COSMOS Day 28 - The last day and Disneyland

I am at Del Sol Inn in Anaheim starting this post. While some COSMOS students are still at UCI for their last day, I managed to go to Disneyland before I leave So Cal for good. And I am using that iPod Touch to write this because I was forbidden to bring the laptop.

I am

COSMOS Day 27 - Last Day at UCI

I am currently in Arcadia writing this blog post for my last day at this California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science - also known as COSMOS. I have no idea how the acronym came to be, since I never got around to asking one of the faculty members. I will be finding one way or another to keep in touch with all of the faculty members I have met (in order to ask them the question).

Likewise, I will be finding someway to contact the rest of the people I have met during my 26 days at UCI. Why 26 days? The answer is because the program lasts for 28 days, in which I am not present for the last day and I was gone for the first Saturday.

I don't believe that I should reflect on anything that happened in the past four weeks yet. The simple reason is because looking at all of my pictures, totaling about 1,900, would be far too emotional. It is also not acceptable to show emotions in front of people who have not been through COSMOS, which is why I will be making a commemoration video of my time at COSMOS in the future. I have no plans announced for the time being, because I have more or less refused to do any of my summer assignments for high school. I need to finish regular homework assignments before I can remissness on my time at UCI.

Because the time is now 23:44, I will conclude this post as what I have for the time being. I am afraid I have to break my rule of editing posts within 24 hours of creating it. COSMOS Day 25 and 26 have not been written at all, and COSMOS Day 24 is barely written (as of 2009-07-24). I will be modifying the post times to retain the order in which such events occurred.

For now, I will give a shout out to those who have discovered or know about my blog:

Thank you Laura for being my Day RA for Cluster 6, and buying us little snacks for break time.
Thank you Cluster 6 for being the best cluster at UCI (in my arrogant opinion).
Thank you suite mates from the Smash Bros. Suite for making Woodhall a more lively place to be.
Thank you Woodhall people for sharing the same building with me.
Thank you Whispering Wood people, especially friends in Cluster 2, 3, and 8.
Thank you people from the girls dorms, same clusters.
Thank you the rest of the friends for being who you are...you know who you are.
Thank you the Pippins staff for preparing meals that I could look forward to.
Thank you the custodians who kept Woodhall (and the rest of the dorms) clean.
Thank you the rest of the RAs and COSMOS staff, in which I have not been able to say good bye to properly.
Thank you Tatity and Marjorie for running this program.
And Thank you Adiel, for being my nigh RA, to which I now say good night.

COSMOS Day 26

COSMOS Day 25 -

COSMOS Day 24 - Son Clave Jam

Professor John Crooks decided to give our cluster a challenge, to learn this rhythm. It is a 2:3 rhythm, accompanied by other three other parts. We accomplished it successfully.

COSMOS Day 23 - Last Lecture Day

John told us at the beginning of class that today would be the last lecture day.  He went over a little information on pitch and rhythm one last time.  

He mentioned how the idea of equal temperament has been around for many years, yet has never become stabilized until about 1911.  On the topic of equal temperament, there is an abstract unit called a "cent" used to fine tune the frequency of a pitch.  Because cent stands for 100, there are 100 cents between each semitone.  Humans can usually hear a difference in a pitch when the accepted value has been altered by approximately 6 cents.  However, if the frequency of a pitch was measured in hertz, humans can hear the difference in frequency exponentially smaller.  The example he gave was that we could hear the difference between 100 Hz and 1100 Hz, but probably not the difference between 1800 Hz and 1900 Hz.  Therefore, to make a linear change possible, the unit of a cent was developed, and related directly to the equal temperament tuning system.

Another main topic was on the concept of improvisation.  My instructor explained we are always improvising, such as our posture and our facial expression.

Lastly, he talked about careers in music and how music is like in college.  He asked what we wanted to do in music as they progress in life.  I denied to speak, because I had no idea what to say and because the question caught me off guard.

In general, I will miss these engaging lectures by my professor.  College professors who are actually passionate about their topic can inspire young students to pursue their goals in the field he or she is teaching.

COSMOS Day 22 - Swimming the COSMOS the final time

I basically went to that group swim again, for the final time in COSMOS. I kinda tried "teaching" one of my friends to swim. She made a great improvement in one hour, for she was able to swim a distance of 10 meters before sinking in the water.

Still later, I played water volleyball with a few other people. I don't know their names, because I have not seen them in my time here at UCI. However, I can saw that two people from Cluster 6 played...that would be me and Cameron.

In the mean time, others were playing tennis in the nearby court. They brought swim trunks so they could do both activities.

As we headed back, a large amount of people were talking about Harry Potter, the Intel grant for an independent research project, the cluster project presentations and AP and SAT test results. I ignored most of the conversation except for the Intel grant, only because Intel processors are the only brand I have been using for the past four or so years.

Immediately upon arriving in Middle Earth housing, I went into Woodhall to deposit my items. I then took a shower before anyone else, so I don't have to wait in line at night. I then went to the laundry room to wash my bath towel. I failed miserably, and smells like dish detergent. Outside, I met my friend Robert, who just came back from having lunch with his parents.

Upon putting my towel away, I asked Robert to let me into Whispering Woods, so I could talk to Kyoshi, who is helping me write a song for my project with my partner. He told me his progress, of which I am extremely grateful for, and then we started chatting idly. I then had him install Google Earth so we could play on the flight simulator - this was after I told him to look up my house on Google Maps.

