changes — tuba teacher made advice for economic reasons, i wasn’t a lousy a player. Talk about other minds. talk about how i love music. cut bit about lower-upper division (quit being so dern negative). talk about my mom dying. love music! love music! also, I don’t hate CS, i just loathe silicon valley. computers are fun, but startups are axxholes. love music, like computers, hate consummerism. It’s pretty good for being 2:30 in the morning. In connecticut, right now, it is 5:30. Everybody will get up in an hour or two. This is a random thought, but lately i’ve suddenly acquired the ability to spell much better. I’ve learned how to spell several words just this week. “yesterday” “recommendation” “silicon” “connecticut” and i now know that very few words have Zes in them “realise” has an s. Why would I suddenly master spelling at 26? I need to go to sleep now.
Tag: celesteh
Statement of Purpose – bigger, better!
When I was in high school, I had to decide between pursuing a career in computer programming or in professional tuba playing. On the advice of my tuba teacher, I chose computer science. I went to Mills College to study Computer Science, but very quickly found myself gravitating to the Center for Contemporary Music. I studied electronic music with Maggi Payne. She taught synthesis techniques on a large Moog Modular Synthesizer. The sound and the possibilities for music making were incredible. I had some limited exposure to New Music before I went to college, thanks to an excellent community radio station, but was not aware of it other than casually listening to noise bands.
The music classes I took at Mills changed everything I thought about sound and music creation. Even though Mills is a liberal arts college, I took almost nothing but Computer Science classes and Music classes. At the end of my sophomore year, my advisor informed me that I had completed all of the classes required for my major and that I needed to either take all the rest of my classes outside of the Math and Computer Science department or transfer to a different school. I calculated how many units that I needed to graduate and how many additional music classes it would take to major in music and decided to double-major.
Taking all of the lower-division theory classes as an upper-division student was a little frustrating. I had previously taken a seminar on John Cage that was offered in conjunction with the John Cage conference that Mills hosted. The teacher told us then that we didn�t need to know music theory to be composers. Between that and the Moog I was fascinated and hooked, but then, as a major, the same teacher later explained to me that I did need to learn theory if I wanted to be a composer, at least at Mills.
After I graduated, I started a professional career in computer programming, the plan I chose for economic reasons. Economically, the plan worked out quite well and I was able to acquire a new modular synthesizer, and a nice computer with Pro-tools and some other music software on it. Otherwise, it did not work out as well as I hoped. Buying gear did not prevent music from being marginalized in my life. Despite my best efforts, it began to be a hobby rather than an avocation. Also, it was not long before I realized that studying computer science is interesting, but day-to-day programming is much less so. I had a hard time fitting in the culture of Silicon Valley. When I got laid off in 2001, instead of looking for a job right away, I decided to travel.
I spent the summer traveling in Europe. The first non-English speaking country I visited was Russia. Communication was difficult because of my inexperience, few English-speakers and an unfamiliar alphabet. While I was there, several people asked me if I spoke Esperanto. Also, by some coincidence, the route I took while traveling put me in every city in northern Europe one week behind a band called “Esperanto Desperado.”
This trip was an excellent idea for me because it allowed me to escape the values of Silicon Valley. The culture there was scornful of anything related to art or culture or of anything not brand-new. This was the exact opposite of what is valuable to tourists in Europe. [For Wesleyan, talk about meeting Judy in Germany]
When I returned home, I decided to switch career tracks from computer programming to composition. I also enrolled in an Esperanto class, at Stanford. I wrote several pieces of tape music, which I submitted to several festivals. Woodstockhausen decided to play one. I decided I wanted to write more music for live performance, so I organized a percussion group and wrote some music for them. The group performed some of my work at an art opening. I also did computer consulting. I was not sure how to pull my work and aspirations together into a career.
Last spring I attended the Composing a Career Conference sponsored by the Women’s Philharmonic. Almost everyone else there had a master’s degree and the presenters all assumed they were speaking to a master’s-level audience. Realizing that I needed more education, I started looking into graduate programs. Yours caught my interest because of your faculty [- talk about faculty.]
At [school] I hope to learn more about electronic music and also about composition for live performance. I would like to branch out into writing for live electronic performance, something that�s difficult to do with a modular synthesizer. I hope to learn more mediums for composition. I would also like to explore more writing for traditional instruments. [school] has a reputation for performance as well as composition and I hope to be able to work with some of the performers studying there.
