so many ideas.

Plus, if I go back into my old phone, I have a whole list of random Disney topics that my friend Evy and I came up with once upon a time. Everything from why Gaston is so awesome to Disney food and, personally, I would add coconuts. She'll understand why if she ever reads this.

Either way, there are so many different topics that I could talk about, and like I said, I don't know EVERYTHING there is to know about Disney...I just know a lot more than the average person. So if there's ever a blog post you'd like to see me do, just let me know! I'd be more than happy to look into other things, do some research or make changes as needed! Especially since I've now hit 20000 views on my blog, I would love to hear some feedback!

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on March 28 due to Midterms and Travel).

Day 392: A New Beginning

It's Monday...and since apparently it's still warm enough out for us to have school, that means that classes start today. I'm going to split this blog post into two parts, mostly because I have a few minutes to spare right now and am not really feeling in the mood to go and practice my alto quite yet (I'll have plenty of time for that later today), I figured I would sit down and go do some work on my laptop...and there's plenty of work for me to do.

But you see, I can't accurately describe all my classes when I haven't had them all yet. In fact, as of right now I've only had two: Philosophy and Music Theory. Theory is pretty close to the same as last semester, but I have to say that it was really awesome finally getting to see everyone again. It's been a long six weeks without my music theory people. I can, on the other hand, talk about Philosophy, because I'm pretty certain already that I'm going to like that class.

First off, it's an 8 A.M. class, one that I didn't really want to take (we avoid 8 A.M. like the plague around here), but when I looked through the philosophy professors on Rate My Professor, I found that one stood out from the rest, the one that I now have. Since I have theory at 9, and he only taught an 8 or 9 A.M. class, I didn't have much of a choice unless I wanted to take an afternoon class with a different professor. So I sucked it up and decided on the 8 A.M.

I guess that was a good decision. Backstory time: I don't swear a lot. I mean, hardly at all. Sometimes I'll throw in a few of what I call "Star Wars Swears," which is basically a bunch of words that mean the same thing as a swear word but that no one knows or recognizes as a swear word. I also really like to add food in instead of swear words, snickerdoodle being one of my favorites. But since watching Once Upon a Time, I've found that I tend to add in "Bloody" before things a lot. Thanks to Hook and Will (Wonderland) for that I guess.

Well, my philosophy professor seriously was talking today and said "Bloody well" and I totally had this floored look on my face. I mean, really, not a TON of people say that these days...at least that I hear. MY PROFESSOR SAID BLOODY. Honestly that sentence kind of seems weird, but it was AWESOME.

Also, there was this point when we were talking about opinions and he was saying something and I had what I now have termed Disney Deja Vu. It occurred to me right away what it was reminding me of: The Carousel of Progress. He was using this example of people in Iowa or something, and the words themselves didn't really remind me of it, but the tone of his voice and how he was saying it really reminded me of the Father in the Carousel of Progress. I'm not kidding, it's was awesome.

And now it is the second half of the day (meaning that everything previous to this paragraph I wrote at 10 this morning, and everything from now onwards I am writing at 3).

First I had sociology, which I think I'll enjoy well enough. I mean, it is a class that's basically about social things in our culture, and I do seem to study on screen love triangles and relationships as a hobby, so parts of the class should be interesting for sure. Plus I want to work for Disney, so maybe I'll learn something interesting that will help me with that as time goes on.

And then I had Classic and Contemporary Fairytales. This is probably the class I'm most excited for this semester, and it's all the fault of Once Upon a Time and the fact that I have friends in that class already (a bunch of us also took Science Fiction and Fantasy last semester). I wasn't actually originally going to take the class, but my friend talked me into it. I mean, Disney and Fairytales seem to go well together, but often enough critics get angry with Disney for what they do to the fairytales (I have FRIENDS who get angry and I'm like really?) But I'm going to look at the class with a different perspective. WHY did Disney change the fairytales in the way that they did? It goes right along with Philosophy and Sociology honestly, and I think it's going to help me in the long run.

My big goal for this semester: to actually read EVERYTHING I need to for Fairytales. I didn't read a lot of the stuff in Sci-Fi and Fantasy, so I am determined to get it all done. In fact, my friend Rachel and I signed an agreement today, a mission if you will, that says "I will read all the required books for Fairytales or else I will not watch Once Upon a Time." Pretty big consequence there if you ask me. That show is like my life right now. So it will be interesting to see exactly how Adam and Eddy adapted the fairytales for the show as well. I'm particularly excited about Peter Pan, for obvious reasons, but today we did talk about our favorite fairytales, which I'll talk about further in a previous blog post that I'm about to make up that I missed. Click here to go to that one.

I still have one class to go, although I don't really consider it a class, because it's Wind Ensemble and that's an hour of playing my alto and that's just awesome. Now to get a headstart on my homework so I can spend tomorrow watching HIMYM because I have no class!