I then had dinner with a large group of people - of which I am not sure if I'm supposed to list their names... Jennifer, Electra, Tiare, Phuong, Josh and Robert. These are not really specific names, so I can assume only [COSMOS] people who read my blog would know who I am talking about. We sat there for a large amount of time just talking idly.

There goes a very ideal way to enjoy a Sunday.

COSMOS Day 21 - ICUCSD

The COSMOS program at UC San Diego invited the COSMOS program at UC Irivne to join them for the first annual Academic competition labeled "Quizmos." I more or less became hungry the first time I heard that.

In general, much like that Academic bowl we had a couple weeks ago, our winning team of five students competed against UCSD's winning team of five students.

COSMOS Day 20 - Viva los COSMOS

The COSMOS Casino Night was a nice environment for us underage people to pretend to be gamblers trying to win some money, facilitated by our kind RAs who agreed to dress up as casino dealers. Upon being greeted at the casino entrance, we cosmonauts/gamblers helped ourselves to some punch made from sherbet and soda. I'll assume that's the substitute for cocktails. We then received a cup with $40 worth of COSMOS UCI money. I have no clue how long it must have taken the RAs to photoshop a picture of an anteater and words saying "COSMOS legal tender" onto the various bills.

Inside the study room casino, there were four tables for blackjack, two tables for Texas Hold'em, one table for roulette (done with playing cards rather than a roulette wheel), bingo, war and this Vietnamese game of which I do not know its name. I watched a game of Blackjack, in which Anish was the dealer. Since I have never tried counting cards before, I attempted to while watching. In general, the cards are shuffled too often for card counting to work properly. After playing for six rounds, I managed to win $5, in which the minimum bet is $5.

I left, and went to watch the Texas Hold'em game. There were several people crowed at the table, and I watched for about 15 to 20 rounds before I got to join. For my third hand, I believe I had a three of a kind of 6s, and my opponent raised me $30. Since I had about $27 from winning a few blind bets and call bets, I decided to go all-in. I was thinking that I wouldn't be able to win much money in this casino anyway, and I still had $25 in "cash." It turns out my opponent was bluffing, really badly. And I got all of his raise. I found that rediculously amusing, and that gave me a head start in the game. I had two other winning hands, I believe, and that was my two pair and pair of Aces. By the end of the game, I won approximately $80.

I later went to a quiet area to count up my money, and I had $126. I turned in $20 to the cashier to exchange the money for raffle tickets for a real prize. The rest of the money was in chips, so I had to go to a poker dealer to turn in that money. I was treated like a professional gambler, and received a $100 bill and a $5 bill. I then went to Jennifer to report my winnings, and she saw the money I had. She was nice enough to give me another $5 bill, so I could buy another raffle ticket.

In the end, I had 13 raffle tickets in a pool of xyz amount of tickets. I was drawn during the prize calling, and I received a UC Irvine folder.

COSMOS Day 20 (Extension) - Don't Stop Believing

Don't Stop Believing 2009 - 07 - 17 by Zzyzx  
Download now or listen on posterous

Don't Stop Believing 2009-07-17.mp3 (5734 KB)

Here is version of the piece we played on Friday.  I used the EQ to get rid of some background noise, boost the bass, and lower sharp singing voices.  I also used the compressor to boost the overall sound.  This is the best I can do with my poor sound mastering techniques.

Complaints - voices were slightly out of tune at times.  Also, the octave at the end was slightly off.  Also, get the introduction together properly.  When Kyle starts playing, everyone look at him.

Good luck everyone, you are all great musicians who actually have some cluster spirit. 

Posted via email from Montgomery's posterous

COSMOS Day 19 - Don't stop believing, Cluster 6

Don't Stop Believin' (2009 - 07 - 16) by Zzyzx  
Download now or listen on posterous

Don't Stop Believin' (2009-07-16).mp3 (5780 KB)

Dear all Cluster 6 people who care enough about the talent show:
(and all who care to read my blog at http://mzzyzx.blogspot.com and/or http://mzzyzx.posterous.com)

Basically, here is a preliminary recording of what we recorded today.  Yes, I will admit it's a sloppy recording, and if Jim hears this, he would send me back to basic audio editing training.  I completely forgot about checking that the mic recording the rehearsal was not going into the red when the performers were playing.  That's my mistake on my part, and I apologize as the conductor/recorder/producer.

Please compare the recorded version with the one Journey made, aka the one you all have listened to many times already.  I would have embedded the video, but it says embedding is disabled upon request.

For those of you who read sheet music, refer to the score Julia found: http://forpiano.com/file/journey__dont_stop_believin.pdf.  In general, my job is to make sure nothing sounds too terribly out of tune, unreasonably hard for you to sing or play, or let you goof off too much during these rehearsals.  Therefore, I am very humbled I am even allowed to be the conductor/recorder/producer.

My comments on our recording for today - the tempo was steady in general.  The drums win, and most of you were following the ultrabeat very well.  The singers, learn the lines as well as possible, but again, a fantastic job for our first rehearsal.  As a conductor, I need to learn these lines to, so I can properly give "cues," that you singers naturally articulate.  One thing for us to work on is when people cut off after sustaining a note.  It's not like it's a real music competition, but we are music students, so we can try harder if we have the will and dedication to beat Cluster 6 from last year.  Props to Naveen for playing that solo very well...fake it if it becomes too cumbersome to play so fast.  One last piece of criticism, and you will all hate me for this - from class, I think Ania has determined I have perfect pitch, meaning I can tell things when they are slightly higher or lower.  I think there was a section that was slightly higher.  I have no idea if it's the recording or the fact that it's the end of the song.  We must keep in our head the sound of E as our fundamental pitch. 

