Day 812: Beethoven

We're past Spring Break and past midterms here at college now...or at least past midterms when it comes to music. It seems my other classes prefer to have midterms after break, so there's definitely still those to worry about. However, with music done already it means we've started looking at a new composer (because...you know...three composers in a semester is more than enough for us...at least when it comes to Classical Music). We've already spent our time on Haydn and Mozart, which means that there's still one big composer left: Beethoven.

In class we listen to a lot of music, as is customary for music majors, and today we spent some time listening to Beethoven. While, we didn't listen to either of the songs I'll talk about in a minute, the works did get be thinking. Somewhere along the line I was sitting in class listening to the music and for some reason, a horse race popped into my head...which reminded me more than enough of Fantasia, because that's exactly what Fantasia is...it's music accompanied by the various stories and visual effects the animators heard while listening.

When it comes to Beethoven in Fantasia, there's one in the original 1940 film and another in Fantasia 2000, so I figured that in honor of listening to all the Beethoven I would share them with you today, partly because they're spectacular, partly because the above story is very real and partly because it's already late and I still have some work to do. So listen away and enjoy these lovely scenes from Fantasia:

Have a magical day!

Day 657: Yensid

Many of you know that I generally enjoy educating my friends about Disney. It's completely true too, and as we progress through life I think we find two things. 1. My knowledge of Disney seems to be incredibly random and seriously infinite and 2. There's a lot they still don't know.

Yensid is one of those things.

Those of us who are Disney fans are like "Oh yeah, Yensid! Who doesn't know that!" and all it takes is one trip through The Great Movie Ride to know this fact too. But as we watched Once Upon A Time tonight (SPOILER ALERT...KINDA) and the Sorcerer's Apprentice showed up we got around to talking about Yensid and I confused my roommates by talking about him.

Who is Yensid you may ask?

Well, in Fantasia, Mickey plays the part of the Sorcerer's Apprentice, and the Sorcerer he serves is named Yensid. It's a little hidden Disney fact that we like to tell people because it's pretty darn cool. Still haven't figured it out? Ok, let's put it in all caps: YENSID. There's a hidden word here, and that's what I'm getting at.

Alright...if you haven't gotten it yet I'm just going to have to give it to you. Spell Yensid backwards. What do you get? Disney! Yep, Yensid is actually just Disney spelled backwards, and like I said, it will take you one trip on the Great Movie Ride to learn that information since it's been a part of the script since...probably forever.

And that's what I educated my roommates on tonight. I taught them about Yensid. I can't say I blew their minds because they're still alive, but I do love sharing Disney facts with them as time goes on. It's just entertaining to watch other people learn what I've known for so long, especially when I get to see their reaction to it!

Did you know about Yensid? And if you watched OUAT tonight...how about that date, huh?

Have a magical day!

Day 520: A Real Masterpiece

Now, I mentioned that while I'm watching all the Disney animated movies in order, the chances of me blogging about every single one are pretty bad. And that's very true. As much as I love all the Disney films, blogging about every last one seems like a ton of work, especially since when I watched I'm generally also working on something else at the same time, whether that be writing on another project I'm working on or tagging pictures or editing video. Whatever it may be, I sort of half watch the movie and half work on whatever it is I'm doing. Of course, I still am paying attention, and this is all really beside the point other than the fact that I'm saying I'm generally not blogging while actually watching the movie. If I did that, honestly the whole blog post would just end up being really jumbled and such anyway.

However, when I come across a film that gives me a fair topic for a blog post, I can't help but share with you. Tonight's film, the first one in several days because I've been so busy, was Fantasia. To be honest, most of my friends don't really like the movie, and after a little while it can be a bit of a bore to watch. It's not quite like the action movies we see today where everything is one thing onto the next. It runs at a much slower pace, and you have to sit and stop to appreciate the beauty that is in it. Which is kind of what I half did. For a while in the middle I wasn't paying the closest attention, but towards the very end I really got thinking about the film.

You, first of all, have to remember that Fantasia was made in the year 1940. That was a LONG time ago. Second, look at the length of the film, just over two hours. Compare that to Snow White or Dumbo, both clocking in at around an hour, and compare that to other films of the time as well. A full film with synchronized sound that was over two hours wasn't the most popular thing at the time, and when you compare that to the animated movies of today, many of those don't even beat that length, falling at least several minutes short of that two hour time span. So, while not everything in the film is actually animated, one could still point out the fact that for an animated movie, it's actually quite long. In addition, we must remember that everything is in color, also a newer basis at the time. Granted, films had been in color for several years, but each frame of that movie had to be hand painted at the time, while many of the animated films we see today are created with a computer. Now, I'm not saying that these computer animated films are any worse or took less time, because I very well know that computer animated movies can take years to create. Just look at Cars, which took four years alone! But hand painting is a daunting task. If you make a mistake on a computer you can just erase it. But a mistake in real life on a real board? That's not quite as easy to reverse.

Add all of this to the spectacular soundtrack that backs it, and maybe that's just the music major in me, and you have a true masterpiece. Maybe it is partly because of when it was made, but even today an undertaking like that would be crazy, and I honestly can't wait to watch Fantasia 2000 to see how it compares. I don't think I've ever watched them both within a close amount of time, so it shall be interesting to say the least.

But for now, I'll continue all my work, whether that be blogging or writing or video editing or just sitting down to enjoy one of these classic Disney films.

Have a magical day!

(This blog post was published on July 23, 2014).

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!