My Life and Why it's Weird... (Did I spell wierd right?)

Hi folks,

Every couple of years I rediscover that I have this blog, and immediately think of reasons to try to revive it.  It isn't Facebook (so most people won't I know won't see it) and it isn't Twitter (so I won't feel the need to post something every two minutes (or seconds if you're my brother (I love nested parentheticals (thank you Julian...)))), and that's reason enough for me right now.

So what am I going to talk about?  I don't really know.  I guess I'll talk about my life.  First thing to say is that, until recently, I hadn't had sex for like two and a half years.  If you read that, you know me well enough to be my friend.  That's kinda why I wrote it.  Everyone that knows me and knows that about me think I'm crazy, stupid, bad at life, or some combination of those things.  I think that's pretty accurate.  And now we're moving on.

Those of you who read closely and don't get caught up on details for too long (ya know, like the fact that I hadn't had sex for two and half years) are probably curious about what happened recently...  well, it's a little bad.  I didn't see it coming (hehe, coming), but it happened.  Don't judge me.  I may or may not have slept with my roommate...  my lesbian roommate.  I can't tell if that's more or less complicated than sleeping with a straight female roommate... probably because I haven't done it before (not that I haven't wanted to ;)).

So that's the personal side of me.  I'm glad that I got that out of the way.  And I pray that my roommate never reads this, but we're fighting right now, so even if she does it'll be fine.

Next entry will probably be about work.  If you don't think that's interesting, good for you, but I do happen to be working on some stressful work things, so keep your ears open.  Talk to you soon Internet.

Hugs and Kisses,

Chaka J

Where Electronic and Classical Collide

This was my final for a class that I took at Yale called Music 312. It was a music composition seminar. I really liked it because it was basically you sitting down and making your own music using different programs. I got to use Logic, Reason and Sibelius all for one project. It was super educational, and so much fun. Also, I was really into the aqua harp YouTube video at this point, so I sorta gave it a camea appearance towards the end of the song.

I wish I could play piano

So, while I was in college, I was taking music theory classes.  After the entry level class, I was always one of two people that didn't actually play piano.  My ear was okay, but many of the songs that we discussed as examples I had never heard before, and everyone else in the class had played them.  It was just disadvantageous.

Anyway, the point of all that is that I wanted to be able to play the pieces that they had us make in class, but I couldn't, but here's what one of those pieces could have sounded like...

Techno Time

This was the first real song I did in my music 295 class sophomore year of college.  It was fun to make, and it went over pretty well with the rest of the class.  I think the program I used to make it was Reason.  It's a super awesome music creator, but it relies pretty significantly on loops, as you can probs tell by listening to the song.  Most of what you hear you'll hear again in a different context...

The start of something old

Hello Internet,

I'm restarting my blog, and I'll be using it the same way I was using it when I started this blog...  MUSIC!!!!  Of course, I'm not in the same class I was in when I started it, and my music is a good bit different.  So I guess I'll start at the beginning and work my to the present.  I've been doing some pretty fun stuff, and I hope you like it.  What I hope more though is that you listen to it.  You don't have to like, but you better respect it!

Peace and Prosperity for now,

Chaka Jaliwa

Stuff I've composed 2

changes II 1.mp3

Stuff I've composed 1

Chaka's final.mp3