opinios

Ok I had an awesome holiday in Australia and downed countless Coopers beers and wonderful wines with friends and family which you can read all about on 35 degrees. I see the discussion board getting out of control in my absence (is that a good thing?) but let's flip it back to the creativity with MC Raw-B:

maybe i'm mistaken for giving without taking, heart breaking, love making, soul shaking, it's all the same in any existing relationship, when love defines your existence, hard to stay persistent and not miss em n crawl back to that space of resistance, pick up missions where no-one listens n just gives sympathetic expressions, so you count your lessons and old love letters, create other memories to forget her, hoping jealousy will hurt her, but this space feels murder...

I have tried to sit down a few times and write some poetry that captures how I feel about what is going in Iraq at the moment, but it always just ends up sounding biased and unjustifiably accusing.

But then a buddy of mine pointed out that Michael Stipe from REM had written lyrics to a song that seemed to capture it all better than I could have anyway.

As I raise my head to broadcast my objection
As your latest triumph draws the final straw
Who died and lifted you up to perfection?
And what silenced me is written into law.

Jeremy writes:

Took a few black and whites on the weekend, apparently I stumbled across celebrations in honour of Harmony Day, an event I knew nothing about until Saturday! Turns out it's an annual thing and appears to be celebrated annually, on or around March 21st. Whatever the occasion, it was a fun gathering of people from a wide range of cultures, gathered together in Federation Square (Melbourne) to sing and dance and produce music with drums and other instruments and enjoy the multicultural mix we have here in Australia. I also have a feeling that it's not just Australia that celebrates Harmony Day -- perhaps someone else may know something more about this interesting occasion?

Dancing Queens | Drumming It In

PS. The Australian Government's official Harmony Day web page indicates that it is an Australia-wide event to celebrate multi-culturalism, held on the 4th Tuesday of every month. However I do know that Singapore also hold a Harmony Day on July 21 to commemorate race riots that occurred there in 1964.

Apparently the theme for Harmony Day in Australia this year was "You + Me = Us". If anyone else made it to the festivities in Melbourne or other parts of Australia or the world, let us know!

I've always been fascinated with memory. How it works, why we remember some things and not others, different techniques people use to remember stuff.

One of the most effective methods for remembering information is to use mnemonics - easy-to-remember phrases or stories that act as a link to the less-easy-to-remember information. For example, learning 2,000 Japanese kanji characters would be impossible without having a little story to remind you of each one.

Since starting to play music again I have been going back over some music theory - modes, chords, scales etc - that I have a vague recollection of once studying back in high school when I was playing the clarinet. But this time round I am applying mnemonics wherever possible, to not only make the theory easier to remember, but more fun as well.

Here are the mnemonics that I have been using, a collection of old classics and some originals too (with apologies to my aunt if she has gone off grapes lately!) If anyone else knows of some great mnemonics please add them as a comment!

For remembering....                   Mnemonic
----------------------------------    ----------------------------------
the strings of a guitar,
top to bottom: E B G D A E            Easter Bunnies Get Drunk At Easter

the distances between notes in a
major scale: Tone Tone Semitone,      To The Second Tier, Take Ten Soldiers
Tone Tone Tone Semitone               

the notes on a music stave
(treble clef)
gaps:  F A C E                        The word 'face'. Easy.
lines: E G B D F                      Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit

(bass clef)
gaps:  A C E G                        Aunty Claire Eats Grapes
lines: G B D F A                      Great Bassists Develop Finger Acumen

the Circle Of Fifths
clockwise: C G D A E B F# C#          Come Get Drunk And Eat Bad Fried Chicken
anti-clockwise: C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb    Cats Fight Back Even After Dogs Growl

the modes: Major (Ionian), Dorian,    My Dear Parents Love Me A Lot
Phrygian, Lydian, Myxolydian,
Aeolian, Locrian