Alright.. I offered you guys a clear and understandable explanation as to why you think of me the way you do, and who I really am. I explained everything with patience and understanding, and one after another you guys still insist that i'm a socially inept awkward person who is going to fall on my face.
I'm currently video chatting with a very attractive woman from Spain, who has told me that my future is so bright that it blinds her. I think i'll just get back to talking with her.. or for that matter, anyone who actually understands who the fuck I am.
Well, that's awesome! Bye, and good luck from all of us. Sorry we don't understand you. All we have to go on is the stuff you post here, and from that it seems as if you could do with our advice, which is well-intentioned.
Incidentally, do you know the work of José Saramago? He is a Nobel laureate from Portugal, and considered 'a genius.' You might like him. Yesterday I was reading his novel 'The Gospel According to Jesus Christ' while listening to Miles Davis' album 'Kind of Blue' and Thomas Tallis' fifty voice motet 'Spem' (some consider these 'works of genius', but being a composer I'm sure you're already devouring these, and other works like them.) Soak up the good stuff! Learn from the masters! Come back when you've won a major award!
Alright.. I offered you guys a clear and understandable explanation as to why you think of me the way you do, and who I really am. I explained everything with patience and understanding, and one after another you guys still insist that i'm a socially inept awkward person who is going to fall on my face.
I'm currently video chatting with a very attractive woman from Spain, who has told me that my future is so bright that it blinds her. I think i'll just get back to talking with her.. or for that matter, anyone who actually understands who the fuck I am.
...I offered you guys a clear and understandable explanation as to why you think of me the way you do...
Riiiiight.... so we need help understanding why we ALL read the same thing and why we ALL come to the same conclusion...
We are a group of independently minded folk -- if you go one more level deep, you would realize that -- and yet we come to the same conclusion: you are a socially inept self-felating awkward crust of a boy.
Will you guys just please stop with the inept, inaccurate judgments about me? One guy says "This kid is sheltered and retarded" and the next poster posts based on that and not based on any form of truth. It causes the thread to quickly spiral downward in a landslide of false assumptions about me, that can only end in me losing my patience. I don't want to lose my patience, and I have no reason to. Just please, think about whether you can actually know that what you're saying has any truth to it, before you post it.
@ soulcrusher. I'm not sheltered at all from the outside world. I have a very good idea of where I am academically, and my parents were far from the only people in the world who told me that i'm a genius throughout my life. I didn't "drop out" of college. I never went with the intention of getting a degree. I simply wanted to see what a form of public education is like. The classes were extremely limited in the small campus that I was attending, and the structure of the style of teaching didn't compliment or support the way I was used to learning things and progressing. I didn't find much value in it.
@ hardeeharhar. I haven't fallen on my face. There's nothing wrong with the fact that people tell me i'm a genius, and that I then use that talent to succeed in the areas which i'd like to excel in.
Several months ago, the general attitude in this thread was that I'm not going to achieve my goals. I simply came back here to give a brief update on how I was doing, so that those of you who were 100% certain that I was an incompetent retard, could have the opportunity to question your beliefs.
Thanks
Public school was designed to force people to diminish their life goals.
Support it.
Quote:
No, I didn't make it up. The beginning of the American Education system was based on the Prussian model, which was designed to create obedient workers and obedient soldiers.
Way to read mid's post and regurgitate it. You sure you didn't go to public school?
Quote:
And about the film thing.. well, there was one guy who contacted me via youtube, to score his short film. I did it long distance, by having him send me low resolution quicktime clips from the film, me recording music to them, and then sending him back a scored low resolution clip as well as a separate high quality audio file. I scored his 15 minute film in one day and he was very pleased.
That's not "scoring a film." Anything you can do in one day is not "scoring a film."
Quote:
Then, I was at a screenwriters event in the Seattle area, and I introduced myself to this director who was about to start shooting a feature length independent film. I asked him if he had a composer, and he said no. So I emailed him some samples of my music a few days later, and he said he wanted me to write music for the film.
Sounds good, but a little vague to me. What kind of event? What is the movie? Will it be distributed somewhere I'd see it?