After I graduate with a Masters degree, I hope to find success as a freelance composer. I am also interested in doing music research at a center like STEIM, IRCAM or ZKM, or a comparable center in the United States. I know that [school] could give me the skills and education necessary to achieve this goal. Your excellent reputation would also help my professional aspirations. I hope you consider me for your program.
This is much longer, but I think it’s better because it actually talks about music, which is something my old one had probably too little of. It’s choppy and scattered especially in the middle. I must rearrange it so the parts that go together end up together. I think I should probably cut the part about having to learn theory after being told i didn’t need theory, since it’s neither here nor there and it might make me look lazy, which would be bad. Do I talk too much about Esperanto? I think putting all of it next to each other would help make it more compact. It’s also beside the point, but it’s unusual and might make me seem more interesting. Lou Harrison is a fluent esperantist. I should definietly add something about Other Minds, especially since one of my refrences comes from there. Maybe I could work in something about speaking esperanto with Lou, or would that be silly name-dropping? Arg, I need to finish this, especially for CalArts, tomorrow! I haven’t put together a portfolio yet. Some of these school want three works. How can I possibly communicate my skillset in just three works?? I think I’d better send email and ask if that’s a minimum or what. I must definitely fight the urge to make a new recording to show off every possible skill at once. “This piece is written for a vocalist (note esperanto text), a synthezier, a marimba, 5 found objects, a contact microphone and a special piece of software written just for this one piece.” nononono
I was just thinking, the National Brain tumor Foundation publishes all these little booklets called things like Brain Tumors: What You Should Know. I had at least thirty little pamphets, all with names like that. There’s a key section that’s missing from every single one of these. They need to say:
You will be getting radiation. There is no treatment aside from radiation. Everything we’ve been telling about other treatment techniques only applies to people with surface tumors and even for them most of this is just experimental stuff we’re hoping will work, but that you can’t actually get. Anyway, even if you want to try something experimental, you’ll still need radiation first. Make sure that when you get a referral to a neuro-oncologist, you get a referal to a radiation oncologist right then at the same time from the same doctor. It takes forever to get on calendars. You don’t have forever. Get the referals now. And don’t wait for second opinions unless the first doctor seems hesitant. You will be getting radiation. You don’t need another doctor to tell you that too. There is no other treatment. If you get diagnosed in the summer time, you don’t need to go see a head of a department at the university. It’s better to get on the calendar of somebody less prestigious than to wait weeks.
The chances that you found out about this before it was critical are slim. Who really goes to the doctor for headaches? You’ve just had a big piece of your brain cut out. You had no idea anything was going on until you had a seizure or stroke-like symptoms. All the optomistic statistics people have been giving you mostly apply to people who are younger than you are and who by some freak stroke of luck had their tumors detected early. You are probably not in that group. Every day counts for you. If you want treatment, you need it today, not three or four weeks from now. Get on calendars as fast as possible and as soon as possible. Skip as many steps of beauracracy as you can. Get as many referals as possible from your brain surgeon and make sure that they’re for people who actually will be working directly on your treatment. You can get a treatment plan in place for radiation before you go see the head neuro-oncologist. This saves you several days. Important days, right after the surgery, when the tumor is cut down and you have more of chance. You’ll be getting radiation. Get it as soon as you can.
What I did today… er… yesterday
Finally lined up my third letter of recommendation. Christi’s boss is going to write one. He’s the director of Other Minds, which I did some volunteer work for. Actually, kind of a lot of volunteer work, some of it skilled w/ pro-tools and stuff. It’s so awesome that he’s going to write a letter.