Aside from that criticism, all who participated in the recording, I would like to thank for showing some pride for Cluster 6, which is definately the "best" cluster at COSMOS UCI, no arguing allowed.

Um, this blog post/e-mail was finished at 2009-07-17 00:27.  I need to go before the RAs poke into this room and tell me to go to bed.

Sincerely,

MZ

Posted via email from Montgomery's posterous

COSMOS Day 18 - COSMOS-gram

One of the night RAs, Jennifer, was selling candygrams for $0.75 each in the quad. She started selling them on Monday, 2009-07-13, or COSMOS Day 16, stopped selling for one day and finished selling on Wednesday. These cards will be shipped with a regular sized candy bar. If my memory serves me correctly, the cards will be distributed next Wednesday, 2009-07-22, or COSMOS Day 26.

One of the people I bought a card for was my friend Nathan, who got hurt while playing capture the flag (as I mentioned in an earlier post). Here is what I wrote:

2009-07-13 20:48

Dear Nathan,

Hmm, it feels like I am writing a letter to my brother...you know his name. Uh, I saw Jennifer and John setting up a table with these colorful pieces of paper on the desk. Raymond was helping to move the table, and I stood around to watch. Therefore, I decided to go buy some of these candy grams with some of the money available on my name tag.

You must be one of the coolest guys here at COSMOS for being able to look so "ridiculous" while playing capture the flag and letting me take pictures and videos of you while you were probably in much pain.

On another not[e], you wanted some chocolate while lying on the grass. Maybe the RAs delivering this will give some chocolate.

Also, sorry for the sloppy handwriting. I was blurting out everything on my mind. I hope you bounce back up and get well soon. - MZ

And here's the one I wrote for my Night RA, Adiel:

Dear Adiel,

I saw that Jennifer and John were setting up this table to sell candygrams. Since you bought cake for our suite, I think I will start "paying" you back by sending you a candy gram.

Let me state the obvious, you are a great RA. Thanks for taking care of the 10 of us downstairs and making my stay at UCI so much better than regular school.

- [MZ]

I was thinking about buying one for Jennifer, until she said, "No, don't waste your money on me, it's too expensive. I'd rather see you buying them for your friends."

COSMOS Day 17 - Final Project Idea Formulated

My partner and I have both agreed on one of her plans for a research-based project for our final presentation for our cluster. This plan involves testing the effect of music on learning and retention. Frankly, the only "scientific" title I can think of, using the form "The effect of [dependent variable] on [independent variable]" is "The effect of music on learning ability."

She did most of the planning since it was her idea. After she made a rough sketch of her idea, I understood more in depth what her idea was concerning. I suggested that we should test at a controlled time, and repeat the process one day after the initial test.

The conclusion for this project idea and planning - I need to look over my notes on what we want to do...

COSMOS Day 16 (Extension) - Capture the Broken Pillow and Flag

As I am writing this post, my roommate suggested the I use "Capture the Flag" as my title. That's boring, and therefore, I decided to combine the elements of Day 17 into a title that "summarizes" what I thought to be important.

Let's break down the title:

• Capture - implies capture the flag
• Broken - implies my friend Nathan getting hurt
• Pillow - implies this pillow fight in which my roommate participated

Putting the titles back in the proper chronological sequence, the pillow fight was first, capture the flag game was second and Nathan getting hurt while playing was last.

Skipping words between the title, one can see "Capture the Pillow" is an acceptable omission of a word. My roommate "borrowed" one of my pillows to use in the pillow fight. Or at least that's what he told the other contestants. He asked me if he could steal it prior to leaving. Therefore, he captured my pillow.

Still another combination of words in the title yields "Capture the Flag," as hinted in the first sentence of this post. This was a planned activity people could participate in for Monday.

Continuing from the other post, Nathan can be included in the people who became "sick," as he had to go to the hospital shortly to take care of his shoulder and collar bone.

COSMOS Day 16 - Cluster Sick Project

There have been cases of [insert illness] reported in the COSMOS program at UC Irvine. Cluster 6 had two people out for this Monday, and that is not a good sign for the rest of the students in the cluster. This "pandemic" appeared to have started from some one in a different cluster, in which the virus was later carried to members of Cluster 6.

In general, no one is in any danger, and the obvious course of action is to get more rest, t0 get enough vitamin C and to wash after using the restroom. This was the reminder given to all students since the day of Knott's Berry Farm. The fact that we are all COSMOS students stuck in cramped quarters in nearby dorms contributes to ease of spreading any kind of illness.

Thus, for Monday, Cluster 6 should have been temporarily renamed Cluster Sick out of pity for our "fallen" cluster members. Six, sick, whichever, they both sound roughly the same when pronounced quickly.

In another interpretation of the title of this post, "sick," in its slang term, can mean really good. Therefore, we have to finish thinking about what our sick project is going to be, within our partners. My partner is thinking of an experiment of how music affects learning. I am not sure of the details, and we will be working this out soon.

In the mean time, I need to concentrate on not getting sick.

COSMOS Day 15 - Swimming in the Sun

For the lack of a better title and more time, I am going to make this post simple. Basically, a group of approximately 40-50 students went to the pool in UC Irvine to play between the hours of 12:00 and 15:00. Some students played water polo, others were playing Marco Polo, a small group were playing "ad hoc" games and the rest of the students swam laps. I basically swam about 4 laps before I started messing around in the water, such as holding my breath as long as possible. Then, I found Erwin, a night RA, who was trying to help teach someone in my suite to swim more proficiently.