Quote:
In addition to orchestral and instrumental composition, I also do solo piano improvisation, and stuff like that has been used in meditative slideshows, and also has earned me up to $100 a day in tips in cafes and such. (4 hour days).
Sounds good to me. Then again, you said you make $15,000 a year. Not sure how that adds up.
Quote:
I've studied violin, piano, theory, harmony, composition, and conducting in various music conservatories including the New England Conservatory in Boston.
You mean:
I played violin.
I read a theory book.
I've written stuff of my own.
I went to summer workshop at the New England Conservatory in Boston, mostly so I could say I went to the New England Conservatory...in Boston.
I'm not trying to put down your chances of success here...I'm just saying be honest. You haven't "studied" with anyone. There is no reason that at 17 you'd have any idea what in the hell you're doing. I'm sure you have talent...but until you really put some time in understanding the roots of composition and tonal harmony, there is no way you'll develop to your fullest, unless (as I said) you're some kind of prodigy. Since you can't spell Einstein, I kind of doubt it.
At the piano, 3-year-old Lennon plays random sounds. "Why don't you teach him to play?" asks my visitor from the East Coast, who knows that I am a pianist. "He is learning," I say.
Weird that I visited the forum after not being here in a while and stumbled on this rejuvenated thread!
Lennon,
It's good that you're getting started doing these things you want to do.
I would encourage you to make a distinction between your bad community college experience and excellent educational experiences that are out there. You've never had high level music training, been to a liberal arts college, or even worked as an intern or assistant for someone you respect, so I'm not really sure why you're so quick to dismiss them.
There is also a reason why people are responding negatively. You come off as arrogant, and that will always turn people off. If you returned to give a humble - or even better, self-deprecating - update on what you were up to, without self-aggrandizing, you would have gotten a positive response.
Arrogance not only turns others away from you, but also turns you away from good opportunities. If you are so convinced that you are already fantastic wonderful and amazing, what is the point of school? What's left to learn? That sounds like what you're saying. What you don't seem to realize is that you can be fantastic wonderful and amazing, and still only be just starting out and in vital need of education.
Being able to work with other people, musicians, directors, producers, artists... it's all part of the job.
And gaining musical skills that you don't yet have... that's also part of the job!
They all are required by their job to sit in meetings with studio executives and directors and other people, and listen to feedback, and adapt their work to the needs of their bosses. They are required to have the social skills and the experience working with people to be able to handle such situations.
You need experience working with people and working with "the system" in order to function in real life.
I don't think by shutting yourself off from the "system" you are learning those skills. But then, you probably won't listen to me just like you haven't listened to any other constructive criticism in this thread.
They all are required by their job to sit in meetings with studio executives and directors and other people, and listen to feedback, and adapt their work to the needs of their bosses. They are required to have the social skills and the experience working with people to be able to handle such situations.
You need experience working with people and working with "the system" in order to function in real life.
I don't think by shutting yourself off from the "system" you are learning those skills. But then, you probably won't listen to me just like you haven't listened to any other constructive criticism in this thread.
Good luck.
Excellent point indeed. I think he's gone though. Off to be angry at the world!
I looked at your mother's site. A lot of your own opinions seem to be generated from hers. She has turned her laissez-faire theory about raising kids into a career - good for her! - but she has also used you as her lab rat.
At some point in your life, you owe it to yourself to consider the possibility that your mother might be wrong.
Her view that kids should find their own way through their own inclination to "play" and without adult intervention sounds appealing enough but, in an extreme form, deprives you of irreplaceable opportunities to grow.
Your belief that formal training is bad, that you have everything you need to succeed within yourself without guidance from others, and that you are a "genius," is an unfortunate side effect of an otherwise appealing theory. Your mother's theory seems to have infantilized you at a time when you need to embrace adult training and discipline.
While your mother's use of your images and early achievements as book covers and anecdotes is helpful for her, I'm not sure it does a lot to help you. While she may have all the best intentions in the world, there's something about her use of you and your brother that seems self-serving and exploitative, and worse: it gives you the mistaken impression that her pageant of support reflects real world standards. It doesn't. It creates an illusion of achievement that does not actually exist. At your age, talented musicians typically pursue specialized training, or explore music in a liberal arts environment. Working with peers is one of the perks. However, a burnt-in illusion of accomplishment may prevent this.
