Break a Leg!

(I couldn't think of a title for this post)

I have never really been one to act, largely because I have stage fright. As a child I did the obligatory Christmas productions in primary school where I was always either an angel or a swan - the costumes being much the same every year. I never had to do anything, just stand there, so I was fine. Then my only other acting experience was in the year six production (I don't know how things work, but in the UK most primary schools have their pupils do a production of some kind in their final year). Here I played the Greek goddess Hera, and I managed quite well as I was actually relatively confident at that point. 

As soon as I started high school though, I never acted again because that stage fright I mentioned earlier started to develop around the same time. While I did not perform myself, I have always enjoyed watching plays and going to the theater. 

In the UK pretty much every theater in the country has a pantomime at Christmas (these are usually twists on classic fairy tales and always have three staple characters: Buttons (a kind hearted idiot), X's mum (X is the main character and their mum is usually played by a burly man) and a main character who is played by the opposite sex). For as long as I can remember I have seen at least one panto a year, even now when I am eighteen years old and most people my age have given up, I always find someway to see one. 

My favorite play has to be The King and I, which I have seen maybe five times in different theaters. I just love it. It was the first 'proper' play I went to see. Other than that my experience hasn't been too extensive, only seeing The Twits, Wicked and something else, but I forgot what it was called. It was good though. 

I love going to the theater and I wish that I went more. 

Behind the scenes and in the audience

 A day late, but it's here at last!!!!

When I came up with the theme for this week's discussion, I thought we would all end up talking about our experiences when going to watch a theatrical production. But Anne took it into a whole different direction: actually being part of a theatrical production.

I've had my fair share of those. I've played both a cow and a dolphin in two different plays we did at school (do not laugh, I was only 7 and 8 at the time), but from then on, I usually chose to be in the sidelines: give me anything to do behind the scenes and I will do it for you. I feel much more comfortable being the person who organises stuff rather than being on stage. And that sums my theatrical career!

The thing with the theatre is that I didn't discover it properly until about 3 or 4 years ago. Living on an island means that we don't get big theatrical productions and you don't get any to choose from. We only ever get local productions (not all of which are very good) and the occasional "travelling thatre". The first time I went to a proper theatre was the first time I visited Athens. My (then) boyfriend took me to see a play that was supposed to be very good and I ended up absolutely loving it!

Since then, whenever there is a play coming to where I live, I take a good look at the cast, the plot etc, and if I am drawn in, then it means that I will definitely be going to see it. Fortunately, as I said before, they don't come here often, which saves me some money!

But the thing is: how can you not go to the theatre? Granted, not all productions are good, not all actors can build good camaraderie with each other and with the audience. But, when the actors are good, watching the actors acting in real time - live on the stage - can't compare to seeing them in a movie.

I really do admire people who can do that; go on stage and be someone else for 2 hours (even if it is their job). I'm far too self-conscious for that...

All the world's a stage!

Just as a warning - this entire post could probably go under "Things you never knew about me."

 

This week's topic, as assigned by Phanee, is "Theater." My theater career started at the tender age of 4, with the role of "fairy assistant" in the opera "Merry Wives of Windsor." What I remember of that is being excited that my dress matched the leading lady's dress. (I've seen pictures since. It didn't.)

 

For the next ten or twelve years I spent every summer either in the summer musical hosted by the local university or attending rehearsals for it if there weren't any roles for kids. Usually I was just in the chorus, but I didn't care. I was having fun! I even got a dancing role one year, in The King and I. If you've ever seen it, during the scene where the young wife (Tam...something, I forget) is putting on a show for the King, it's basically her narrating with dancers acting it out. The way we did it, we had 3 or 4 dancers being the change of settings and seasons - I was one of those dancers. I got to learn how to twirl pretty batons with ribbons and play with snowflakes on sticks. The only annoying part was that I was only on for like ten minutes in the show. *sigh* My favorite  summer musical I was in though, was probably Camelot. It was the first one that I was old enough to count as an adult in the cast and I had the prettiest dress for it! I wanted to keep it!

 

Once I got into Junior High or so (around 12) I started participating in the local youth productions. There, I got plenty of leading roles. I was a narrator in Charlotte's Web, a really big part, because of the whole paragraphs I had to memorize at once. I later got a major solo in one of the musicals, and.... something else, I forget.

 

After that, just about as I hit high school, I decided that while I enjoyed theater I wasn't that great at it, so I pretty much gave it up for my music. I played in the pit orchestra for 3 or 4 of the drama club productions, and a couple other local productions as well (I even got paid once!) Of course, I will always love attending theater productions, and I do hope someday to be able to join some amateur productions again.

 

So how's that for "Things you didn't know?"

Music and Lyrics

I like music. Stupid statement, most of us like music. That's like saying ''I eat meat'', it's only news if you don't. But anyway, as I was saying... I am not one of those people who think that music is their life, but I do enjoy it.

Like Phanee I rarely notice music on TV and in films, but I have this awareness that it is there. And occasionally I will pick up on it, like that one song in Life in a Day, but mostly I don't. A strange thing happened the other day when I was in a shop with my friend and I said, ''this song is in Remember Me''. I wasn't even aware that I recognised it when I watched the film. Oh, and fun fact: My teacher once told me that you will never find any film or TV show which will go more than ten minutes without using any music. Not true. In the episode of Buffy called 'The Body', there isn't a single second of music except for the title sequence. I am so proud of myself for realising this.

