88 Key Staircase

I just found this video, and I think it is amazing how easy it was to change people without them knowing it. It makes you wonder what we do everyday that is controlled by someone else?? Here it is, courtesy of Volkswagon via YouTube:




Isn't that just crazy? At the beginning of the video, the escalator is full to the point that no more people could possibly fit on it. After the stairs get done up to look, and more importantly, sound like a piano, nearly everyone takes the stairs.

Not only are there people who stop and look at the piano, take it all in, and then decide to try it out. There are also people who are presumably doing business, walking from place A to place B. These people might take the stairs normally (because the escalator is normally bursting with lazy people), but the fact that there are more people on the stairs may give them reason to expend the energy needed to traverse the stairs. Their thinking could be something like:

Wow, there are a lot of people on the stairs, and oh, the stairs look like a piano. Hey! I hear a piano. Oh, it's from the people walking on the piano stairs. I'll just take it and see what happens. What is there to lose?

If someone's really busy, not worrying about stairs v. escalator, they may not even realize that they're walking up a piano and that with every step, they play a C scale. These people are too preoccupied with their cell phone, and just see the people running up and down the stairs (attempting to play Chopin). Unconsciously, they decide that if they take the stairs, they will have fun, too.

That is why I think there are so many more people on the stairs at the end of the video. First, observant individuals are drawn to the piano, placed there by someone else. Then the non-observant, focused people are drawn to the stairs without even thinking about it, because someone else is having fun. It is almost a form of learning through observation. In one of my favorite videos (sans music), even though, there really is no string, most people step over it. Some of these people don't even look down, they just do it because they saw someone else do it.

To mix the two examples, I would like to see if people will skip a step if you color it differently and skip it? Let's try it! Unless you have other ideas... I'll take suggestions.

Jitters Yield Rewards

I am a violinist. As a violinist, I have a wide array of performance opportunities for me to participate in. For the last eight I have been a soloist, and played in competitions solely for a grade. For the last six years I have been an orchestra member, allowing me to play different music in a large group. Two years ago, I was a quartet member, played a fun piece, and had a great time in the intimate setting that chamber music is. The last two months, though, I have been a part of something totally new and different.

Starting this summer, I have been a part of our fall musical, titled I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change.

The show is awesome in many, many ways. First of all, it is downright hilarious. Even after seeing the whole show seemingly hundreds of times, I still laughed during the final show. Also, the way the show is written in a style that is very intimate with the actors and the audience. It is normally only a cast of four, but we used up to twelve in certain scenes.

As a musician, the music in the show is incredible. Written by Jimmy Roberts, the music varies from scene to scene. One scene may have a slow, dramatic sound, and the next may be a tango, for example. As a violinist, I love the fact that the orchestra consists of merely a piano and a violin. This means that I get to shine as the only violin, but I am not playing solo. In this show, I have been blessed with an amazing piano player that literally runs the show. She plays scene changes, decides the tempo, and generally coordinates the music.

This whole concept of show music and near-solo work is totally new to me, and is very exciting. In an orchestra, you have to blend, and don't get to play out to show your skills. As a soloist, you get to show your skills, but your mistakes are much more noticeable. I think that many people, especially performers, would agree that it is much better to be able to shine than to simply be assigned the same task as everyone else.

How does one then shine during performances? What do performers and people do to cope with the stress and excitement of the final presentation of their work? During our show, I saw the cast and crew dealing with the pressure with several different methods. One very popular way was to busy their selves with something to keep their mind off of the show. Some people brought laptops, some brought games, books, iPods, etc. Another method was to go at the performance head-on (apply directly to the forehead), by focusing on what they were going to be doing by practice and preparation. Rituals are another method of dealing with stress. Some people believe that doing something that worked when they succeeded will help them succeed again. Even though a performer may try to cope with the stress, rarely does it disappear entirely. The nerves show through when one paces, twiddles their thumbs, or bites their fingernails. It happens to everyone and is controllable, but incurable.

Why would humans feel stress when they are about to perform? Simple: we humans don't like to fail, and we especially don't like to be ridiculed for it. We would much rather succeed by incredible measures, and when we do, it gives us great pleasure. For me, it is the satisfaction that all the hard work I've done, the long hours I've put in, the sacrifices that I have made, all paid off in the end. I'm not one to show off very often, and I didn't even think of it before the show, but afterwards, many people came up to me and said that I was really good and that I was a huge part of the show. Some friends even told me that they didn't realize I was that good. These are the most valuable rewards for me. To hear someone tell me that they think I am good is nice, as they could be telling the truth, or they could just be saying that because it's customary. However, when a friend, someone who knows me, says that they didn't know I was that good, I feel like that are telling the truth, and I am very grateful.

Favoritism

As I sit here trying to finish my homework late at night due to a night at work, I listen to some music on Pandora, I have come up with a good question that baffles me every time someone asks it. The common query: What is your favorite kind of music? Also very related: Who's your favorite singer, or what's your favorite book, favorite movie, etc. My reply to all of these is, why do I have to have a favorite? The one inquiry into my interests that bothers me, and is impossible to answer, is: what kind of music is on your iPod?

For me, what is on my iPod is, first of all, whatever I like. I try not to simply buy the music that is popular at the time (although that does happen), rather than buy a song that I enjoy. Being a musical person, I always listen to the music behind the lyrics. Lackluster beats just don't get me as excited as an intricate bass line does. People who look at my iPod might think I am strange due to my wide variety of music genres. When I say I have everything, I do not lie. My in-pocket musical library contains anything from "gangsta" rap to Sibelius violin concertos. This is why these questions about favorites are so difficult for me to understand, and to answer. How am I supposed to tell you my favorite genre when I like them all, when I listen to them all. Maybe next time I should just fool them and say Irish polka rap...or maybe not. I think my best answer to the question is music with depth.

Why do we ask others what their favorites are, though? As children we are asked what our favorite color is, or our favorite animal. The obvious answer to me is that we are simply very interested in other people. We want to know about them, and these questions are conduits for us to access their personality. I spoke earlier of my seemingly wide variety of music genres, which now, when thinking of our favorites as aspects of personality, has a much different meaning. While some people have a definite favorite conventional genre (rap, country, classical), others might not have a single favorite in these everyday genres. Instead, these individuals look for qualities in the music other than the label given to it. A good example that comes to mind is Hope by Twista and Faith Evans. Some people enjoy the lyrics and rhymes that Twista delivers much like a rap song. Other people might listen to the song from another viewpoint, focusing on the strings in the background (Yes, rap musicians do use strings sometimes) as well as the light percussion. The common "genre" on the iPods of these people would be musical music.

Questions about favorites are so difficult to answer, as well. Haven't you been asked by someone what your favorite movie is and simply been unable to answer? The category of Movie contains an extreme number of films that to pick one that is my favorite, at least for me, is a daunting challenge. Plus, it is so hard to decide what is better between a fingernail-biting action/suspense movie and a tear jerking Nicholas Sparks type movie. The way they cause emotions is so different and so profound in their respective ways, that to decide which one is "better" is nearly impossible. One solution could be to ask, what's your favorite action movie, or your favorite sad movie. Asking these, however, would be odd as well, because you still don't know which one they like more! Therefore, my friends, the question of favorites will always be asked, and you will always be expected to have an answer ready. You could do like me and say Irish polka rap, or you could just pick one of your top 5 and say that's your favorite. If you feel bad about placing that one above the others, take your top 7 (I know, it's hard to pick that, too) and pick one as your favorite for each day of the week.