Why not question your mother's theories? Why not rebel? What if she's wrong? What if her theories help other parents get through their day, but when applied in extreme form to her own children, do more harm than good? Why not consider that? Why not consider the possibility that every opinion you've expressed about education is derived from her, and is a result of having grown up as her personal lab rat in her personal laboratory?
Are you familiar with B.F. Skinner? He's a famous therapist whose (claimed, disputed, and unresolved) use of his own child to test experimental parenting theories caused controversy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner
While your mother is no B.F. Skinner, I would imagine you can't help but wonder how many of your beliefs are a result of the unusual environment in which you were raised, and if your mother is wrong about her untested theories, why should you pay the price?
I went to summer workshop at the New England Conservatory in Boston, mostly so I could say I went to the New England Conservatory...in Boston.
Um.. I don't know where you came up with that. I studied violin for several years with different teachers, including the head of the violin department at the New England Conservatory in Boston. I studied composition and theory with the head of that department there as well. I studied at that conservatory for half a year.
I was recently in L.A., where I had a tremendous success playing the piano at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. I filled up the bar with people, and women were handing out my business cards to the gathering audience while I played.
So on that note, i'll be out of here, and back to L.A. to launch my career! Thanks for all the input, negative and positive. Whatever you guys told me, it seemed to work.
Bye.
edit: oh, and i'll ask my mom why she says that I played random sounds on the piano at age three. Maybe I played random sounds in between playing bach and mozart.
edit 2: My biography on my website is completely true. Just wanted to clarify that.
Comments
or a broken, large, man.
or perhaps a broken, little man.
no, no... I liked my original...
I'm currently video chatting with a very attractive woman from Spain, who has told me that my future is so bright that it blinds her. I think i'll just get back to talking with her.. or for that matter, anyone who actually understands who the fuck I am.
Goodbye.
Incidentally, do you know the work of José Saramago? He is a Nobel laureate from Portugal, and considered 'a genius.' You might like him. Yesterday I was reading his novel 'The Gospel According to Jesus Christ' while listening to Miles Davis' album 'Kind of Blue' and Thomas Tallis' fifty voice motet 'Spem' (some consider these 'works of genius', but being a composer I'm sure you're already devouring these, and other works like them.) Soak up the good stuff! Learn from the masters! Come back when you've won a major award!
Alright.. I offered you guys a clear and understandable explanation as to why you think of me the way you do, and who I really am. I explained everything with patience and understanding, and one after another you guys still insist that i'm a socially inept awkward person who is going to fall on my face.
I'm currently video chatting with a very attractive woman from Spain, who has told me that my future is so bright that it blinds her. I think i'll just get back to talking with her.. or for that matter, anyone who actually understands who the fuck I am.
Goodbye.
How many times are you going to do this?
...I offered you guys a clear and understandable explanation as to why you think of me the way you do...
Riiiiight.... so we need help understanding why we ALL read the same thing and why we ALL come to the same conclusion...
We are a group of independently minded folk -- if you go one more level deep, you would realize that -- and yet we come to the same conclusion: you are a socially inept self-felating awkward crust of a boy.
you are a socially inept self-felating awkward crust of a boy.
I don't care if this is true or not as a statement. This line is the only certain evidence of genius in this thread.
Will you guys just please stop with the inept, inaccurate judgments about me? One guy says "This kid is sheltered and retarded" and the next poster posts based on that and not based on any form of truth. It causes the thread to quickly spiral downward in a landslide of false assumptions about me, that can only end in me losing my patience. I don't want to lose my patience, and I have no reason to. Just please, think about whether you can actually know that what you're saying has any truth to it, before you post it.
@ soulcrusher. I'm not sheltered at all from the outside world. I have a very good idea of where I am academically, and my parents were far from the only people in the world who told me that i'm a genius throughout my life. I didn't "drop out" of college. I never went with the intention of getting a degree. I simply wanted to see what a form of public education is like. The classes were extremely limited in the small campus that I was attending, and the structure of the style of teaching didn't compliment or support the way I was used to learning things and progressing. I didn't find much value in it.