Have a magical day!

Day 325: Fantasia

Since I'm a music major, it shouldn't come as a surprise to you that I listen to a lot of music, and I have an appreciation for such things. It also shouldn't surprise you that we listened to a bunch of songs this morning in my music theory class. And lastly, it certainly shouldn't surprise you when I tell you what one of these songs was.

If you're a huge Disney fan, or just really love Fantasia, I'm sure you're going through the list of possible songs that we could have listened to, but I won't keep you waiting. I mean, if I put the video on here now you can listen to the music while reading the rest of this post! Just open it in a different tab and listen while you read!

Oh...and ignore the French at the beginning. It was the only recording I could find with the entire segment, and I really wanted to include the entire thing. I really just had it for the music purpose.

If you haven't figured it out yet, we listened to a portion of the Nutcracker Suite in class this morning, and I legitimately pulled out my planner and wrote down "Fantasia" as today's blog post, which you are obviously reading at this moment. 

It's kind of funny because at the moment this song is just about everything, although I suppose that's to be expected since many consider it a Christmas thing. I guess it kind of is, but I like the way Disney has it done, with the different seasons. It brings out a different quality in the music I think. 

I mean, we listened to it this morning in class, a bit of it is in one of our songs for Wind Ensemble (which you'll hear about in almost exactly two weeks again), and last year for our Christmas Concert in High School we played it as well. Of course my favorite part is the Arabian Nights, since that has a solo for oboe and I played that last year and it was just a lot of fun. I remember that we did watch it though, Fantasia that is, the Nutcracker Segment, because when I went to Disney in November of last year (actually I was there a year ago exactly), I was walking through the Great Movie Ride Queue and, of course, on the screen they have the previews for the different movies playing, and one of them that happened to come up when I was walking through was Fantasia featuring the Nutcracker Suite. I filmed a bit of it and put it in my vlog for that day too, just to remind myself that the band should watch it. 

And this morning, when we were sitting in music theory, we were all like "This sounds so familiar" and then our professor told us what it was and we were all like "OHHHH" and then, being the Disney fans we all are, we were all like "All we can think about is Fantasia." 

Oh, and if you were wondering, we listened to the section that's representing fall and then goes into Winter, which beings around 10:30 in the video. =)

 

It's already day 21 of Frumpstagram? What is this!?! Anyway, today's prompt was "Mountains," and I really wanted to include all four of the WDW Mountains, but my phone was being absolutely ridiculous and would not let me stay on Facebook long enough to get the pictures I needed, much less load them in the first place. So I had to settle just for the big three, which is fine I suppose since I love all of them and can't wait to share them with my friends next June!

Here's today's Disney History: 2008: Disney's 47th animated feature Bolt (a CGI animated film) is released. The film centers around Bolt (voiced by John Travolta) - a white German Shepherd who has lived all his life on the set of a TV show in which he portrays a superhero dog, and as a result thinks that his superpowers are real. 

Have a magical day!

Day 238: First day...for real!

Today was our first day of classes here at SNC, and honestly it went pretty well. I have an 8 am class so I suppose I really shouldn't be writing this right now and should instead try to go to sleep, but it's just too darn hot. You know it's too hot when I start eating ice cream too. Like just to try and stay cool I bought a little pint container of ice cream (well, Froyo really) from the store here and have been slowly snacking away on it. I can only eat a little bit at a time, but it cools you off for at least a few minutes.

I started the day out with my very first music theory class, which I really did enjoy. I mean, we didn't do much, not at all, but I'm looking forward to the rest of the class. Then I headed to my religion (theology) course, which was equally fun, although I found out I have the incorrect books...so that should be an adventure. And then I had a nice giant break before my final class (sort of I suppose), Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Now this is where my blog can relate here. I honestly think I'm going to like this class. Why? Well the name Harrison Ford literally came up. No joke, my professor said Harrison Ford, and then we talked a while about Blade Runner, a Harrison Ford movie, and Star Wars of course, and Star Trek and so on and so forth. In the end, although I'm not necessarily always into sci-fi, I have a feeling that there's going to be a lot of really interesting stuff in this course.

Plus, I really feel that the next time I do go to Disney, I really am going to have to eat at the sci-fi because it would just be silly not to. If the band does go there I kind of want to take a couple of my friends in there though, so maybe that will happen after all.

A kind of short blog post tonight, but it's been a seriously long day, with me going home and everything. But I got into Wind Ensemble! I'm really excited about that! Sure, I may be last chair, but there's like....four of us, and two are freshman, and I messed up my chromatic, but you know! I'm still happy!

Here's today's Disney History: 1918: A young Walt Disney forges his parents' signatures to enlist in the American Ambulance Corps (part of the Red Cross) as an ambulance driver. He changes his birth from 1901 to 1900.

Have a magical day!