Charlie Bird: 2013

A History

Ok, so I'm a musician.

I've been playing piano since I was five. I was trained classically, and got a BA in music. In 5th and 6th grade, I played clarinet. In college, I started teaching myself guitar and bass. I took voice lessons and sang in choir off and on. I took a year of carillon lessons with this amazing guy from the Netherlands. I started playing percussion in the orchestra in college. (My first time on percussion was the "West Side Story" - what a way to start!) In grad school, I picked up accordion, (which I have brought to Buenos Aires with me). In Bolivia, I got a charrango, and a in April 2011, I bought a bright purple violin. I have harmonicas, and I'm a grand master of the Kazoo and slide whistle.

I didn't start composing until college, when I composed one completely original song; it felt like a fluke accident.

So towards the very end of college, I felt my piano skills were limited to playing what other people had written, so I began teaching myself jazz piano and improvisation. My uncle then got me a keyboard as my graduation present. The year after college, I went to Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theater in Blue Lake, CA, and around Christmas time (2009), I was volunteering at the community breakfast, and as they were overstaffed, I mustered up the courage to volunteer to improvise on the piano. They asked, "Do you play Christmas songs?" I certainly didn't. "I can give it a shot," I replied. That day, a local Presby church asked me if I'd like a job playing for their Sunday services. (I ended up being the only one in my class who had a job. $25 a week!)

At Dell'Arte, my confidence growing, I composed some music from a nifty Hamlet production we put together. Later, I did the music for my group's Melodrama production, with help from Walken Schwigert on the violin. One of the only times I ever got praise unadulterated from my professor, Ronlin Forman, was about the piece of music, which fit the production like a glove.

In Argentina, I joined a band (The Garden Abides), and started composing more seriously.

Then, when I came back home in Winter of 2010, I was in a production of ATFC's Alice in Wonderland, and offered to write the music for the show.

I also volunteered to write the music for my friend Elizabeth Swensen's Master's Thesis project, called "The Witch".

I just composed the underscoring for another ATFC production of "Rapunzel," and recently finished recording the piano score for Alan Menkin's "Christmas Carol" for a local theater group. I also did some of the voices... just for fun!

So that's what I can remember.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Lux Arumque

Whew...! Finished at last!

This piece by Eric Whitacre is one of my favorite classical pieces EVER.

Recorded each of the 9 voices myself. The several parts where you hear a super low voice, I sang it 8va, and lowered it in Garageband. Lots and lots of editing.

Really wanted to enunciate more, but it's super hard when you're recording each voice separately to get all the consonants lined exactly up, so I toned down the enunciation. (Also, just learned how to spell enunciate. Spelled "annunciate," the word means "to announce." The MORE you KNOW! How old am I?)

Lyrics in Latin:

Lux Aurumque

Lux, Lux
Lux, Lux
Lux, Lux
Calida
Calida
Gravis que
Gravis que
Gravis que
Pura
Pura velut aurum
Canunt et canunt et canunt
Modo natum.

******

Lyrics in English:

Light and Gold

Light, light
Light, light
Light, light
Warm
Warm
And heavy
And heavy
And heavy
Pure
Pure
Pure like gold
They sing and sing and sing
To the newborn babe.