@ hardeeharhar. I haven't fallen on my face. There's nothing wrong with the fact that people tell me i'm a genius, and that I then use that talent to succeed in the areas which i'd like to excel in.
Several months ago, the general attitude in this thread was that I'm not going to achieve my goals. I simply came back here to give a brief update on how I was doing, so that those of you who were 100% certain that I was an incompetent retard, could have the opportunity to question your beliefs.
Thanks
Public school was designed to force people to diminish their life goals.
Support it.
No, I didn't make it up. The beginning of the American Education system was based on the Prussian model, which was designed to create obedient workers and obedient soldiers.
Way to read mid's post and regurgitate it. You sure you didn't go to public school?
And about the film thing.. well, there was one guy who contacted me via youtube, to score his short film. I did it long distance, by having him send me low resolution quicktime clips from the film, me recording music to them, and then sending him back a scored low resolution clip as well as a separate high quality audio file. I scored his 15 minute film in one day and he was very pleased.
That's not "scoring a film." Anything you can do in one day is not "scoring a film."
Then, I was at a screenwriters event in the Seattle area, and I introduced myself to this director who was about to start shooting a feature length independent film. I asked him if he had a composer, and he said no. So I emailed him some samples of my music a few days later, and he said he wanted me to write music for the film.
Sounds good, but a little vague to me. What kind of event? What is the movie? Will it be distributed somewhere I'd see it?
In addition to orchestral and instrumental composition, I also do solo piano improvisation, and stuff like that has been used in meditative slideshows, and also has earned me up to $100 a day in tips in cafes and such. (4 hour days).
Sounds good to me. Then again, you said you make $15,000 a year. Not sure how that adds up.
I've studied violin, piano, theory, harmony, composition, and conducting in various music conservatories including the New England Conservatory in Boston.
You mean:
I played violin.
I read a theory book.
I've written stuff of my own.
I went to summer workshop at the New England Conservatory in Boston, mostly so I could say I went to the New England Conservatory...in Boston.
I'm not trying to put down your chances of success here...I'm just saying be honest. You haven't "studied" with anyone. There is no reason that at 17 you'd have any idea what in the hell you're doing. I'm sure you have talent...but until you really put some time in understanding the roots of composition and tonal harmony, there is no way you'll develop to your fullest, unless (as I said) you're some kind of prodigy. Since you can't spell Einstein, I kind of doubt it.
Alright.. I offered you guys a clear and understandable explanation as to why you think of me the way you do, and who I really am.
You haven't done anything of the sort. Who you really are is a child who makes up stories to try to impress others:
He started playing the piano on his own at the age of three when he began playing pieces of Mozart, Bach, and other composers by ear.
Right. That's not how your mother recalls it:
At the piano, 3-year-old Lennon plays random sounds. "Why don't you teach him to play?" asks my visitor from the East Coast, who knows that I am a pianist. "He is learning," I say.
Please. Come back when you grow up a little.
The kid should be lying and trying to impress girls rather than us.
macgeek is the black sheep nowadays...
Lennon,
It's good that you're getting started doing these things you want to do.
I would encourage you to make a distinction between your bad community college experience and excellent educational experiences that are out there. You've never had high level music training, been to a liberal arts college, or even worked as an intern or assistant for someone you respect, so I'm not really sure why you're so quick to dismiss them.
There is also a reason why people are responding negatively. You come off as arrogant, and that will always turn people off. If you returned to give a humble - or even better, self-deprecating - update on what you were up to, without self-aggrandizing, you would have gotten a positive response.
Arrogance not only turns others away from you, but also turns you away from good opportunities. If you are so convinced that you are already fantastic wonderful and amazing, what is the point of school? What's left to learn? That sounds like what you're saying. What you don't seem to realize is that you can be fantastic wonderful and amazing, and still only be just starting out and in vital need of education.
Being able to work with other people, musicians, directors, producers, artists... it's all part of the job.