Forty minutes prior to leaving, I had a small cramp in my right calf, I got out of the pool for the rest of my time. I dried myself, and rinsed off the chlorine at a spray shower outside of the bathroom. I cheated and went inside the bathroom to get some soap to clean myself slightly.

Everyone was rounded up, and the COSMOS name tags, IDs, lanyards or whatever the staff chooses to call them, were distrubited back to the students. Everyone walked back to the Middle Earth housing area, and went back to their respective dorms.

Now why the word "sun" in the title. I got a small sunburn on my shoulder. I usually am very careful to put sunscreen on my face and neck, but I forgot that my shoulder is more or less the msot exposed part of my body when swimming, and I only remembered to put more sunscreen on my entire body only once. I guess I learned my lesson (again), and I will be asking for aloe vera for the rest of the week from Tatiyana.

COSMOS Day 14 - Piloting Knott's Berry Farm

The last time I went to a theme park was back in September 2008, when I went to Waterworld in Concord for my dad's company picnic. In general, I find it fun to go to amusement parks no more than once every three months, otherwise they can get dull. However, September 2008 and July 2009 is a 10 month difference, which made my experience there one worth remembering.

Out of the kindness of our director's hearts, we were sentenced to serve one day at Knott's Berry Farm to give COSMOS a good name. Therefore, there were three buses waiting to pickup a large quantity of COSMOS students at this drop of area or entrance to UC Irvine. Prior to the departure our bus pilot reminded us of basic rules to obey, such as keeping our hands and limbs inside the cabin at all times and not moving from one aisle to another aisle.

Exiting at Buena Park, the pilot reduced the speed to 26 knots to taxi to the final destination at the general automobile parking. The RA in charge of each bus passed out entrance tickets and meal/fuel vouchers to the line of passengers as they exitted out of the bus. As a group, we walked to the main entrance as depicted here in the image below.


It was approximately 11:45 when the students bearing blue COSMOS T-shirts walked through the gate and into the airport. I find it funny that the inspection of our carry on baggage happens after our flight is over.

Without clearance from the Air Traffic Control, I wandered around aimlessly until I found an RA station. I studied the map of the airways within the park, and decided I would go to the control tower, which is properly called Sky Cabin.


Inside, I saw various identified flying objects in the Knott's Berry Farm airspace. The highest identified flying object was the Xcellerator, and a few jets leaving from the nearby airports.

I got out of the control tower, and taxied to a roller coaster called Pony Express. After waiting 20 minutes in line, the pilot controlling that ride opened the gate to let me into the first car. I thus became the pilot of that car, and I had no co-pilot. After the operator secured the passengers, she announced, "cleared for takeoff," and opened full throttle. Just before landing, the ride halted from the air brakes and landing gear brakes. We all exited the aircraft for the next pilot and passengers in line can board the aircraft/roller coaster. I saw some fellow COSMOS pilots and passengers in line for the ride, and I stopped by the exit gate to take pictures.

Meanwhile, I attempted to practice my Spanish with a little Hispanic girl who was too little to go on the ride, and had to wait for her mom and sister to finish. The only thing I managed to communicate with her is "What's your name?" And she answered too quietly for me to hear. She'll get used to American English when she get to school.

When my friends finished the ride, we grouped up, and I declared I would joint their group. We taxied to Big Foot Rapids for our next ride/flight. After 42 minutes of waiting, the final boarding call was announced four our voyage/flight/ride.

As pilots/captains, we boarded the aircraft/ship/tube for the water ride. The plane/vessel accelerated to a maximum velocity of 20 knots, and splashed water into the deck. Our items were protected in a shielded luggage compartment. When the ride finished after three minutes, we disembarked the airplane/ship into the rotating terminal, and met at the ride exit.

Because a large quantity of the fuel in our body had been consumed for such rides, we received clearance from the control tower to taxi to a fueling station/eatery to redeem fuel/cheeseburgers (or for me, cheese pizza). The fueling station's menu included these items:


When we finished refueling/eating lunch, we taxied to the next attraction.

This next flight is called Ghostrider. The ghosts were probably from the people who died from standing too close to the jet engines powering the roller coaster. Twenty minutes passed before the flight began. My friend and I became the co-pilot and pilot of the flight, respectively, for the first car in the roller coaster. Shortly after takeoff, the airplane had to make an emergency landing due to an electrical failure. After the failure was repaired, the flight continued as normal. Accelerating to a speed of approximately 52 knots, the aircraft made several hard banks to change direction and raised and lowered the elevator to increase or decrease the altitude. On the final landing speed, the aircraft halted at the short runway, and taxied to the roller coaster runway.

After all my group members went on Ghostrider, we taxied to our final roller coaster for the day. Named "Silver Bullet," the ride attempts to emulate the feeling of a fighter pilot making basic aerobatic moves. As we boarded the fighter jets, the squadron of COSMOS cosmonauts/fighter pilots left the runway and climbed to approximately 100 feet. Then a rapid descent with hard banks, loops and twists. These were computer controlled moves, so we as fighter pilots only had to endure the G forces involved in the flight.

Upon the completion of this final flight, my group went back to the control tower to view the airspace a final time.

Our group ate a different eatery after visiting the control tower. Some of the food/fuel purchased included Dippin' Dots Ice Cream and a funnel cake.

