Music- Final MYP Reflection

Over the last two years, I have had many musical experience in and out of class. The best music experience outside of class would have to be performing with the Bangkok Charity Orchestra. Performing with an orchestra is very different from playing alone. The players in the orchestra are of a high level so it helped push me forward. I also got exposed to a lot of different major symphonies and concertos and got to play with some professional violin and piano soloists. In class, there were two major music experience that I will cherish deeply. First was when I got a chance to write my own song. I have always wanted to write a song and I finally got a chance to do so here. The other experience is during the jazz unit. I have only been exposed to classical music, but after this unit I got a better idea of Jazz and learned to appreciate it more.

I think the greatest success in music was learning about the different types of music, such as Jazz and African Music. Also now that I have matured and be able to approach a new piece of music without the help of my teacher. This skill will be very important for me when I no longer have a teacher but still need to play big pieces. Playing pieces with Tobias helped me get an idea of playing a duet and the skills that is needed to do so. A failure of mine would be that I didn’t actually play a wide range of pieces, I am much more focused on classical pieces but should think about playing different styles of pieces.

Music helped me develop me as a person. I learnt to enjoy and love classical pieces and also appreciate them for what they are. I have learnt the theory of music and now sometimes if I am bored I can just analyze the music that I hear. It is quite a fun thing to do. It will play a major role in the future for me. I could be playing in a bar to make some extra money on the side or just playing for the joy of my self. In my spare time I also wish to compose music and maybe have the possibility as a future career option. Music will forever be part of my life and I will definitely look back at the two years of MYP music that I had.

Semester 2 Reflection

In semester 2, I have done quite a lot of different activities, one of my strengths were I improved on my science lab reports and essays while a area for growth would be in trying to understand but no just know things in Math. Service has been a main contribution of mine this year and have helped to organize and lead quite a few different events. The most recent event is the Mixed Up concert involving 5 different schools that participated in it.

GreeNIST is an ECA that I started to be part of. It is a service group that aims to develop the NIST rooftops garden. On our first sale we managed to raise more than 7000 baht from all of the vegetables and plants that we have grown. iChoice has also been a great time for me direct my service group ISARA (Anti Human Trafficking Club) and we managed to get some trips down to the orphanage in Pattaya that we are trying to support.

Science- Asian Tapir Infographic

Infographics

PE- Football Reflection

Football has been the highlight of the year for PE (for me). I really like playing football so the unit was very enjoyable.

How is my level of football compared to others?
I played 2 seasons in the U15 football team and training with the team definitely helped me to improve my skills in football.

What progress did I make?
I think I didn’t really make quite a lot of improvement in this unit as the classes were quite short. But I did benefit from the drills that we did, it helped me to improve my skills even more and made me more accurate in shooting.

How has my understanding of the game improved?
In this unit, we did quite scenarios to help us get a better awareness of the game and help us make the right decisions. I believe through these scenarios I got much more aware of the game and aware of what we need to do in order to complete a task.

Community and Service- Reflection

The Issue

The issue that I have taken action on this year is about Human Trafficking. After hearing Matt Friedman talk about it at the ICE conference last year, I got truly inspired. This is why I decided to lead a service group along with Irene to address this local issue.

What did I do?

There were many activities that I did throughout the year, we had a the ISARA chocolate sale that was the most successful. By selling chocolate at valentine’s day, we managed to raise awareness about the issue of fair trade and how human trafficking is involved in the chocolate industry.

Who did I do it with?

I did this event with my ISARA service group.

When did I do?

This event was in the month of February. The sell of chocolates were from the 1st of February to 8th. The chocolate were delivered at the morning of the valentines day.

How well did I do my action?

The event was very successful. We managed to sell out our stock of 600 chocolates in a time space of 3 days. This is a new event so a lot of people are excited about it. There was also a little note (printed on recycled paper) inside each chocolate bag that stated a fact about this issue. This way awarness was raised and chocolate was enjoyed at the same time. This is definitely an event that will happen next year and for the years to come.

Music- Plan

Group Members: Tobias and Zeyu

Instruments: Violin and Piano

Music: The Butterfly Lover Violin Concerto

Origin: Chinese

Plan:

1. Practice separately so each part is known
2. Work in sections and try get through the piece
3. Rehearse together combining the sections
4. Run through the piece from top to bottom

 

Music- Composition Investigation

The Oscar nominated musical Les Misérables hit the cinemas on Christmas Day last year, reviving a long lost musical. With the movie came the beautifully original French songs by by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel then translated into English by Herbert Kretzmer. A famous song from this musical is “I Dreamed a Dream”, sang by Fatine in the first act of the musical. Throughout the years multiple cover versions of the song has been produced, making it the best known song from the musical.