Wesleyan wants a writing sample. I have exactly one paper left from school. It’s the tuba paper on my website. The spelling is being fixed. God knows why I handed in a paper without running a spell check on it. As I recall, finding research materials on the history of the tuba turned out to be somewhat challenging (go figure) and I think I turned in the paper late. This is an ill-omened paper all the way around. The graphics and the bibliography all got lost in the giant system crash of 1997. (Teeth were gnashed. Wails arose from the valley. The one server at Mills that handled everything had a head crash and all was lost and the campus was offline for a month or maybe just a week, anyway, I was lucky even part of my paper survived. All the rest of my papers were lost when the disk on my old server gave up the ghost. I think that if I reassembled the computer with the old motherboard, the old disk controller and the old disks, they would probably work again, if I could re-discover all those hardware settings from the time before auto-detect. But that’s a lot of work for what might be a low payoff. Academic writing was never my strongest point. I used to joke that’s why I took music and computer science, because of the dearth of required papers.) Well, it wasn’t entirely ill-omened. I got email from the principal tubist of the Vienna Philharmonic asking about the biliography because he was interested in my paper. I’m going to be able to email him back with some answers, because today I went to the Mills library to try to re-construct my bibliography. I was not 100% successful in this quest, but I did manage to identify who all the authors are (probably) and direct readers to their web pages or books by them that are at least on the same subject. Christi is telling me not to worry about this too much and maybe I should just submit one of my many political manifestos.
And, while at Mills, I got my transcript requests. I still need to worry about transcripts from the Junior College I went to a long long time ago. I was still in highschool at the time. My theory is that it shouldn’t count, even if I did transfer in credits towards my degree. Sheesh, I transfered in AP Test credits too. I hope I don’t need to go scare those up.
Mills is on break, but I still ran into several people, including a CS professor, Susan Wang. We chatted a bit. And I ran into Maggi Payne, my composition teacher who is writing a letter for me. We talked about people she knew at all the schools I’m looking at. Everyone went to Mills. I need to talk a lot more about CCM in my statements. And then, in the library, I ran into Sharon. It’s nice seeing familiar faces.
And then I had to run someplace else to drop off forms and then I had to get Christi and take her someplace. And then we went to Gaylords for coffee and ran into Luoi, Fausto and Timananana. Yay! More happy people! I usually don’t see so many people in a week.
And now I am somewhat procrastinating on filling out my calarts application, since I’m not sure about listing my Community College stuff or not. I guess I have to. Something is amiss with my printer and the colors are not lining up 100%, so everything is slightly blurry. The application is in color. None of the text is actually black, it’s some trendy shade of grey. I understand being as artistic as possible when designeing printed material for an arts college, but when you’re publishing a PDF on the web for folks to use, it’s important to consider technological limittations. Gray-scale is good. Black text is good. Design for the common-person and her cheap printer! Oh…. I should make Mitch print it.
Anyway, all of this is wayyyy too last minute. I haven’t been this last-second since I was an undergrad. I’m too old for this now. I might put it off till next year, except now I’ve got all these other people involved. Anyway, I’m so busy, I hardly even have time to mourn! I think I want to go crawl into a hole and lie there quietly for several days.
Statement of Purpose – CalArts
When I was in high school, I had to decide between pursuing a career in computer programming or in professional tuba playing. On the advice of my tuba teacher, I chose computer science. In college, I finished all the requirements for my major by my junior year, so I took music classes and got interested in composition. I graduated with two majors.
I started a professional career in computer programming, the plan I chose for economic reasons. It wasn’t long before I realized that studying computer science is interesting, but day-to-day programming is not. I had a hard time fitting in the culture of Silicon Valley. When I got laid off in 2001, I didn’t look for a job right away, but instead considered making a career change to music, but as a composer, rather than as a tuba player.
Last spring I attended the Composing a Career Conference sponsored by the Women’s Philharmonic. Almost everyone else there had a master’s degree and the presenters all assumed they were speaking to a master’s-level audience. Realizing I needed more education, I started looking into graduate programs. Yours caught my interest because of your reputation and your composition � new media program.
I am a noise artist. Primarily, I do tape music, but I would like to branch out to writing for live electronic performance. Your composition-new media program is exciting since it seems to be set up for people with my goals and experience. Your reputation and faculty greatly impress me. I hope to study with Mortin Subotnic, because of his work with MIDI performance tools. His MIDI Jacket is fascinating because of how it links music to gesture. I would like to study the creation and usage of similar tools for application in my own compositions.