Finally, all COSMOS students reported back at the main gate to discuss the day. Sightings of COSMOS students from UC San Diego were reported. Also, and extreme fighter pilot announced that he had blacked out momentarily during a flight on the Xcellerator. Others commented on the long lines to board the aiplanes.

When all students were accounted for, COSMOS announced the clear of the runway and headed back to the terminal where the (air)buses would fly us back to UC Irvine. The bus pilots arrived, and we boarded the same vehicles.

---

I found it fun writing this post in terms of being a pilot. It probably took me a little too long, yet I of course think it was worth it. Here the only math I could make out of this trip:

Ride Wait Time Ride Time Ratio
Sky Cabin 04:25 04:25 100.000%
Pony Express 20:00 00:30 2.500%
Big Foot Rapids 42:00 03:00 7.142%
Ghostrider 20:00 02:00 10.000%
Silver Bullet 05:00 02:00 40.000%

This is a very inaccurate study on ride time to wait time. In general, this can be used as an excuse for visiting Knott's Berry Farm.

COSMOS Day 13 - The Professor of the Professor and Karaoke Night

One interesting aspect about universities is that professors will teach students, and some of those students will remain at the university, and continue teaching in the same area. Professor John Crooks is no exception, since he was taught by the great Professor Christopher Dobrian: http://music.arts.uci.edu/dobrian/. In general, Professor Dobrian has worked with computer music since it was invented, which makes him a good candidate to lecture on some of his ideas to us. In addition, I believe he said something about having taught a COSMOS class before. That should explain his engaging lecture.

For today, my normal day RA, Laura, had to go somewhere. One of the night RAs in Woodhall, Emilio, took over for her, and Professor Crooks introduced him to the class as one of his former students. This occurrance just goes to show that the line of learning is very easy to trace at times.

One of the topics John wanted us to focus on was on LOUDNESS. One of important ideas to remember about the concept of loudness is that it is an arbirtary term that varies for different humans. The closest scientific term Mr. Dobrian could come up with was "intensity of the sound." With sound being defined as the slight changes in air pressure detected by the ear drum, the intensity (force over a given area) of the changes in air pressure detected by the ear drum would control how "loud" we hear sound. The famliar unit to measure "loudness" would be decibels, or on our little sound system equalizers, "dB." With such units in place, Professor Dobrian said that an exponential change in sound intensity is needed for our ears to hear a linear change in sound intensity. I am barely getting through all of the lecture, and I am starting to confuse myself. Therefore those who read this blog may not complain that I my blog post is too complicated.

On the topic of loudness, COSMOS had a karaoke night. I personally did not think the music was too loud. (The government standard for "loud" is about 80 dB, and that actually can damage one's hearing temporarialy, and the damage can become permanent if one is exposed to such an environment for many years.) Early today, Mr. Dobrian played a simple sine wave at 70 dB and most of the class started covering their ears. The singing was not expecially loud, and the music was not

COSMOS Day 12 - MZ passed at 15

Montomgery Zzyzx (MZ), a composer, student, skier, web designer and bad pilot, was killed last Thursday while participating in the game "Assassin" for COSMOS at the University of California at Irvine. He was 15.

MZ was a poor composer who wrote dull music and was ignored by most of his peers. He knew that no one would like his music, which is why this lesser quality does not diminish the way he lived.

While he was a failure as a musician, he managed to be a student of good standing at Hercules Middle High School. He was taking AP Calculus AB and AP World History, yet his ranking dropped down to number 15 by the end of the year.

"Girls can do that to [a student]," commented John Brown, MZ's journalism teacher at UCHMHS.

In general, MZ was deemed an acceptable person to participate in the COSMOS summer school program for mathematics and Science at UC Irvine. While at the program MZ attempted to rebuild his reputation as a musician.

COSMOS has several courses available to students called "clusters," and MZ was part of Cluster 6, Mathematics and Music. This course focused on music composition and the mathematical and scientific explanations behind the human perception of music, and is taught by Professor John C of UC Irvine and Professor Jim S of Long Beach Community College.

During the Fourth of July weekend prior to his death, MZ had just managed to reestablish his reputation as a composer. He was obligated to perform one of his more creative pieces titled “The 42 Suite, III. Florence” at the Composers Today Symposium, part of the Music Teachers’ Association of California annual convention hosted in Santa Clara.

Along with eight other young composers, MZ showed off his piece. The other musicians had written a piece for piano, and in general

“Lam [MZ] may or may not be missed after his death,” commented Dr. E. Vellame. “I wanted him to grow old and act like a grandpa who teaches biology.”

"From dust his music came from and to dust it will return," commented an anonymous critic on his music.

COSMOS Day 11 - iMovie Cut Amature

For those who know that iMovie and Final Cut Pro are the two video editing programs that are for Mac OS X, I am definitely unfamiliar with Final Cut Pro because I've never used it, and I marginally know how to use iMovie, since it is slightly better than Windows Movie Maker (for Windows 6).

In general, the first project I decided to do was make a soundtrack to the video I recorded when I was flying from San Francisco down to Orange county. That video was a recording of a Boeing 737 taking off, and that video would be this one right here:




However, I have managed to add music to the video and that version is available here:



I am somewhat proud of myself for being able to pull something like this off. However, I know that no piece of music is perfect. This is the best I can do in Logic Express for now, and I'll see how my progress goes as I create my final project.

COSMOS Day 10 - Boeing 737 takeoff background music

  
Download now or listen on posterous

Output 1-2.mp3 (4074 KB)

This is what I have accomplished after fiddling with drum loops and present stuff for a day...this is not the way I'm used to composing, but I don't care.  It's still music.

