Oct 10, 2013 · 2 minute read · Comments
musicCarnatic musicIndiaSandeep NarayanimprovisationjazzCarnegie Mellon University
Sandeep Narayan I attended the Thursday CMU music school convocation that featured a lecture/performance by Sandeep Narayan and his brother Nirmal Narayan. I very much enjoyed the presentation.
Sandeep Narayan is a Carnatic musician. Carnatic music is the “classical” music of Southern India. I’d never specifically listened to it before, because I’d never had an introduction to it so that I would know what to listen for.
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Oct 10, 2013 · 1 minute read · Comments
chessPittsburgh Chess Club
Last week, I wrote on The Chess Improver about my fourth round game in the current Pittsburgh Chess Club Tuesday night tournament, in which I lost a game that should have been drawn.
This week, I wrote about my fifth round game, in which I won, but played poorly at a critical point: The difference between accepting reality and making excuses.
Oct 9, 2013 · 1 minute read · Comments
PittsburghPittsburgh PiratesbaseballSmiley Cookiecookies
At work today, there was a little celebration in honor of the bizarre winning streak of the Pittsburgh Pirates (“let’s go Bucs!”). I’ve lived in Pittsburgh for sixteen years now, so it’s been pretty weird seeing the Pirates doing so well. I don’t follow baseball these days, but I’ve been to a handful of games over the years: each time but once, we lost. It was kind of a sad sight, because almost every time I went to a game, there were so few fans out there.
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Oct 6, 2013 · 2 minute read · Comments
musicukulelerunningFrick ParkcavaquinhoPittsburgh
I had just run into Frick Park past the blue slide playground entrance when I thought I heard someone playing a ukulele! I looked around and saw a guy sitting on a park bench. I thought of approaching him, but decided not to interrupt my run, and kept going.
Here’s what Frick Park looked today on a trail, with some fallen leaves. Bizarre that it’s still summer temperatures right now though.
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Oct 5, 2013 · 5 minute read · Comments
musicukuleleSteel City UkulelesRegent Squaresinging
Ecofest 2013 poster It was a beautiful day outside at the Wilkins School Community Center Ecofest in Regent Square: warm and sunny, and dry. It had been raining, and was even drizzling rain in the morning just before we performed at around 11:15 AM for an hour.
There were vendors, information booths, food, and families with children hanging out. Abby helped out with using our camera on a tripod to get footage of the Steel City Ukuleles performing, then went off to the clothing swap.
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Oct 4, 2013 · 4 minute read · Comments
musicukuleleSteel City UkulelesRegent SquaresingingrecorderPhipps ConservatoryFlanders Recorder Quartet
The night before our Ecofest gig, those of us in the Steel City Ukuleles who are performing in it had one final rehearsal.
It was a very good rehearsal. We’re sounding more and more together as an ensemble, ending solidly on each song the way we agreed, and singing more in tune and balance.
Also, Sunny reminded us that we are performing, and so we should not just grimly look at our music booklets, but instead, when we can, we should look up and smile and engage with the audience.
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Oct 4, 2013 · 4 minute read · Comments
PittsburghPittsburgh Chess ClubchessprogrammingPerlPittsburgh Perl WorkshopRun ShadysiderunningukuleleSteel City UkulelesEcofestmusicragtimeLatin musicRegent SquarePodCamp PittsburghCarnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburgh Step TrekSouth Side Slopes
I’m always frustrated at this time of year because there are so many events of interest to me in Pittsburgh that seem to happen on the first weekend of October. Since I cannot attend all of them, I figured I might as well attempt a public service and mention some of them so that if you are in the Pittsburgh area, maybe you can go and enjoy what I can’t attend.
So here are 9 of the probably dozens of cool things you could be doing tomorrow, Saturday, October 5, 2013.
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Oct 3, 2013 · 1 minute read · Comments
chessPittsburgh Chess Club
Round 4 Last week, I wrote on The Chess Improver about my third round game in the current Pittsburgh Chess Club Tuesday night tournament, in which I had a won game but did not win.
This week, I wrote about my fourth round game, in which I did even worse, hence my new post: The psychology of losing a drawn game.
Oct 2, 2013 · 2 minute read · Comments
musicukuleleSteel City UkulelesRegent Squaresingingrubber duckRubber DuckiePittsburgh
This week’s Wednesday meeting of the Steel City Ukuleles was an unusual one: it was split into two halves, the first half being our regular meeting (involving going through a new playlist), the second half being the second of three rehearsals for the Ecofest gig. The deal was that everyone was open to stick around for the rehearsal if they wanted to, but with the caveat that it was serious rehearsal time, rather than the more casual regular meetup atmosphere.
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Sep 28, 2013 · 3 minute read · Comments
musiccookingimprovisationerhutubaflutemandolinukulele
Abby and I attended a music potluck party tonight. We had been unsure about whether to attend, since I do have the Great Race 10K to run tomorrow and need to avoid staying up too late. So we went with the understanding that we would leave early as needed, in order for me to wind down at home and go to bed.
Food I whipped up a large batch of roasted vegetables to bring to the potluck:
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