Did I spell Subotnic’s name right? Did he really invent the MIDI jacket or do I have him confused with someone else? Must double-check. Subotnic, along with Pauline oliveros, was a cofounder of the SF Tape Music Center, which later became CCM. I should talk more about stuff I did at CCM. I saw the MIDI jacket live in concert at the SF Electronic Music Festival. I stood behind Subotnic in line for the bathroom and asked him a million questions about it, sicne it’s just so dern facinating. He didn’t seem to mind at all and was very cool about answering questions and talking about things he built. I think he used to to be at STEIM. STEIM is really awesome center for new sounds creation devices (especially MIDI stuff in the old days) that’s in Amsterdam. When I was in Amsterdam, I stopped by STEIM, but they were busy setting up for a concert in Switzerland and sisn’t have time to talk to tourists. I name-dropped like crazy and half the names were set to perform in their concert. anyway. maybe i should try to get an interview with calarts.
Um ok, so what have I done since college. I had a couple of programming jobs and then I was uh consulting. And um finding myself. (Can you still do that or is it a generational thing?). um I travelled extensively. I volunteered for Other Minds. I wrote some tape music. I had a promising percussion ensemble which evaporated after it’s first gig, since i didn’t schedule any rehersals after my mom got sick. Um I flaked on a lot of things. Um, I learned esperanto. I worked on libretto which I couldn’t finish. I played in a band that couldn’t quite get it together and then broke up. I think I could put a positive spin on this… This is to give to somebody to write a recommendation anyway, not for the school, so maybe I can be a bit more honest.
After I got laid off, I started consulting, and did an installation at the second Wednesday art series at the Exploratorium but then within a couple of months Christi got laid off too, so we spent a few months traveling in Europe. Then, when we got back, I started volunteering at Other Minds, since Christi had a job there. I did some tape editing for them in addition to grunt work, of course. Christi and I organized a percussion ensemble and I wrote some percussion music and, of course, some tape music. I submitted tapes to a bunch of festivals, but only Woodstockhausen wanted to play one. The percussion group played at an opening for somebody’s art showing at a cafe. I got some songs played on pirate and internet radio and Ibol Records put out a compilation with a couple of my songs on it. I wrote a max application that generated algorithmic melodies. I took an Esperanto class at Stanford and can now speak it, but not fluently. I had been kind of “finding myself” and things were really coming together last June. I was the web engineer for the International Iguana Foundation and Jack Straw Productions (Joan Rabinowitz, specifically) was interested in a trombone piece I wrote. But then my mom got cancer and I haven’t done anything since except submit a score to Jack Straw for a toy piano nonette. They were supposed to let people know yesterday, but I haven’t heard anything.
GRE Word Usage:
I started to tell her it was a case of mistaken identity, but Shelia ground her high heel into my foot. I recognized this tatic as didactic.
“There’s been a real dearth of you around here. You didn’t even call.” The cat-suited woman said.
I tried to look contrite, hoping Shelia would give me a clue.
Shelia rose to the occasion. “JK, we meet at last.” She held out her hand to shake.
JK gave Shelia a contentious look, but spoke to me instead, “I suppose she is the reason you haven’t been around?” She jerked her thumb at Shelia.
“Oh! Not at all!” I demurred. “I’ve been an unwilling guest of Dr. Cool.”
Jk laughed with derision. “How credulous do you think I am?”
“Darling,” I thought fast, “I’m culpable for clumsiness only. I foolishly fell into a trap. But at no time did I stop thinking of you.”
Jk launched into a diatribe, pointing out any and all of Mr. Anderson’s sins. she pointed out each fault as if she was a connoisseur of shortcomings. I could barely maintina my decorum during the onslaught, and I wasn’t even the intended target.
I tried desperately to think up any excuse, no matter how convoluted in fear she might push us into the mutant corn. But I knew she would only react with cynicism to anything I might say.
Finally, Shelia just interrupted her, “What do you do with highly caustic corn?”
JK halted, mid-rant, “We desiccate it and mail it to Flagstaff.”
Shelia said, “To Acme toxic waste, right? I read a research article about it, but it seemed like the article had been desiccated before publishing.”
JK said, “I think research articles are like that by convention. Here, get in my dune buggy and I’ll take you to our secret lair.”
It was the same dune buggy Dr. Cool had captured us in earlier. Was this another trap?
Calarts applications are due today. Well, clearly i’m on top of things…
The Fall 2003 application deadline is Monday, January 6, 2003. All applications which are complete by the deadline are reviewed by the faculty; those received after the deadline are reviewed in the order received if there is still space available in the program applied for.