The thing that modern music is not exactly what I'm used to, but it's a start.  Tell me what you (my readers of this blog) think.

Posted via email from Montgomery's posterous

COSMOS Day 9 - Syn - together

The root "syn" means together, and Professor Jim Simmons basically taught my cluster about sound synthesis, using a synthesizer.  I have my notes somewhere on a Google Doc, but I am too lazy to pull up my lecture notes to put in this blog post.  I am therefore going to write a synopsis of everything we learned in one long sentence.  A synthesizer works by changing the way a sound wave is shaped when it is generated, and it is put together with other sounds to produce an electronically reproduced sound wave.

Using this new information, we can produce our own instrument sound that we imagine in our head.  Mixing this sound with the Ultrabeat machine, to produce a drum loop, we can create our very own melody just by dragging and dropping preset samples.  

Tomorrow we have out pythagorean tuning exercise due tomorrow.  The pythagorean tuning system is not synonymous with the equal temperament system.  The system is based on the ration 3:2 between the interval of a perfect fifth.  This makes for a very bright perfect fifth sound when played on an organ, but there will be at least one key that is unplayable in the tuning system, because there is some unequal balance between the notes.   The equal temperament solves this problem by multiplying the root frequency by the 12th root of 2.  All of this tuning is all inspired by the fact that we humans hear an octave as a frequency that is doubled.  The pythagorean system was not completely new territory to me.  My piano teacher explained a much more concise version of how the 3:2 tuning ratio works on an organ, but I never got to calculate frequencies based on this system.  Here are my results-

1. A  - 110.000
2. B  - 123.750
3. C# - 139.218
4. D  - 146.666
5. E  - 165.000
6. F# - 185.625
7. G# - 208.825
8. A  - 220.000

Those are my results for the pythagorean tuning.  That was also my homework due for 2009-07-07.  In general, one multiplies the root frequency by 1.5 to achieve the note 5 notes up (a perfect fifth).  Then the new frequency is multiplied by 1.5 to achieve the next perfect fifth.  This next frequency is then divided by 2 until it fits between the range of the scale.  In this case, for an A major scale, the range is 110 Hz to 220 Hz.  

I shall try to do the equal temperament tuning later. This is the system that all fixed-pitch instruments use.  However, instruments without frets like a violin can easily be manually adjusted when playing, and thus all four strings can be tuned in perfect fifths. 

COSMOS Day 8 - Flight 482, Service from Oakland to Orange County

Pilot: Oakland Tower, Southwest 482, Request IFR to Orange County. [lowers flaps to 5 degrees]

Air Traffic Control: Southwest 482, cleared to Orange County, John Wayne Airport as filed.  Fly runway heading, climb and maintain 10,000.  Departure frequency is [insert number], squak [code].  Clearance void 60 minutes from now.  

Pilot: Southwest 482, cleared to Orange County, John Wayne Airport as filed.  Fly runway heading, climb and maintain 10,000.  Departure frequency is [insert number], squak [code].  Clearance void 60 minutes from now.  

ATC: Southwest 482, read back correct.  Contact ground on [frequency].

Pilot: Oakland ground, Southwest 482 request taxi to take off, runway 9.

ATC: Southwest 482, taxi to and hold short of runway 9 via taxiway [taxiway number].

Pilot:  Taxi to and hold short of runway 9 via taxiway [taxiway number].

Pilot: Oakland ground, ready for take off.

ATC: Cleared for take off, runway 9.  Wind NW, 5 knots.

Pilot: Cleared for take off. [turns Boeing 737 right to line up with runway, opens full throttle, 

pulls down on elevator up, take off, nose pitch up 10 degrees]

ATC: Southwest 482, contact Oakland Departure on [frequency].

Pilot: Going to [frequency]

Pilot: Oakland departure, Southwest 482 is at [altitude], climbing for [10,000].

ATC: Southwest 482, roger.  Altimeter [2992].

ATC: Southwest 482, turn left heading [005].

Pilot: Turn left heading 005.

ATC: Southwest 482, climb and maintain [30,000].

Pilot: Climb and maintain 30,000.

ATC: South west, 482, turn left heading [275].

Pilot: Turn left heading [275].

ATC: Southwest 482, climb and maintain [42,000.]  Increase speed to [280] knots.

Pilot: Climb and maintain [42,000.]  Increase speed to [280] knots.

ATC: Southwest 482, you are now leaving my airspace.  Contact [center] on [frequency].

Pilot: Going to [frequency].

Pilot: Center, Southwest 482, with you.

ATC:  Southwest 482, roger.  Altimeter [2992].

ATC: Southwest, 482, turn left, heading 180.

Pilot: Turn left, heading 180.

ATC: Southwest 482, contact [center] on [frequency].

Pilot: Going to [frequency].

Pilot: Southwest 482, with you.

ATC: Southwest 482, roger.  Altimeter [2992].

ATC: Southwest, 482, descend and maintain [30,000].

Pilot: Descend and maintain [30,000].

ATC: Southwest 482, contact John Wayne approach on [frequency].

Pilot: John Wayne Approach, Southwest 482 is at [altitude] descending [30,000].

ATC: Southwest 482, roger.  Altimeter [2992].

ATC: Southwest 482, turn left heading [095].  Descend and maintain [10,000].  Reduce speed 

to [210] knots.

Pilot: Turn left heading [095].  Descend and maintain [10,000]. Reduce speed to [210] knots.