And gaining musical skills that you don't yet have... that's also part of the job!
Danny Elfman
Philip Glass
Dave Grusin
Randy Newman
Howard Shore
etc.
etc.
etc.
They all are required by their job to sit in meetings with studio executives and directors and other people, and listen to feedback, and adapt their work to the needs of their bosses. They are required to have the social skills and the experience working with people to be able to handle such situations.
You need experience working with people and working with "the system" in order to function in real life.
I don't think by shutting yourself off from the "system" you are learning those skills. But then, you probably won't listen to me just like you haven't listened to any other constructive criticism in this thread.
Good luck.
What do all these people have in common:
Danny Elfman
Philip Glass
Dave Grusin
Randy Newman
Howard Shore
etc.
etc.
etc.
They all are required by their job to sit in meetings with studio executives and directors and other people, and listen to feedback, and adapt their work to the needs of their bosses. They are required to have the social skills and the experience working with people to be able to handle such situations.
You need experience working with people and working with "the system" in order to function in real life.
I don't think by shutting yourself off from the "system" you are learning those skills. But then, you probably won't listen to me just like you haven't listened to any other constructive criticism in this thread.
Good luck.
Excellent point indeed. I think he's gone though. Off to be angry at the world!
http://www.oliveraldort.com/
I looked at your mother's site. A lot of your own opinions seem to be generated from hers. She has turned her laissez-faire theory about raising kids into a career - good for her! - but she has also used you as her lab rat.
At some point in your life, you owe it to yourself to consider the possibility that your mother might be wrong.
Her view that kids should find their own way through their own inclination to "play" and without adult intervention sounds appealing enough but, in an extreme form, deprives you of irreplaceable opportunities to grow.
Your belief that formal training is bad, that you have everything you need to succeed within yourself without guidance from others, and that you are a "genius," is an unfortunate side effect of an otherwise appealing theory. Your mother's theory seems to have infantilized you at a time when you need to embrace adult training and discipline.
While your mother's use of your images and early achievements as book covers and anecdotes is helpful for her, I'm not sure it does a lot to help you. While she may have all the best intentions in the world, there's something about her use of you and your brother that seems self-serving and exploitative, and worse: it gives you the mistaken impression that her pageant of support reflects real world standards. It doesn't. It creates an illusion of achievement that does not actually exist. At your age, talented musicians typically pursue specialized training, or explore music in a liberal arts environment. Working with peers is one of the perks. However, a burnt-in illusion of accomplishment may prevent this.
Why not question your mother's theories? Why not rebel? What if she's wrong? What if her theories help other parents get through their day, but when applied in extreme form to her own children, do more harm than good? Why not consider that? Why not consider the possibility that every opinion you've expressed about education is derived from her, and is a result of having grown up as her personal lab rat in her personal laboratory?
Are you familiar with B.F. Skinner? He's a famous therapist whose (claimed, disputed, and unresolved) use of his own child to test experimental parenting theories caused controversy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner
While your mother is no B.F. Skinner, I would imagine you can't help but wonder how many of your beliefs are a result of the unusual environment in which you were raised, and if your mother is wrong about her untested theories, why should you pay the price?
Hoping I'm wrong... and
Good luck!
You mean:
I played violin.
I read a theory book.
I've written stuff of my own.
I went to summer workshop at the New England Conservatory in Boston, mostly so I could say I went to the New England Conservatory...in Boston.
Um.. I don't know where you came up with that. I studied violin for several years with different teachers, including the head of the violin department at the New England Conservatory in Boston. I studied composition and theory with the head of that department there as well. I studied at that conservatory for half a year.
I was recently in L.A., where I had a tremendous success playing the piano at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. I filled up the bar with people, and women were handing out my business cards to the gathering audience while I played.
So on that note, i'll be out of here, and back to L.A. to launch my career! Thanks for all the input, negative and positive. Whatever you guys told me, it seemed to work.
Bye.
edit: oh, and i'll ask my mom why she says that I played random sounds on the piano at age three. Maybe I played random sounds in between playing bach and mozart.
edit 2: My biography on my website is completely true. Just wanted to clarify that.