Major Announcement and Interview with @Kidstruments

Hello everyone! Sorry about the lack of posts lately but between Faith's getting married in the next couple of weeks and I've been setting up for a new series plus running Team Young Spark as we head towards our first couple of major events... Life's been a little overwhelming. But seeing there has been 90+ views on the "Music Theory 101" series thus far, I think it's safe to assume that I will finish this season of it. The next series I'm going to do is a tutorial series on using and making the most out of Audacity. While it isn't the best program to do a lot of complicated audio manipulation, people underestimate its potential. By the time the series begins to trickle out, I should have released an animation project I've been working on with my friend Benjamin and everything audio related has been mixed and mastered in Audacity. Also, I want to revisit the Finale Tutorials but teach over 2014 this time.The original series had such a positive reception that I wouldn't imagine not doing it but I need to save up for 2014. Leave a comment if you would like to see more of them (and they will be actual lessons this time, not randomly teaching tools!)

The first major announcement is that I've been accepted as a panelist for Derpy Con South as my alias Harmonic Inferno, and I will be giving 2 lectures: One on the series I've been working on here (Music Theory 101) and the other an open discussion on arts activism. I wanted to make sure that if anyone here was interested in coming out to the convention and hearing them that you were aware in advance. The other thing I wanted to announce was Faith will be getting married in the near future. I mentioned it briefly before, but I wanted to make sure I gave her a major congratulations for her milestone with her fiance but for all the help she's done in building this site back up. Now without further ado, let's get onto the interview!

Adam: Explain what Kidstruments Fund is? How was it started and how long has
it been around?

Kidstruments: Kidstruments Fund is an organization that helps kids play instruments in school band or orchestra. It was started when my 6th grade orchestra teacher's violin broke. It was very sentimental to her and I raised money to try to fix it. She did not take the money but in the process I learned that there are kids without the sufficient funds to rent an instrument. I had this money and nothing to do with it, so I used it to start Kidstruments. Kidstruments has been around for 3 months now [as of the time of this interview].

A: What all does Kidstruments Fund do to help/ benefit the music community?

K: Kidstruments helps the music community by helping others playing music, by expanding the community (in the future hopefully greatly) and making more people to play the music that other people write. Now, as for the normal community, it shows people that little people (grammar for the win) can make big impacts. It also helps more people enjoy music. It also helps kids in school, because for some, a love of music might be the thing that makes them like school and be a better student. 

A: What goals does your group have towards helping the music community at

large?

K: Our goal to the music community at large is to help more and more people not just play music, but write it, understand it, and enjoy it. We try to grow it and expand it. Kidstruments is trying greatly to expand music all over the world.

A: How can someone help your cause?

K: People can help by donating online at [http://kidstrumentsfund.org/donate/] or they can send a check to:

Kidstruments Fund Inc.9425 N. Meridian #201IndianapolisIN 46260They can also follow us on Twitter [@Kidstruments] or Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/Kidstruments]. Finally, and most important, if music people just told other music people about us, I think so many musicians would remember how important their school band or orchestra was to their life, and would want to help kids get the same opportunity. The younger kids, after all, are the musicians of tomorrow.

A Series of Announcements! If you are subscribed, please read!

Hey guys, I'm here with an few announcements for you guys.

First off let's start by saying thank you guys! We've finally hit the 4,000 viewer mark! It's been a few days, and now we're closing in on the 5,000 viewer mark. Also, this is the first time the blog has had 1,000 views in a month! I am going to upload a video that the people on the Facebook page requested. For those who have been following me on Facebook or Twitter you also know of an upcoming contest. This is the official announcement of the 5,000 page viewer contest along with a few other things so keep reading!

The second announcement is I am adding a new author to the blog. Introducing Lester (also known as Distonal), a music education major at Long Island Univ. and a man who I've known for a long time. He will be the main author to the World Music Experiment, and will contribute a lot more to world music than I ever think of. He will also be sitting in on other topics that I will be talking about. I am also working on some cross overs in the near future as well from some other YouTube musicians, so stay tuned! I'm also taking in offers for the "song of the week" series. If you want to have something you've made posted on here, then submit it via the Facebook page, Twitter, or leave me a comment below with your name and the URL. I will consider anything you show me as long as it is music!

The next thing on my agenda of announcements is the fact that I've messed up rather badly. I read over some of the practice episodes and the theory lessons (before the suddenly vanished) and I know of the lack of quality versus the way they started out as. I would rather put a series on hold than give you wrong or very hard to understand topics so I am giving both of those series a temporary halt. Once I get through my end of the year stuff, I will start the series back up and clarify anything that you have to know. If you want me to answer a question before then, then send me a message to either Facebook(http://www.facebook.com/sulliadm) or Twitter(http://www.twitter.com/sulliadm).

As usual, don't forget to subscribe to Facebook or Twitter if you prefer! Between the admins (Yuki, Kyte and soon to be Lester) and myself, we try to keep fresh material on there daily. Also, if you have ever had something you want to ask Lester, to the other admins or to me directly, then I will be taking questions for an admin interview once the Facebook Page hits 100 likes! We are almost at 60, so if you want this to speed up then click the link above! And another note on communication; don't be afraid to comment on the articles themselves. I don't know a lot about your past when it comes to bloggers but I love interacting with the community I'm working hard to establish. If you want to say something, as long as it isn't offensive or spam I don't mind it. I love feedback, because it helps me get an idea on where my audience is and if something isn't to your liking, I want to improve on it. That's why it took so long to catch the problems with the episodes, I didn't know about it until one of my professors start pointing stuff out to me.

And finally, the moment you've been waiting for... the contest! I am offering a package consisting of a poster out of any 1 of the 3 pictures I've created in Photoshop and a black/red para cord bracelet to one lucky viewer. The bracelet was graciously donated by a fan, and is considering making them to sell as a way to show support for the blog. That leads me to a discussion for you guys later on, but for now it's just a thought for everyone to think about. The poster will be around a medium sized poster; I'm thinking about a 16in X 12in... but I'm not 100% sure on the dimensions yet. If you want the poster autographed, I will happily do so but if not then I understand. I will cover shipping in the US and possibly international shipping. I may need a little help shipping them internationally, but I will let you know what I've worked out once I completely announce it and get the bugs worked out. I will let you know what the contest rules are once we hit the 5,000 viewer mark so keep sharing if you want it to happen sooner. The reason I'm telling you guys now is so you get ready for this instead of just dropping it out of nowhere! Here is what is for the give-a-way:

Picture 1:

Picture 2:

Picture 3:

Bracelet:

Sulli's Song of the Week #3: "Nocturne - Cello & Piano" by Steven Chen

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOrchestraBoy/


I'm back with some another episode of "Sulli's Song of the Week". This week, Steven Chen of Spartanburg, SC has a song for us. He's been playing cello for 5 years now and composing for 2 of them. He plays upright bass, viola and piano along with cello. Steven says the idea behind the song is it starts out dark and mysterious which it then rushes into a fast movement from the cello while the piano thunders away with a D minor chord. If you like this, and want to see more then go to his YouTube page and follow him.

If you would like to be featured on this segment then let us know! Message us a clip of you playing something original or a cover at YouTube, Twitter, Facebook or in the comments below! Thanks for reading!