Day 2: Hearing them sing (1/29)

Today, I was able to get to hear all of my students sing. The way it ran was I sat in the back and I randomly had people come up to the front to sing. Most, if not all, were nervous, and you could clearly see it. But it's my goal to get them over that fear or at least control it (its normal to be nervous before you perform, but do not let it interfere with your performance in a bad way).
I must say, I was pretty impressed, especially with the variety of vocal types and music genres they prefer. I had song suggestions for each of them.

Day 1: Met my kids (1/25)

                I HAVE STUDENTS! I AM SO EXCITED! I have about 10 girls, most are 8^th graders and the rest are 7^th graders. Two of them sang, one from each grade, even though that was for the next meeting and I got to say I am extremely impressed at the talent. It was a brief meeting so I didn’t get to do much but I’m stoked to be teaching them. I can already tell that this club will be a lot of fun.

Probably My Most Important Post Yet.

It's crazy how one's life can just suddenly end, especially one close to you. At my mentorship today, we were informed that two siblings in the "Into The Woods" cast's mother had passed away on January 18, 2016. It was shocking because it was very unexpected. Their mother was healthy, happy, and a wonderful person. But I guess God had plans for her that left others in complete pain. I keep thinking about this over and over again and it still doesn't feel real. She's gone. And I can only wonder how they must feel. It's just incredibly difficult to grasp: they ended their year with their mother in pain and they started the year with her gone. Just like that. These two kids that are around my age, ready to start life, had just lost their mother very suddenly and quickly. And as I type this, it still doesn't feel real.

As I was looking around however, I noticed something. The people within APA were not just feeling sorry for them, but they were hurting. I saw it in their faces and their eyes. Two girls were leaning against each other crying, others would blankly stare at the floor and let the information given to them sink in. The director, musical director and costume designer were tearing up as they would speak and comfort the kids. Now, realize that these two kids barely joined APA in perhaps November 2015 (really new to the program). But yet, these people in APA immediately treated them like family. Though something as unfortunate as this has happened to them, they're lucky that they have such amazing people in APA to help them through this tough situation.

This has just made me think and remind myself that EVERYTHING is temporary, even our beloved ones. If you somehow are reading this, do yourself a favor and remind those you love how much they mean to you. Because you truly never know when your last day or their last day will come. Life is so precious but so fragile. If you are holding onto any grudges, let them go. Forgive yourself for any mistake, stop carrying around that burden, laugh a little more than you do now, smile more than you do now. Experience stuff, the good and bad, try something new. Something!

I just cannot stress how we only do have one life, and the way you wish to live is up to you. Just ask yourself, if your life were to end tomorrow would you content with your life? If you say no, then you've got some work to do. If you said yes, well continue living my friend and be grateful you're still this far.

Blog 14: Interview 3 Preparation

The answers to these questions will be a bit different due to the fact that ib already did my interview.

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?
I interviewed Masiela Lusha. She is mainly known for playing Carmen Lopez in the George Lopez show but has appeared in other shows commercials and is currently an executive producer for a new show. She started out with theater at the age of 13 and immediately went into working on television.

2.  Verify that you have called your interviewee to schedule an interview.  What is the date and time of the interview? 
I interviewed her on January 9th 2016.

3.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you find research resources that would help to answer the EQ.
What qualities should a show have in order to receive a positive reaction from the audience?

4.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you think about other useful activities you might do to help you answer the EQ (IC2, possible experts to talk to, etc).
How do you ensure that you casted the correct actor to a role?

5.  Phrase two open-ended questions that help you to understand your interviewee's perspective on an aspect of your EQ. 
What makes a show so successful? What makes an actor a good actor and how can they achieve it?

Blog 12: Holiday Project Update

1.  It is important to consistently work on your senior project, whether it is break or we are in school.  What did you do over the break with your senior project?
I got started on my independent component since my mentorship was off for "winter break" as well. My independent component is to help people individually with their singing/performance(s). I record them in the beginning and as our sessions go by, I get to record where they are now at and show the inprovement from overtime. I am currently helping out someone I know with their vocals and their performance for their upcoming talent show. I've met with her twice and we got her to pick one song so far and now, as she's memorizing it, I'm going to fix her pitch, dynamics, emotion, and tone. 


2.  What was the most important thing you learned from what you did, and why?  What was the source of what you learned?
3.  Your third interview will be a 10 question interview related to possible answers for your EQ.Who do you plan to talk to and why? 

Its difficult to be helping people with their performances because you have to find their style of singing as quickly as you can and you got to let them know if they don't. It's a difficult and tedious process to do, which is funny because I thought it would be very easy to do.

I will interviewing Masiela Lusha because I want to go into depth with the acting area and she is an expert in that. She played Carmen Lopez in the popular TV show "George Lopez". She has years in the television industry, including her current show she is producing. Though she has little experience with theater, it is similar enough to get an even more insight in what goes on within the production staff. I will be including my EQ in the interview to see what her answer would be.