This song is structured in an A-B-C-D-E format, with the same sort of rhythmic pattern repeating and different variations of the main melody which comes in at part B. First the song starts off very slowly, which a vocal introduction where the words are almost said then sung. All of the notes are E and even though a rhythm is written on the music, but it is not generally followed by the singer as this helps to express her emotions even better. The singing begins in at B with a 3 bar instrumental introduction. The piano plays a counter melody here helping to bring out the real melody. The main melody has a dotted rhythm, helping to push the music forward. As the melody is playing the piano plays a counter melody that fits nicely in the background. At part C, the first chord has an E sharp in it, which is very curious. This is because it doesn’t fit the chords that the songs has been be playing before. As this section goes on, the audience gets use to this new melody line. This section ends with the singer holding a very long note, creating a crescendo as she tries to hold her breath. This increases the energy level of this song and then with the fermata at the end, it controls this energy again. The next section goes back into the part B melody but is cut short as the orchestra comes in and plays a two bar transition for the modulation which happens at the start of part E. This modulation brings much more energy into the music, where the climax of the whole song is reached. The song then quickly reduces itself to the previous state and ends with a piano playing a short motif.

How the song is laid out helps to convey the true purpose of the song. Fatine was dying, thrown out into the streets and became a prostitute trying to earn money for her daughter. She tries to think back to her happier days and wonders about her life. The song is very sad and it helps Fatine to express her true feelings. She is accompanied by an orchestra which can produce a range of sounds. The woodwinds mainly plays in the part A, while the brass fully joined in part E where the climax of the piece. Generally Fatine was accompanied by strings and keyboard, creating a very soft and sad sound. This acts like the bass line to the singer. Percussion was never used in this music except in the climax to enhance and empathize the music even more. The lyrics itself is also empowering and before with the audience viewing the series of steps that led Fatine to become this way, the song really impacts them, could bring a tear to their eyes while watching the movie.

From this research, I can relate quite a few things to my own composition. Even though this song and my composition are from quite different genres but the central ideas are all the same, to enhance and help convey a message to the audience. Apart from that, there is quite a few things that is similar between the two pieces. First I used a dotted melody like the one in this song. This helps to make a simple melodic line much more complex and interesting. Next I used chords to help accent the strong beats in each bar. This is what happens in the climax of the song increasing the energy level.

Every instrument has purpose but if it is played alone, it would song very dry and bare. It is when all the instruments are combined together that truly makes this music a master piece. With over 30 covers of this song made, the number would continue to rise over the next years, keeping this legendary piece of music alive.

Science- Enzymes and Test Preparation

Tests are going to be a big part of life in the diploma program. Most of the time will be used to revise for these tests that is going to account for 75% of the final grade. I revise for my test in quite a lot of different ways. First I like to revise on my own and try to remember what I can. But as I start to get to questions where I do not know the answer to, I will start to ask my class mates for the answer. For this test I was fortunate enough to revise together with some friends and this helped me as they can help test my knowledge and also correct something if I get it wrong. I also have some friends in year 12 who take biology, I would sometimes ask them questions that my classmates wouldn’t know the answer to. They would give me good answers and sometimes even more than I ask for, learning more in the process. I tend to be too confident in knowing everything and sometimes I think I know the subject, but when getting quizzed by my class mate I would not get everything right. This is why I like getting quizzed so I can know what I actually know and don’t know. This method seems to work for me and I would like to continue to use this for next year.

The essay really gave me good insight on biotechnology and how enzymes makes the world a better place. But it can also cause a lot of ethical and social issues that everyone has a different view to. Even though its helping the world, it is also starting a lot of debates that are very hard to conclude. Doing some further reading, I have realized that there are so much more interesting information about enzymes that we didn’t cover. Things like the metabolic pathways and also the induced fit model, these concepts might be hard to get but they were very interesting to read about. I would like to explore this further on my own and just read about the things that interest me.

Music- Composition Reflection 6

Today was just a day to experiment with my piece. First Mr. David sent me to the Mac Lab on the art floor to play around with garage band and see if they can enhance the music. This didn’t work so I took my piece to Khun Surasak and he enhanced the music for me. Below is my final composition, enjoy ~

Music- Composition Reflection 5

There is only one more music lesson before the holidays. Today in class I realized that I have finished my whole composition. After showing Mr. David, he suggested that I do some minor adjustments in some places of the piece but other than that it is fine. The whole piece consists of two sections, the long introduction and the story of Tom and Jerry. Using the instruments I have chosen, I think I have successfully set the mood for the clip that I have chosen. The first introduction part I gave each cat a different theme. This was synced to what they were doing and if just by listening to the music it would sound quite chaotic but with the video everything would make sense. The second part is like a conversation between the clarinet and oboe. By using different notes, I managed to create a different feel. Like in the last part when Tom blows Jerry up, I used an arpeggio scale and when Jerry was flying wildly 32th notes were used to create the flying affect. My next step is try to enhance the sound quality from Sibelius. This would require a number of steps and Mr. David said he will help me with this next lesson.