I must resist the urge to call them tomorrow and ask if there is space left. No I should call them and ask if they think there might be space left.
So this leaves me with Mills, Wesleyan and maybe Bowling Green, but probably not, since none of the faculty’s name rings a bell and it’s in Ohio and the only reason I’ve heard of them is cuz they run a big festival every year that rejected me last year. I can’t beleive that I missed the application deadline for one of my three main schools. aug, i don’t deserve to get into grad school. If I don’t get into Mills or Wesleyan, I’m going nowhere.
nothing is going according to plan. i had a big five year plan. i was on my way to seattle last june, as a part of my plan, to visit a studio run by a firendly woman i met at a confrence, when i got a panicked phone call from my dad. since then, my plan has been off track.
there is a gigantic blister on the middle finger of my right hand from adventures in bass playing (second rehersal of the new band) and from using oil pastels on the cover of an old pizza box. Did you know that Munch painted almost a hundred versions of The Scream and many of them are on cardboard? There’s a Munch museum in Oslo with all of them on display. Travel broadens you.
My Wesleyan alum contact told me to try to get a letter of recommendation from Pauline Oliveros. I can imagine this conversation, “Hi, do you remember me? I was your driver at the OtherMinds festival last year. You’ve never heard my music, but I really need a letter of recommendation.”
Or maybe I can use other famous composers I met at OM. “Hi, Annea Lockwood, I lent you a jacket and you sent me a record. . ..” If I were smarter I would have given all of those people CDs. Missed opportunities. 20/20 hindsight. I’m screwed.
When you are trying to decide who to ask for recommendations, kep these criteria in mind. The people you ask should:
- have a high opinion of you
- know you well, preferably in more than one context
- be familiar with your field (It won’t do you much good to have a glowing letter of recommendation from your manager at the insurance company if you are applying to a program in history or social work.)
- be familiar with the program to which you are appling
- have taight a large number of students (or have managed a large number of employees) so they have a good basis upon which to compare you (favorably!) to your peers
- be recognized by the admissions committe as someone whose opinion can be trusted
- have good writing skills
- be reliable enough to write and mail the letter on time
A tall order? Yes. It’s likely that no one person you choose will meet all of these criteria, but try to find people who come close to this ideal.
Um, so that gives me, um, my composition teacher from Mills and ummm… maybe some other mills music faculty whom i have not talked to in five years. Maybe I coudl get some generic statements from old bosses about how i was hard worker… except that i was mostly lazy… um…
Join the fun, fast-paced world of writing recommendation letters!
Feel like you could write a letter of recommendation? Do you meet the above requirements, or at least some/most of them? Then, for the love of god, drop me a line, since I have no idea where or who you might be (that’s just a joke! of course I was thinking of you! How have you been! Great hearing from you! heh heh help.)
Statement of Purpose – Mills College
When I was in high school, I had to decide between pursuing a career in computer programming or in professional tuba playing. On the advice of my tuba teacher, I chose computer science. At Mills, I, finished all the requirements for my major by my junior year, so I took music classes and got interested in composition and especially electronic music. I graduated with two majors.
I started a professional career in computer programming, the plan I chose for economic reasons. It wasn’t long before I realized that studying computer science is interesting, but day-to-day programming is not. I had a hard time fitting in the culture of Silicon Valley. When I got laid off in 2001, I considered making a career change to music, but as a composer, rather than as a tuba player.
Last spring I attended the Composing a Career Conference sponsored by the Women’s Philharmonic. Almost everyone else there had a masters degree and the presenters all assumed they were speaking to a masters-educated audience. Realizing I needed more education, I started looking into graduate programs. Mills College seemed like an obvious choice.
Obviously, since I attended Mills as an undergraduate, I’m familiar with your reputation. There’s no better school on the West Coast at which to study electronic music. I’m especially interested in your algorithmic composition track. My dual background in computers and music makes me a good match to study this. I’m also interested in acquiring new skills in composing for pitched instruments. Because your program covers both electronic composition and pitched composition, I hope to be able to hone my existing skills and translate them, while acquiring news skills, to more pitched composing. Algorithmic composition seems like the perfect synthesis of these goals and Mills is the obvious choice of where to pursue them.
feedback? ok mills is good. why should they care about me? etc