ATC: Southwest, 482, turn left heading [030], report the runway in sight.  Descend and 

maintain [2,000].  

Pilot: Southwest, 482, turn left heading [030]. [lowers flaps to 10 degrees]

Pilot: John Wayne tower, I have the runway in sight.

ATC: Southwest 482, cleared visual approach, runway 1.  Contact ground on [frequency].

Pilot:  Cleared, visual, inbound, runway 1.  Contact ground on [frequency].

Pilot: John Wayne tower, Southwest 482, with you.

ATC: Southwest 482, roger.  Fly right downwind traffic, runway 1 approach.

Pilot: Fly right downwind traffic, runway 1 approach.  [lowers flaps to 20 degrees, slows to 160 [knots]

ATC: Southwest 482, wind [wind direction and speed] cleared to land, runway 1.  Traffic is [describe that airport traffic is busy].

Pilot: Cleared to land, and we have the traffic, Southwest 482. [lowers full flaps to 30 degrees, 

lower landing gear, slow to 145 knots] [line up with runway, elevator trim, touch down, max spoilers, apply reverse thrust until slowed to 60 knots, brakes as necessary]

ATC: Southwest 482, welcome to Orange County, turn next taxiway.

ATC: Southwest 482, taxi to gate 2, via taxiway [taxiway number].  Gate 2 is still occupied, 

please wait until the current aircrafts leaves.

Pilot: Taxi to gate 2, via taxiway [taxiway number].  

ATC: Taxi to gate 2.

Pilot: [set parking brake, turn throttle to idle, turn passenger signs off, turn of fuel flow, open passenger door]

COSMOS Day 7 - Northern Cal

I'm basically cheating on my counting of my days in COSMOS. I wasn't even with anyone today, since I had to go back to the Bay Area to make my "performance" of Florence at the MTAC convention in Santa Clara. In the meantime, my fellow cosmonauts are on a little field trip to Blomers. I forgot where, since I didn't pay attention to the first field trip when I was looking through the stuff in my binder. After the convention, I went home to Hercules.

That was the paraphrased version of my day.  The more complicated one is as follows:

When I checked out Friday (COSMOS Day 6), I went back to my dad's friend's house in Arcadia.  Prior to that, I went to Hollywood, because it was on the way back to Arcadia, which is why there is one random post about Hollywood before this one.

The next day (COSMOS Day 7), my family departed from Arcadia and started heading up to Santa Clara.  We stopped at a Denny's diner for brunch.  The food I ate there seemed to not be any different than the food I normally eat at Pippins.

Traveling for another two or so hours, we finally reached Silicon Valley.  Big company names, such as Intel, Nortel Neworks, AMD, IBM and Yahoo! were visible along the highway.  We existed very close to them and drove to the Marriott hotel.

After parking the car, we started to search for where my "performance" of Florence would take place.  Outside of the building, I met up with my good friend, Paul, who said he would be coming to go see my "performance."  The teacher's checkin table pointed to the left and told us to go to the student information center.  I was required to report to Ballroom A-C.  

All of the fine composers made their way into the room.  One of the state contest winners managed to write a film score, and played it on a projector.  All students were required to say a few words before their performance of their composition on the grand piano.  As for me, my performance is on a DVD, since an orchestra cannot play it live.  Therefore, I managed to say a few words, and then give the DVD to the director, and sit down, and have the audience watch.  For my "performance" of Florence...that will take a while to upload. I will make a new post when I have time to upload the video - or rather when I get home.

Paul and my family continued traveling home, and midway, around Oakland, we went downtown to go eat dinner at a Chinese restaurant.  The food we ate included deep fried fish, roasted chicken, bok choy and sweet and sour pork.  I did not indulge in everything because I do not eat red meat, as a lot of my blog readers would know already.

We continued traveling back to Hercules after finishing dinner.  Paul lives around Hercules Avenue, so we drove there first.  Afterward, my dad took us to the area by Bio-rad to see if the police closed off the area for the fireworks.  The security manager told my dad that only employees with their badges will be allowed into the parking lot to watch the fireworks.

With that information, we drove home, and unpacked slightly (for my parents and brother stayed at Arcadia for my first week at COSMOS) and took a shower.  My dad and I left to go to Bio-rad to see the fireworks.  

The video of the fireworks in Hercules...it is about 80 MB, and I will update this post when it is on YouTube.  Actually, no, I won't be able to upload this video, because there was an uploading error at home.  The problem is that I don't have the file with me in UCI, and it is at home.

Florence - so close to being done

Output 1 - 2
Download now or listen on posterous

Output 1-2.mp3 (3359 KB)

I was doing as much editting on the piece before I left UCI for the weekend, and I am not allowed to keep the MacBook I was checked out, so that means I must finish all my audio editting in Logic. Thus, I bounced the audio, and I created this mp3 file. This is the best that I alone can do. I'm sure Mr. Nemoyten or Jim (my instructor at COSMOS) could do a way better job at splicing the audio files together for me. If it took me until this morning to find out where the crossfade feature is, that definately shows I am a very profient person at using Logic.

I don't think I will be able to mix the audio into the video in time. It is simply going to take too much time, which I don't have. I have until 16:00 for the 4th of July (a very, very American holiday) to produce another copy of the DVD. I left the Dell Insipiron laptop in my dorm before I went back to Arcadia, so I am in the inconvience of not having my software at my disposal.in general, I have no clue what will happen, since my dad's laptop does not a have an optical drive, as he replaced it with a spare battery, and both my dad's computer and Uncle Albert's computer doesn't have Windows Movie Maker 10 or whatever...the one that can read and understand NTSC widescreen (the format at which Florence was recorded).\

Good luck on those who care about my music. The time for me has almost come, and I am so close.