As far as my person taste in music goes, I don't really listen to chart music. It's so forgettable, even if it is catchy in the moment. Sometimes I do pick up the odd songs from the charts if they're played around me enough, but usually I stick to originals by YouTubers and songs from before I was even a twinkle in my mother's eye. I do like covers of chart songs too, when they are done acoustically. 

When I was a child I played the recorder, the guitar and the keyboard, but all were dropped pretty quickly. I had lots of hobbies as a child. More recently I attempted the ukulele but once mine went out of tune I couldn't be bothered to sort it out so that was that. More than making my own music, I like to listen to it live. I have been to numerous gigs and concerts (going to more and more every year). They're so much fun and I really love that moment when the artist goes off stage and the audience makes so much noise that it becomes unintelligible, but you can feel it all over your body, shaking your heart almost. So. Good.

P.S. I made a playlist the other day which features the following songs: Barbie Girl, Hey Mickey, Dragostea Din Tei (AKA The Numa Numa song), La Macerena, Poison, Blue and Karma Chameleon. When I mention my playlist, those are the songs which get reactions. 

Music makes the world go round...!

Music makes the world go round,
the world go round,
the world go round...

So, this week's theme is music, kindly brought to us by Anne. It is a rather broad subject, which means I will probably have difficulty finding stuff to say.

Anyways... Let's start somewhere.

Just like Anne mentioned in her post on Monday, there are people who don't necessarily notice the background music when they are watching films. I am one of those people. I very rarely notice the music playing in the backround. It might register at the time, but I can never remember anything about it afterwards. But that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate it. For me, a good movie sountrack is either very, very unique sounding or blends in with the film. There have been cases (not many, though) where I have been watching a film and the music they decided to accompany a particular scene with just distracted you too much from the scene itself, which I don't think is the point.

That being said, I do listen to many different kinds of music. I can listen to really bad Greek pop to classical music (Anne, you really must explain why it's a misnomer), all depending on the mood I am in at the time. Sometimes I need something to lift my spirits, so I listen to something silly! Other times, I feel like listening to a calmer song and I do just that. There are a few types of music that I really can't stand, though, such as heavy and death metal, but that's mainly because the singers shriek and scream. For me, that's not music. That's just noise. (I'm not saying this to offend anyone. It's just not something I enjoy.)

As for actually being able to play music, I've always been a little bit sad about the fact that I can't. I've always wanted to learn how to play the piano, but I never actually had any lessons. To be fair, though, we did have a small electric piano thing at home and I did learn how to play a few things on it by myself.... So, I guess it's not that bad! I do want to learn how to play the piano one day... Just for myself.

Story of my life *sarcasm*

So, funny story - I assigned music to talk about this week, and now I'm totally blanking on what to say. *sigh* Stupid blogger's block!

I think part of the problem is that music is such a huge part of my life. My dad is a professor at the local university, teaching Music Theory, so I really can't remember a time when I wasn't involved in something musical. Some of my most annoying memories of my father are of him quizzing me on who wrote whatever piece happened to be on at the time, completely by ear. I learned how to do it pretty well eventually, and I think it helped me as a musician, but it was still annoying.

Now, as a result, my tastes run a little more to the classical (which is a misnomer btw) side. My choice for music while I'm doing anything is generally soundtrack music, mostly because it doesn't have any words to it, but also because I love what that kind of music can do to people. I find it fascinating that many, if not most, people who go to the movies hardly notice the music at all, and yet it is so influential on a subconscious level that viewing the film without any music loses the enjoyment. (Talk about an awkward sentence! I am SO sorry, I'm obviously not at my best at the moment lol) I've done some research on the subject, and I hope to do more as soon as I can find the time.

Otherwise, I'm open to pretty much anything that has a tune I could sing along with. I have a few in just about every genre that I love and will listen to millions of times over. Pretty much everything else I'm okay with until I've heard it about 15 times in a day and then I'm sick of it (sorry, pet peeve on the radio station I'm forced to listen to at work showing there).

Oh, and another thing I love? Finding a song that is just PERFECT for _______. I love realizing that a song and its lyrics exactly describe a situation I'm trying to write, or a ship/fandom that I'm in love with. If I had the talent, I would have a youtube channel full of videos of fanvids, setting clips to my favorite tracks!

There you have it! My life in music =)

P.S. If anyone is interested, the soundtrack for writing this post is "Kayla" [link to a youtube version] from the movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine because I have just discovered it through my Pandora and it is SO BEAUTIFUL!

Bonjourno!

Girls, I promise that I didn't pick this topic to spite you, I just want to holiday soon so I've been thinking back on my previous ones. As Phanee has said before, she can't really recall her childhood, and the same goes for me, my memory is terrible. The only holiday I really remember was my last one from two summers ago.

My mum and I went to Italy (my first time, her second or third). We stayed in Rome for 4 days and Sorrento for 3 days - and I really wish it were the other way round because Sorrento is my favorite place in the world (so far). Rome was stunning but it didn't really live up to the expectations I had of it. Mostly it was just really busy. 

As I said though, we also went to Sorrento and OMSVFTGFBSDCG! I want to go back, but I fear that it's going to way of Benidorm and that would just be so sad (Benidorm was once only a small fishing village, for those of you who didn't know). Sorrento is about an hour outside of Naples, on the coast of Italy and only a short train ride from Pompeii. I can't express to you how gorgeous this town is, but I urge anybody who gets the chance to visit it to do so. There are shops and restaurants in alley ways, there are street performers on the main strip, there are bars and an Irish pub for some reason. It has piazzas with children riding bikes and people shopping. And so many slushies! 

That was a bad description. But you should go.