Posted via email from Montgomery's posterous

The 42 Suite, 3. Florence - almost done, I hope

I wanted to take advantage of Logic by mixing Florence into something that sounds, "pleasing to the ear."  I don't think I will have time to finish, and I will be having to resort to the copy I made a few days earlier.  I was thinking about staying up to work on it, but not anymore.  I can concentrate more when no one is online at 06:00.  Here is a screenshot of what I am working with:

In general, I just feel so much more comfortable talking about Florence to the other members in my cluster than anyone in orchestra at my school.  I think it's because we are all in this program for the love of music, and only the "best" of the somewhat good people get accepted. Oh well, I just feel others appreciate me more after four days of knowing them compared to Hercules.

COSMOS Day 6 -Academic Bowl and Olympics

There was a vast amount of American pride today, with everyone pretending to know what they are doing in competitions, failing miserably and all being good sport to have the most fun possible.  

At 08:45 all the clusters were gathering in the quad.  Instead of going to class, everyone departed to play around, do more ice breakers, or "practice" for the academic bowl.  My cluster did 3 ice breakers to get to know each other better, even though we have seen each others faces for so long.  Prior to sitting around in a circle, we broke up into groups of three.  Those groups would later be competing in the academic bowl.  One of the games involved writing down a random question and answer, trading with each other, ask the question to the person on the right and the person on the right gives their answer as a response.  

During the academic bowl, groups of there were competing against each other, and getting bored when there was a hard question.  I got eliminated in the first round, because I didn't know that asteroids were named after Beethoven, Elvis and other musicians.

UCI waffles

I like the food here:

COSMOS Day 5 - 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and....

Syncopation, as we know it, is accenting the offbeat in a rhythm.  I'm not sure if what we are doing could fit into the definition of syncopation, but we are learning a rumba beat.  In general, we have this 3:2 ratio that occurs throughout the piece, and that basic ratio of 3 beats during 2 beats forms the basic rhythm.  The rhythm is written in 6/8 time, subdivided into 12 beats, with different rhythms in between.  A rhythmic grid in Logic would help one to understand how the rhythms sounds like.

Afterward, there was a meeting with a guest lecturer.  This was to inspire us to carry out an independent research project.  The program was called "Science Buddies," advocating some of Intel's advanced science competitions.

COSMOS Day 4 - I am going to make my blog posts in the morning now

I think I find it easier to squeeze in some time to write about my day one day after such events occurred.  The simple reason is because at night, I want to work on some of my audio projects/assignments, and if possible, I need to find time to read The Scarlet Letter. In addition, writing in the morning as a reflection of the day before also helps me to keep my posts short because I would have forgotten some of the details of the day.  Therefore, I am going to summarize my third day now.

In general, we learned how to get on new instruments and how to record audio.  One feature the class explored was recording multiple takes in a certain area of the piece.

Later we listened to a piece that my teacher was trying to make as an example.  The lyrics were quite funny considering he didn't put much thought into the example.

After being dismissed, out class went to the bookstore.  One of my classmates went to buy a headphone.  I went in with him to have a look at what he is considering.  While passing by a netbook plugged into an external tv, I decided to do one of those hide desktop items/screenshot the desktop tricks.  That will leave people dazed and confused for hours...unless there are techies there who know what I did.

About the forum yesterday, we shared our experiences, complaints, received a few gifts and went back to our dorm.  My classmate was the first to go, and he said, "everything is just running smoothly here."  I agree, there are no stupid inconsistencies to worry about so far, and no trouble makers who cause trouble that isn't funny.  Complaints, the first, if I remember correctly was about Internet access in the dorms.  Ms. Tatiyana Webb, our program coordinator, basically said COSMOS never promised it, but are working hard to get it for us.  If we are continuing to complain and bug our RAs about it, she will say no.  I am really lucky for being in Cluster 6.  That's all I'll say about the issue with the Internet.  Gifts we received were a COSMOS notebook, and a COSMOS pen/highlighter.  Then we got up and sang a song/dance or whatever - "hands up, hands up, wrists together, wrists together.............."

After that, I watched a game of Mafia.  The narrator was quite funny.  The doctor was "selfish" in saving herself.  And the civilians won.

That's it for yesterday, my description of day will be tomorrow morning.

Free Time/Dinner Before Forum

We have to eat dinner early because we have a mandatory meeting, or rather, a forum, in which we vent, complain or cheer for what we love/hate about COSMOS.  I have no clue what to 

expect, except that we will probably be given a lecture about rules.  

Since everyone is just notified of this "change" in schedule (since it was already described in the information binder we received upon arrival), everyone was waiting in a line outside.  I am proud to be waiting in such a line getting bored.

Breakfast Blogging

Only the severely bored would bother to blogging about the food they ate in the cafeteria because the wifi connection there is much stronger than in the dorm.  I have a feeling that I will be getting sick of the breakfast food really soon, and I will have to change my eating preferences.

For today, I managed to eat french toast, potatoes, scrambled eggs and a biscuit.  Before I get bored out of my mind, I will start eating some of the less savory foods and transition to the more sweet items, such as waffles and cereal. (Please see picture below)

I think I am going to head back to my dorm for another 20 minutes before I am due in the quad to meet with my cluster.  I'll be intending to be 10 minutes early since I was 5 minutes late yesterday.